Study Desk

After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he talked about faith in Christ Jesus.

Many times I had them punished in the synagogues and tried to make them deny their faith. I was so furious with them that I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.

You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through their faith in me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God's chosen people.'

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because the whole world is hearing about your faith.

What I mean is that both you and I will be helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by yours.

For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the scripture says, "The person who is put right with God through faith shall live."

God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all:

God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people's sins are forgiven through their faith in him. God did this in order to demonstrate that he is righteous. In the past he was patient and overlooked people's sins; but in the present time he deals with their sins, in order to demonstrate his righteousness. In this way God shows that he himself is righteous and that he puts right everyone who believes in Jesus.

For we conclude that a person is put right with God only through faith, and not by doing what the Law commands.

God is one, and he will put the Jews right with himself on the basis of their faith, and will put the Gentiles right through their faith.

Does this mean that by this faith we do away with the Law? No, not at all; instead, we uphold the Law.

The scripture says, "Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous."

But those who depend on faith, not on deeds, and who believe in the God who declares the guilty to be innocent, it is this faith that God takes into account in order to put them right with himself.

Does this happiness that David spoke of belong only to those who are circumcised? No indeed! It belongs also to those who are not circumcised. For we have quoted the scripture, "Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous."

He was circumcised later, and his circumcision was a sign to show that because of his faith God had accepted him as righteous before he had been circumcised. And so Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in God and are accepted as righteous by him, even though they are not circumcised.

He is also the father of those who are circumcised, that is, of those who, in addition to being circumcised, also live the same life of faith that our father Abraham lived before he was circumcised.

For if what God promises is to be given to those who obey the Law, then faith means nothing and God's promise is worthless.

And so the promise was based on faith, in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants—not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all;

He was then almost one hundred years old; but his faith did not weaken when he thought of his body, which was already practically dead, or of the fact that Sarah could not have children.

His faith did not leave him, and he did not doubt God's promise; his faith filled him with power, and he gave praise to God.