Journey Through God's Word

¹" I am the true Vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

²Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that continues to bear fruit, He [repeatedly] prunes, so that it will bear more fruit [even richer and finer fruit].

³You are already clean because of the word which I have given you [the teachings which I have discussed with you].

⁴Remain in Me, and I [will remain] in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself without remaining in the vine, neither can you [bear fruit, producing evidence of your faith] unless you remain in Me.

⁵ I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for [otherwise] apart from Me [that is, cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.

⁶If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown out like a [broken off] branch, and withers and dies; and they gather such branches and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

⁷If you remain in Me and My words remain in you [that is, if we are vitally united and My message lives in your heart], ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

⁸My Father is glorified and honored by this, when you bear much fruit, and prove yourselves to be My [true] disciples.

⁹I have loved you just as the Father has loved Me; remain in My love [and do not doubt My love for you].

¹⁰If you keep My commandments and obey My teaching, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and remain in His love.

¹¹I have told you these things so that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy may be made full and complete and overflowing.

¹²"This is My commandment, that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another, just as I have loved you.

¹³No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends.

¹⁴You are my friends if you keep on doing what I command you.

¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you [My] friends, because I have revealed to you everything that I have heard from My Father.

¹⁶You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed and placed and purposefully planted you, so that you would go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit will remain and be lasting, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name [as My representative] He may give to you.

¹⁷This [is what] I command you: that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another.

¹⁸"If the world hates you [and it does], know that it has hated Me before it hated you.

¹⁹If you belonged to the world, the world would love [you as] its own and would treat you with affection. But you are not of the world [you no longer belong to it], but I have chosen you out of the world. And because of this the world hates you.

²⁰Remember [and continue to remember] that I told you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.

²¹But they will do all these [hurtful] things to you for My name's sake [because you bear My name and are identified with Me], for they do not know the One who sent Me.

²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have [the guilt of their] sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

²³The one who hates Me also hates My Father.

²⁴If I had not done among them the works (attesting miracles) which no one else [ever] did, they would not have [the guilt of their] sin; but now [the fact is that] they have both seen [these works] and have hated Me [and continue to hate Me] and My Father as well.

²⁵But [this is so] that the word which has been written in their Law would be fulfilled, 'They hated Me without a cause.'

²⁶"But when the Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby) comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of Truth who comes from the Father, He will testify and bear witness about Me.

²⁷But you will testify also and be My witnesses, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

¹What shall we say [to all this]? Should we continue in sin and practice sin as a habit so that [God's gift of] grace may increase and overflow?

²Certainly not! How can we, the very ones who died to sin, continue to live in it any longer?

³Or are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

⁴We have therefore been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory and power of the Father, we too might walk habitually in newness of life [abandoning our old ways].

⁵For if we have become one with Him [permanently united] in the likeness of His death, we will also certainly be [one with Him and share fully] in the likeness of His resurrection.

⁶We know that our old self [our human nature without the Holy Spirit] was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

⁷For the person who has died [with Christ] has been freed from [the power of] sin.

⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live [together] with Him,

⁹because we know [the self-evident truth] that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has power over Him.

¹⁰For the death that He died, He died to sin [ending its power and paying the sinner's debt] once and for all; and the life that He lives, He lives to [glorify] God [in unbroken fellowship with Him].

¹¹Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin [and your relationship to it broken], but alive to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.

¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts and passions.

¹³Do not go on offering members of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness. But offer yourselves to God [in a decisive act] as those alive [raised] from the dead [to a new life], and your members [all of your abilities—sanctified, set apart] as instruments of righteousness [yielded] to God.

¹⁴For sin will no longer be a master over you, since you are not under Law [as slaves], but under [unmerited] grace [as recipients of God's favor and mercy].

¹⁵What then [are we to conclude]? Shall we sin because we are not under Law, but under [God's] grace? Certainly not!

¹⁶Do you not know that when you continually offer yourselves to someone to do his will, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, either [slaves] of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness (right standing with God)?

¹⁷But thank God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient with all your heart to the standard of teaching in which you were instructed and to which you were committed.

¹⁸And having been set free from sin, you have become the slaves of righteousness [of conformity to God's will and purpose].

¹⁹I am speaking in [familiar] human terms because of your natural limitations [your spiritual immaturity]. For just as you presented your bodily members as slaves to impurity and to [moral] lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now offer your members [your abilities, your talents] as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification [that is, being set apart for God's purpose].

²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness [you had no desire to conform to God's will].

²¹So what benefit did you get at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? [None!] For the outcome of those things is death!

²²But now since you have been set free from sin and have become [willing] slaves to God, you have your benefit, resulting in sanctification [being made holy and set apart for God's purpose], and the outcome [of this] is eternal life.

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God [that is, His remarkable, overwhelming gift of grace to believers] is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹However, brothers and sisters, I could not talk to you as to spiritual people, but [only] as to worldly people [dominated by human nature], mere infants [in the new life] in Christ!

²I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Even now you are still not ready.

³You are still worldly [controlled by ordinary impulses, the sinful capacity]. For as long as there is jealousy and strife and discord among you, are you not unspiritual, and are you not walking like ordinary men [unchanged by faith]?

⁴For when one of you says, "I am [a disciple] of Paul," and another, "I am [a disciple] of Apollos," are you not [proving yourselves unchanged, just] ordinary people?

⁵What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Just servants through whom you believed [in Christ], even as the Lord appointed to each his task.

⁶I planted, Apollos watered, but God [all the while] was causing the growth.

⁷So neither is the one who plants nor the one who waters anything, but [only] God who causes the growth.

⁸He who plants and he who waters are one [in importance and esteem, working toward the same purpose]; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

⁹For we are God's fellow workers [His servants working together]; you are God's cultivated field [His garden, His vineyard], God's building.

¹⁰According to the [remarkable] grace of God which was given to me [to prepare me for my task], like a skillful master builder I laid a foundation, and now another is building on it. But each one must be careful how he builds on it,

¹¹for no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is [already] laid, which is Jesus Christ.

¹²But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,

¹³each one's work will be clearly shown [for what it is]; for the day [of judgment] will disclose it, because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality and character and worth of each person's work.

¹⁴If any person's work which he has built [on this foundation, that is, any outcome of his effort] remains [and survives this test], he will receive a reward.

¹⁵But if any person's work is burned up [by the test], he will suffer the loss [of his reward]; yet he himself will be saved, but only as [one who has barely escaped] through fire.

¹⁶Do you not know and understand that you [the church] are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells [permanently] in you [collectively and individually]?

¹⁷If anyone destroys the temple of God [corrupting it with false doctrine], God will destroy the destroyer; for the temple of God is holy (sacred), and that is what you are.

¹⁸Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool [discarding his worldly pretensions and acknowledging his lack of wisdom], so that he may become [truly] wise.

¹⁹For the wisdom of this world is foolishness (absurdity, stupidity) before God; for it is written [in Scripture], "[He is] The one who catches the wise and clever in their craftiness;"

²⁰and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the [humanly] wise, that they are useless."

²¹So let no one boast in men [about their wisdom, or of having this or that one as a leader]. For all things are yours,

²²whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas (Peter) or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things are yours,

²³and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God.