Study Desk

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 if we believe that Jesus has died and risen again, we also believe that, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who shall have passed away.

For this we declare to you on the Lord's own authority--that we who are alive and continue on earth until the Coming of the Lord, shall certainly not forestall those who shall have previously passed away.

For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven with a loud word of command, and with an archangel's voice and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

And so we shall be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

For you yourselves know perfectly well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.

for all of you are sons of Light and sons of the day. We belong neither to the night nor to darkness.

For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who drink freely, drink at night.

But let us, belonging--as we do--to the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

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

Now we beg you, brethren, to show respect for those who labour among you and are your leaders in Christian work, and are your advisers;

and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. Be at peace among yourselves.

See to it that no one ever repays another with evil for evil; but always seek opportunities of doing good both to one another and to all the world.

In every circumstance of life be thankful; for this is God's will in Christ Jesus respecting you.

Brethren, pray for us.

Unceasing thanks are due from us to God on your behalf, brethren. They are appropriate because your faith is growing greatly, and the love of every one of you for all the others goes on increasing.

For these are a plain token of God's righteous judgement, which has in view your being deemed worthy of admission to God's Kingdom, for the sake of which, indeed, you are sufferers.

A plain token of God's righteous judgement, I say, since it is a righteous thing for Him to requite with affliction those who are now afflicting you;

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;