Study Desk

at this present time your abundance being a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need, that there may be equality.

But I have sent the brothers, in order that our boasting about you may not be made empty in this case, so that, as I was saying, you may be prepared;

So I regarded it necessary to encourage the brothers that they would go on ahead to you and arrange beforehand your previously promised blessing, so that the same would be ready as a blessing and not as a begrudging obligation.

And God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that in everything at every time having every sufficiency, you may have an abundance for every good deed;

But I beg that when I am present I need not act so courageously with the confidence that I consider to daringly use against some, who consider us as if we walked according to the flesh.

You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ's, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is Christ's, so also are we.

so as to proclaim the gospel even to the regions beyond you, and not to boast in what has been accomplished in the area of influence of another.

For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

But even if I am unskilled in word, yet I am not so in knowledge; in fact, in every way we have made this evident to you in all things.

Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I proclaimed the gospel of God to you without charge?

But what I am doing I will continue to do, so that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be found just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting.

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.

For you, being so wise, are bearing the foolish gladly.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's seed? So am I.

Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as if insane—I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, in beatings without number, in frequent danger of death.

and I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and so escaped his hands.

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 consider me beyond what he sees in me or hears from me.

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

So I will most gladly spend and be fully spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present I need not use severity, in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.