Study Desk

Moreover, it is God who has prepared us for this very thing, and as a pledge he has given us his Spirit.

We are not recommending ourselves to you again but giving you a reason to be proud of us, so that you will be able to answer those who boast about a person's appearance rather than his inner qualities.

Therefore we are ambassadors of the Messiah; in effect, God is making his appeal through us. What we do is appeal on behalf of the Messiah, "Be reconciled to God!

As God's fellow-workers we also urge you not to receive his grace and then do nothing with it.

However, it was not only his arrival which encouraged us, but also how encouraged he was about you, as he told us how you long to see me, how distressed you are over my situation, how zealous you are in my defense — this news made me even happier!

This is the reason we have been encouraged. Besides our own encouragement, we had the even greater joy of seeing how happy Titus was, because all of you set his mind at rest.

And his affection for you is all the greater as he remembers how ready you were to obey and how you received him with reverence and respect.

For you know how generous our Lord Yeshua the Messiah was — for your sakes he impoverished himself, even though he was rich, so that he might make you rich by means of his poverty.

for he not only responded to our urging, but, being so devoted, he is coming to you on his own initiative.

With these two we are sending another brother of ours, one whose diligence we have tested many times in many ways, but who is now all the more diligent because of his great confidence in you.

Each should give according to what he has decided in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver .

as the Tanakh says, "He gave generously to the poor; his tzedakah lasts forever."

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Someone says, "His letters are weighty and powerful, but when he appears in person he is weak, and as a speaker he is nothing."

and I fear that somehow your minds may be seduced away from simple and pure devotion to the Messiah, just as Havah was deceived by the serpent and his craftiness.

so it's no great thing if his workers masquerade as servants of righteousness. They will meet the end their deeds deserve.

Who is weak without my sharing his weakness? Who falls into sin without my burning inside?

but I was lowered in a basket through an opening in the wall and escaped his clutches.

But when God, who picked me out before I was born and called me by his grace, chose

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