Study Desk

For Macedonia and Achaia thought it would be good to make some contribution to the poor among God's people in Yerushalayim.

They were pleased to do it, but the fact is that they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared with the Jews in spiritual matters, then the Gentiles clearly have a duty to help the Jews in material matters.

So when I have finished this task and made certain that they have received this fruit, I will leave for Spain and visit you on my way there;

that I will be rescued from the unbelievers in Y'hudah, and that my service for Yerushalayim will be acceptable to God's people there.

so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as God's people should, and give her whatever assistance she may need from you; for she has been a big help to many people — including myself.

Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers for the Messiah Yeshua.

Give my greetings to Miryam, who has worked very hard for you.

Greetings to Urbanus, our fellow worker for the Messiah, and to my dear friend Stachys.

Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, women who are working hard for the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has done a lot of hard work for the Lord.

I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put snares alongside the teaching in which you have been trained — keep away from them.

For men like these are not serving our Lord the Messiah but their own belly; by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the innocent.

For everyone has heard about your obedience; therefore I rejoice over you. However, I want you to be wise concerning good, but innocent concerning evil.

Now to God, who can strengthen you, according to my Good News, in harmony with the revelation of the secret truth which is the proclamation of Yeshua the Messiah, kept hidden in silence for ages and ages,

I thank my God always for you because of God's love and kindness given to you through the Messiah Yeshua,

For some of Chloe's people have made it known to me, my brothers, that there are quarrels among you.

Has the Messiah been split in pieces? Was it Sha'ul who was put to death on a stake for you? Were you immersed into the name of Sha'ul?

For the Messiah did not send me to immerse but to proclaim the Good News — and to do it without relying on "wisdom" that consists of mere rhetoric, so as not to rob the Messiah's execution-stake of its power.

For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God.

For God's wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. Therefore God decided to use the "nonsense" of what we proclaim as his means of saving those who come to trust in it.

Precisely because Jews ask for signs and Greeks try to find wisdom,