Study Desk

but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we declare it, not to please people but God, who examines our hearts.

For we never appeared with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is our witness—

with such affection for you we were happy to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.

For you recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery: By working night and day so as not to impose a burden on any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.

You are witnesses, and so is God, as to how holy and righteous and blameless our conduct was toward you who believe.

exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.

And so we too constantly thank God that when you received God's message that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God's message, which is at work among you who believe.

who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us severely. They are displeasing to God and are opposed to all people,

We sent Timothy, our brother and fellow worker for God in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen you and encourage you about your faith,

For how can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel because of you before our God?

Now may God our Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.

so that your hearts are strengthened in holiness to be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Finally then, brothers and sisters, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us about how you must live and please God (as you are in fact living) that you do so more and more.

not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God.

For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness.

Consequently the one who rejects this is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

Now on the topic of brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

For God did not destine us for wrath but for gaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.