Study Desk

But now, since there is no longer a place in these regions that needs me, and since I have wanted for many years to come to you,

But now I am going to Yerushalayim with aid for God's people there.

They were pleased to do it, but the fact is that they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared with the Jews in spiritual matters, then the Gentiles clearly have a duty to help the Jews in material matters.

They risked their necks to save my life; not only I thank them, but also all the Messianic communities among the Gentiles.

For men like these are not serving our Lord the Messiah but their own belly; by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the innocent.

For everyone has heard about your obedience; therefore I rejoice over you. However, I want you to be wise concerning good, but innocent concerning evil.

but manifested now through prophetic writings, in keeping with the command of God the Eternal, and communicated to all the Gentiles to promote in them trust-grounded obedience —

Nevertheless, brothers, I call on you in the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to agree, all of you, in what you say, and not to let yourselves remain split into factions but be restored to having a common mind and a common purpose.

For the Messiah did not send me to immerse but to proclaim the Good News — and to do it without relying on "wisdom" that consists of mere rhetoric, so as not to rob the Messiah's execution-stake of its power.

For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God.

but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this same Messiah is God's power and God's wisdom!

But God chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise; God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the strong;

and neither the delivery nor the content of my message relied on compelling words of "wisdom" but on a demonstration of the power of the Spirit,

so that your trust might not rest on human wisdom but on God's power.

Yet there is a wisdom that we are speaking to those who are mature enough for it. But it is not the wisdom of this world or of this world's leaders, who are in the process of passing away.

On the contrary, we are communicating a secret wisdom from God which has been hidden until now but which, before history began, God had decreed would bring us glory.

But, as the Tanakh says, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no one's heart has imagined all the things that God has prepared for those who love him."

Now we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, so that we might understand the things God has so freely given us.

But the person who has the Spirit can evaluate everything, while no one is in a position to evaluate him.

For who has known the mind of Adonai ? Who will counsel him? But we have the mind of the Messiah!