Study Desk

Is any one ill? Let him send for the Elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, after anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be cured. The heartfelt supplication of a righteous man exerts a mighty influence.

Elijah was a man with a nature similar to ours, and he earnestly prayed that there might be no rain: and no rain fell on the land for three years and six months.

to an inheritance imperishable, undefiled and unfading, which has been reserved in Heaven for you,

whom God in His power is guarding through faith for a salvation that even now stands ready for unveiling at the End of the Age.

Rejoice triumphantly in the prospect of this, even if now, for a short time, you are compelled to sorrow amid various trials.

He was pre-destined indeed to this work, even before the creation of the world, but has been plainly manifested in these last days for the sake of you who, through Him,

Now that, through your obedience to the truth, you have purified your souls for cherishing sincere brotherly love, you must love another heartily and fervently.

For you have been begotten again by God's ever-living and enduring word from a germ not of perishable, but of imperishable life.

But the word of the Lord remains for ever." And that means the Message which has been proclaimed among you in the Good News.

Thirst, like newly-born infants, for pure milk for the soul, that by it you may grow up to salvation;

For it is contained in Scripture, "See, I am placing on Mount Zion a Cornerstone, chosen, and held in honour, and he whose faith rests on Him shall never have reason to feel ashamed."

To you believers, therefore, that honour belongs; but for unbelievers-- "A Stone which the builders rejected has been made the Cornerstone,"

and "a Stone for the foot to strike against, and a Rock to stumble over." Their foot strikes against it because they are disobedient to God's Message, and to this they were appointed.

Dear friends, I entreat you as pilgrims and foreigners not to indulge the cravings of your lower natures: for all such cravings wage war upon the soul.

Submit, for the Lord's sake, to every authority set up by man, whether it be to the Emperor as supreme ruler,

or to provincial Governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers and the encouragement of those who do what is right.

For it is God's will that by doing what is right you should thus silence the ignorant talk of foolish persons.

Be free men, and yet do not make your freedom an excuse for base conduct, but be God's bondservants.

For it is an acceptable thing with God, if, from a sense of duty to Him, a man patiently submits to wrong, when treated unjustly.