Study Desk

You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This shows that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

This is what I am saying: When young children inherit all that their father owned, they are still no different from his slaves. It doesn't matter that they own everything.

While they are children, they must obey those who are chosen to care for them. But when they reach the age the father set, they are free.

It is the same for us. We were once like children, slaves to the useless rules of this world.

God did this so that he could buy the freedom of those who were under the law. God's purpose was to make us his children.

Since you are now God's children, he has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. The Spirit cries out, " Abba, Father."

Now you are not slaves like before. You are God's children, and you will receive everything he promised his children.

My little children, I am in pain again over you, like a mother giving birth. I will feel this pain until people can look at you and see Christ.

The Scriptures say, "Be happy, woman—you who cannot have children. Be glad you never gave birth. Shout and cry with joy! You never felt those labor pains. The woman who is alone will have more children than the woman who has a husband."

My brothers and sisters, you are children who were born because of God's promise, just as Isaac was.

So, my brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman. We are children of the free woman.

And before the world was made, God decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. This was what God wanted, and it pleased him to do it.

You are God's dear children, so try to be like him.

In the past you were full of darkness, but now you are full of light in the Lord. So live like children who belong to the light.

Children, obey your parents the way the Lord wants, because this is the right thing to do.

Fathers, don't make your children angry, but raise them with the kind of teaching and training you learn from the Lord.

so that you will be blameless and pure, children of God without any fault. But you are living with evil people all around you, who have lost their sense of what is right. Among those people you shine like lights in a dark world,

Children, obey your parents in everything. This pleases the Lord.

Fathers, don't upset your children. If you are too hard to please, they might want to stop trying.

When we were with you, as apostles of Christ we could have used our authority to make you help us. But we were very gentle with you. We were like a mother caring for her little children.