Study Desk

and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I go.

for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

So do not look down on him, anyone. But send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me; for I expect him with the brothers.

Therefore, I was not vacillating when I intended to do this, was I? Or what I decide, do I decide according to the flesh, so that with me there will be yes, yes and no, no at the same time?

For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and Silvanus and Timothy—was not yes and no, but has been yes in Him.

For if I cause you sorrow, who then will be the one making me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?

This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy was the joy of you all.

But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not for me, but in some degree—not to say too much—for all of you.

Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord,

"And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

and not only by his arrival, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted among you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more.

For it is superfluous for me to write to you about this ministry to the saints;

otherwise, if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we—not to mention you—would be put to shame by this confidence.

I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me.

As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be stopped in the regions of Achaia.

Again I say, let no one think me foolish; but if you do, receive me even as foolish, so that I also may boast a little.

Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.

In Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me,

For if I do wish to boast I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth; but I refrain from this, so that no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me.

Because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!