Study Desk

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

I am telling you this, but not because I need something. I have learned to be satisfied with what I have and with whatever happens.

But it was good that you helped me when I needed help.

Really, it is not that I want to get gifts from you. But I want you to have the benefit that comes from giving.

No one can see God, but the Son is exactly like God. He rules over everything that has been made.

But now he has made you his friends again. He did this by the death Christ suffered while he was in his body. He did it so that he could present you to himself as people who are holy, blameless, and without anything that would make you guilty before him.

This message is the secret truth that was hidden since the beginning of time. It was hidden from everyone for ages, but now it has been made known to God's holy people.

I tell you this so that no one can fool you by telling you ideas that seem good, but are false.

You were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self. But God gave you new life together with Christ. He forgave all our sins.

Because we broke God's laws, we owed a debt—a debt that listed all the rules we failed to follow. But God forgave us of that debt. He took it away and nailed it to the cross.

In the past these things were like a shadow that showed what was coming. But the new things that were coming are found in Christ.

These rules may seem to be wise as part of a made-up religion in which people pretend to be humble and punish their bodies. But they don't help people stop doing the evil that the sinful self wants to do.

But now put these things out of your life: anger, losing your temper, doing or saying things to hurt others, and saying shameful things.

Don't be angry with each other, but forgive each other. If you feel someone has wronged you, forgive them. Forgive others because the Lord forgave you.

Also pray for us. Pray that God will give us an opportunity to tell people his message. I am in prison for doing this. But pray that we can continue to tell people the secret truth that God has made known about Christ.

And you became like us and like the Lord. You suffered much, but still you accepted the teaching with joy. The Holy Spirit gave you that joy.

Before we came to you, people in Philippi abused us with insults and made us suffer. You know all about that. And then, when we came to you, many people there caused trouble for us. But our God gave us the courage we needed to tell you his Good News.

When we were with you, as apostles of Christ we could have used our authority to make you help us. But we were very gentle with you. We were like a mother caring for her little children.

We loved you very much, so we were happy to share God's Good News with you. But not only that—we were also happy to share even our own lives with you.

And they are trying to stop us from teaching those who are not Jews. They don't want them to be saved. But they are just adding more and more sins to the ones they already have. Now the time has come for them to suffer God's anger.