Study Desk

For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

For we do not market the word of God for profit like so many. On the contrary, we speak with sincerity in Christ, as from God and before God.

You show that you are Christ’s letter, delivered by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God—not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God.

It is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone’s conscience by an open display of the truth.

In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.

Indeed, everything is for your benefit so that, as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.

For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands.

Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences.

For if we are out of our mind, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: “Be reconciled to God.”

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Working together with him, we also appeal to you, “Don’t receive the grace of God in vain.”

by the word of truth, by the power of God; through weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left,