Study Desk

So let us not grow weary of doing what is good; for if we don't give up, we will in due time reap the harvest.

It is those who want to look good outwardly who are trying to get you to be circumcised. The only reason they are doing it is to escape persecution for preaching about the Messiah's execution-stake.

For even those who are getting circumcised don't observe the Torah. On the contrary, they want you to get circumcised so that they can boast of having gained your adherence.

But as for me, Heaven forbid that I should boast about anything except the execution-stake of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah! Through him, as far as I am concerned, the world has been put to death on the stake; and through him, as far as the world is concerned, I have been put to death on the stake.

For neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters; what matters is being a new creation.

For this reason, ever since I heard about your trust in the Lord Yeshua and your love for all God's people,

I have not stopped giving thanks for you. In my prayers I keep asking

Also, he has put all things under his feet and made him head over everything for the Messianic Community,

Indeed, we all once lived this way — we followed the passions of our old nature and obeyed the wishes of our old nature and our own thoughts. In our natural condition we were headed for God's wrath, just like everyone else.

For you have been delivered by grace through trusting, and even this is not your accomplishment but God's gift.

For we are of God's making, created in union with the Messiah Yeshua for a life of good actions already prepared by God for us to do.

For he himself is our shalom — he has made us both one and has broken down the m'chitzah which divided us

Yes, in union with him, you yourselves are being built together into a spiritual dwelling-place for God!

I assume that you have heard of the work God in his grace has given me to do for your benefit,

and of letting everyone see how this secret plan is going to work out. This plan, kept hidden for ages by God, the Creator of everything,

is for the rulers and authorities in heaven to learn, through the existence of the Messianic Community, how many-sided God's wisdom is.

So I ask you not to be discouraged by the troubles I endure on your behalf — it is all for your glory.

For this reason, I fall on my knees before the Father,

Their task is to equip God's people for the work of service that builds the body of the Messiah,

They have lost all feeling, so they have abandoned themselves to sensuality, practicing any kind of impurity and always greedy for more.