Study Desk

I am very happy in the Lord that you have shown your care for me again. You continued to care about me, but there was no way for you to show it.

I am not telling you this because I need anything. I have learned to be satisfied with the things I have and with everything that happens.

I know how to live when I am poor, and I know how to live when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at any time in everything that happens, when I have enough to eat and when I go hungry, when I have more than I need and when I do not have enough.

From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am an apostle because that is what God wanted. Also from Timothy, our brother.

I am happy in my sufferings for you. There are things that Christ must still suffer through his body, the church. I am accepting, in my body, my part of these things that must be suffered.

Though I am absent from you in my body, my heart is with you, and I am happy to see your good lives and your strong faith in Christ.

Also pray for us that God will give us an opportunity to tell people his message. Pray that we can preach the secret that God has made known about Christ. This is why I am in prison.

This is why I am sending him: so you may know how we are and he may encourage you.

What I say is true, and you should fully accept it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.

Timothy, my child, I am giving you a command that agrees with the prophecies that were given about you in the past. I tell you this so you can follow them and fight the good fight.

That is why I was chosen to tell the Good News and to be an apostle. (I am telling the truth; I am not lying.) I was chosen to teach those who are not Jews to believe and to know the truth.

Although I hope I can come to you soon, I am writing these things to you now.

Then, even if I am delayed, you will know how to live in the family of God. That family is the church of the living God, the support and foundation of the truth.

I am suffering now because I tell the Good News, but I am not ashamed, because I know Jesus, the One in whom I have believed. And I am sure he is able to protect what he has trusted me with until that day.

Think about what I am saying, because the Lord will give you the ability to understand everything.

and I am suffering because of it to the point of being bound with chains like a criminal. But God's teaching is not in chains.

But because I love you, I am pleading with you instead. I, Paul, an old man now and also a prisoner for Christ Jesus,

am pleading with you for my child Onesimus, who became my child while I was in prison.

I am sending him back to you, and with him I am sending my own heart.

I wanted to keep him with me so that in your place he might help me while I am in prison for the Good News.