Study Desk

That is why I wanted to see you and talk with you. I am bound with this chain because I believe in the hope of Israel."

I am not ashamed of the Good News, because it is the power God uses to save everyone who believes—to save the Jews first, and then to save non-Jews.

When we do wrong, that shows more clearly that God is right. So can we say that God is wrong to punish us? (I am talking as people might talk.)

A person might say, "When I lie, it really gives him glory, because my lie shows God's truth. So why am I judged a sinner?"

As it is written in the Scriptures: "I am making you a father of many nations." This is true before God, the God Abraham believed, the God who gives life to the dead and who creates something out of nothing.

You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same thing. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin meant. I would never have known what it means to want to take something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, "You must not want to take your neighbor's things."

We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not spiritual since sin rules me as if I were its slave.

But I am not really the one who is doing these hated things; it is sin living in me that does them.

So if I do things I do not want to do, then I am not the one doing them. It is sin living in me that does those things.

In my mind, I am happy with God's law.

What a miserable man I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death?

I thank God for saving me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my mind I am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.

Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers,

I am in Christ, and I am telling you the truth; I do not lie. My conscience is ruled by the Holy Spirit, and it tells me I am not lying.

So I ask: Did God throw out his people? No! I myself am an Israelite from the family of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

"Lord," he said, "they have killed your prophets, and they have destroyed your altars. I am the only prophet left, and now they are trying to kill me, too."

Now I am speaking to you who are not Jews. I am an apostle to those who are not Jews, and since I have that work, I will make the most of it.

because it is written in the Scriptures: "‘As surely as I live,' says the Lord, ‘Everyone will bow before me; everyone will say that I am God.'" Isaiah 45:23

I am in the Lord Jesus, and I know that there is no food that is wrong to eat. But if a person believes something is wrong, that thing is wrong for him.

My brothers and sisters, I am sure that you are full of goodness. I know that you have all the knowledge you need and that you are able to teach each other.