Study Desk

For since you yourselves are so wise, you gladly put up with fools!

Are they Hebrew-speakers? So am I. Are they of the people of Isra'el? So am I. Are they descendants of Avraham? So am I.

If I did want to boast, I would not be foolish; because I would be speaking the truth. But, because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, I refrain, so that no one will think more of me than what my words or deeds may warrant.

Therefore, to keep me from becoming overly proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from the Adversary to pound away at me, so that I wouldn't grow conceited.

So we rejoice whenever we are weak and you are strong; indeed, what we pray for is that you become perfect.

I write these things while away from you, so that when I am with you I will not have to use my authority to deal sharply with you, for the Lord gave it to me for building up and not for tearing down.

who gave himself for our sins, so that he might deliver us from the present evil world-system, in obedience to the will of God, our Father.

I am astounded that you are so quick to remove yourselves from me, the one who called you by the Messiah's grace, and turn to some other supposedly "Good News,"

But even if we — or, for that matter, an angel from heaven! — were to announce to you some so-called "Good News" contrary to the Good News we did announce to you, let him be under a curse forever!

to reveal his Son to me, so that I might announce him to the Gentiles, I did not consult anyone;

Indeed, the question came up only because some men who pretended to be brothers had been sneaked in — they came in surreptitiously to spy out the freedom we have in the Messiah Yeshua, so that they might enslave us.

Not even for a minute did we give in to them, so that the truth of the Good News might be preserved for you.

So, having perceived what grace had been given to me, Ya‘akov, Kefa and Yochanan, the acknowledged pillars of the community, extended to me and Bar-Nabba the right hand of fellowship; so that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the Circumcised.

And the other Jewish believers became hypocrites along with him, so that even Bar-Nabba was led astray by their hypocrisy.

We are Jews by birth, not so-called ‘Goyishe sinners';

even so, we have come to realize that a person is not declared righteous by God on the ground of his legalistic observance of Torah commands, but through the Messiah Yeshua's trusting faithfulness. Therefore, we too have put our trust in Messiah Yeshua and become faithful to him, in order that we might be declared righteous on the ground of the Messiah's trusting faithfulness and not on the ground of our legalistic observance of Torah commands. For on the ground of legalistic observance of Torah commands, no one will be declared righteous .

For it was through letting the Torah speak for itself that I died to its traditional legalistic misinterpretation, so that I might live in direct relationship with God.

When the Messiah was executed on the stake as a criminal, I was too; so that my proud ego no longer lives. But the Messiah lives in me, and the life I now live in my body I live by the same trusting faithfulness that the Son of God had, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

Have you suffered so much for nothing? If that's the way you think, your suffering certainly will have been for nothing!

So then, those who rely on trusting and being faithful are blessed along with Avraham, who trusted and was faithful.