Study Desk

See, I am now for the third time prepared to visit you, but I will not be a dead weight to you. I desire not your money, but yourselves; for children ought not to put by for their parents, but parents for their children.

So we also, when spiritually we were children, were subject to the world's rudimentary notions, and were enslaved.

It is always an honourable thing to be courted in an honourable cause; always, and not only when I am with you, my children--

All this is allegorical; for the women represent two Covenants. One has its origin on Mount Sinai, and bears children destined for slavery.

This is Hagar; for the name Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, which is in bondage together with her children.

For it is written, "Rejoice, thou barren woman that bearest not, break forth into a joyful cry, thou that dost not travail with child. For the desolate woman has many children--more indeed than she who has the husband."

But you, brethren, like Isaac, are children born in fulfilment of a promise.

Therefore, brethren, since we are not the children of a slave-girl, but of the free woman--

Therefore be imitators of God, as His dear children.

Children, be obedient to your parents as a Christian duty, for it is a duty.

And you, fathers, do not irritate your children, but bring them up tenderly with true Christian training and advice.

so that you may always prove yourselves to be blameless and spotless--irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as heavenly lights in the world,

Children be obedient to your parents in everything; for that is right for Christians.

Fathers, do not fret and harass your children, or you may make them sullen and morose.

On the contrary, in our relations to you we showed ourselves as gentle as a mother is when she tenderly nurses her own children.

For you know that we acted towards every one of you as a father does towards his own children, encouraging and cheering you,

but ruling his own household wisely and well, with children kept under control with true dignity.

A deacon must be true to his one wife, and rule his children and his own household wisely and well.

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let these learn first to show piety towards their own homes and to prove their gratitude to their parents; for this is well pleasing in the sight of God.

She must have been true to her one husband, and well reported of for good deeds, as having brought up children, received strangers hospitably, washed the feet of God's people, given relief to the distressed, and devoted herself to good works of every kind.