Study Desk

My friends, don't try to punish anyone who does wrong to you. Wait for God to punish them with his anger. In the Scriptures the Lord says, "I am the one who punishes; I will pay people back."

And greet Andronicus and Junia. They are my relatives, and they were in prison with me. They were followers of Christ before I was. And they are some of the most important of the ones Christ sent out to do his work.

Greetings also to Rufus, one of the Lord's chosen people, and to his mother, who has been a mother to me too.

Give greetings to Philologus and Julia, to Nereus and his sister, to Olympas, and to all of God's people with them.

Timothy, a worker together with me, sends you his greetings. Also Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater (these are my relatives) send their greetings.

Gaius is letting me and the whole church here use his home. He sends his greetings to you. Erastus and our brother Quartus also send their greetings. Erastus is the city treasurer here.

God is faithful. He is the one who has chosen you to share life with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is what God in his wisdom decided: Since the world did not find him through its own wisdom, he used the message that sounds foolish to save those who believe it.

Brothers and sisters, God chose you to be his. Think about that! Not many of you were wise in the way the world judges wisdom. Not many of you had great influence, and not many of you came from important families.

It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. And Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is the reason we are right with God and pure enough to be in his presence. Christ is the one who set us free from sin.

I decided that while I was with you I would forget about everything except Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.

People who do not have God's Spirit do not accept the things that come from his Spirit. They think these things are foolish. They cannot understand them, because they can only be understood with the Spirit's help.

The one who plants and the one who waters have the same purpose. And each one will be rewarded for his own work.

You should think of us as servants of Christ, the ones God has trusted to do the work of making known his secret truths.

I don't want to believe what I am hearing—that there is sexual sin among you. And it is such a bad kind of sexual sin that even those who have never known God don't allow it. People say that a man there has his father's wife.

Then turn this man over to Satan. His sinful self has to be destroyed so that his spirit will be saved on the day when the Lord comes again.

Surely you know that people who do wrong will not get to enjoy God's kingdom. Don't be fooled. These are the people who will not get to enjoy his kingdom: those who sin sexually, those who worship idols, those who commit adultery, men who let other men use them for sex or who have sex with other men, those who steal, those who are greedy, those who drink too much, those who abuse others with insults, and those who cheat.

God paid a very high price to make you his. So honor God with your body.

But sexual sin is a danger, so each man should enjoy his own wife, and each woman should enjoy her own husband.

The husband should give his wife what she deserves as his wife. And the wife should give her husband what he deserves as her husband.