Study Desk

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

and imploring you to live lives worthy of fellowship with God who is inviting you to share His own Kingship and glory.

For what is our hope or joy, or the crown of which we boast? Is it not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His Coming?

Thus He will build up your characters, so that you will be faultlessly holy in the presence of our God and Father at the Coming of our Lord Jesus with all His holy ones.

that each man among you shall know how to procure a wife who shall be his own in purity and honour;

Therefore a defiant spirit in such a case provokes not man but God, who puts His Holy Spirit into your hearts.

and to vie with one another in eagerness for peace, every one minding his own business and working with his hands, as we ordered you to do:

For God has not pre-destined us to meet His anger, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ;

who died on our behalf, so that whether we are awake or are sleeping we may share His Life.

Therefore encourage one another, and let each one help to strengthen his friend, as in fact you do.

Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also perfect His work.

and to requite with rest you who are suffering affliction now--rest with us at the re-appearing of the Lord Jesus from Heaven, attended by His mighty angels.

They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, being banished from the presence of the Lord and from His glorious majesty,

when He comes on that day to be glorified in His people and to be wondered at among all who have believed, including you--because you believed the testimony which we brought for your acceptance.

It is with this view also that we continually pray to our God for you, asking that He will count you worthy of His call, and by His mighty power fully gratify your every desire for what is truly good and make your work of faith complete;

and exalts himself above, every so-called `god' or object of worship, and goes the length of taking his seat in the very temple of God, giving it out that he himself is God.

And now you know what restrains him, in order that his true character may be revealed at his appointed time.

and then the Lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will sweep away with the tempest of His anger, and utterly overwhelm by the awful splendour of His Coming.

And may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself--and God our Father who has loved us and has given us in His grace eternal consolation and a bright hope--

I am thankful to Him who made me strong--even Christ Jesus our Lord--because He has judged me to be faithful and has put me into His service,