New Testament Plan

¹So then, my dearly loved and longed for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown, in this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.

²I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

³Yes, I also ask you, true partner, to help these women who have contended for the gospel at my side, along with Clement and the rest of my coworkers whose names are in the book of life.

⁴Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

⁵Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

⁶Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

⁸Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable — if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy — dwell on these things.

⁹Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

¹⁰I rejoiced in the Lord greatly because once again you renewed your care for me. You were, in fact, concerned about me but lacked the opportunity to show it.

¹¹I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself.

¹²I know both how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content — whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.

¹³I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.

¹⁴Still, you did well by partnering with me in my hardship.

¹⁵And you Philippians know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone.

¹⁶For even in Thessalonica you sent gifts for my need several times.

¹⁷Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that is increasing to your account.

¹⁸But I have received everything in full, and I have an abundance. I am fully supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you provided — a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.

¹⁹And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

²⁰Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.

²¹Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send you greetings.

²²All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household.

²³The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our brother:

²To the saints in Christ at Colossae, who are faithful brothers and sisters. Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

³We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

⁴for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints

⁵because of the hope reserved for you in heaven. You have already heard about this hope in the word of truth, the gospel

⁶that has come to you. It is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you since the day you heard it and came to truly appreciate God’s grace.

⁷You learned this from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,

⁸and he has told us about your love in the Spirit.

⁹For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,

¹⁰so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God,

¹¹being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully

¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.

¹³He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

¹⁴In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

¹⁶For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him.

¹⁷He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.

¹⁸He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

²⁰and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

²¹Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds expressed in your evil actions.

²²But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him  —

²³if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become a servant of it.

²⁴Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body, that is, the church.

²⁵I have become its servant, according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known,

²⁶the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.

²⁷God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

²⁸We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

²⁹I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.

¹For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.

²I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery  — Christ.

³In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

⁴I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.

⁵For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.

⁶So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,

⁷being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.

⁸Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ.

⁹For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ,

¹⁰and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

¹¹You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,

¹²when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

¹⁴He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

¹⁵He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

¹⁶Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.

¹⁷These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ.

¹⁸Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind.

¹⁹He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God.

²⁰If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations:

²¹“Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”?

²²All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines.

²³Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.