Study Desk

Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person's lifetime?

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit—

as it is written, "See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

"Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life."

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.

At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints;

I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant.

What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present I have already pronounced judgment

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one.

I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind.

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am.