New Testament Plan

¹For you yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our reception among you was not in vain,

²but after we had already suffered and been treated abusively in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.

³For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit;

⁴but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not intending to please people, but to please God, who examines our hearts.

⁵For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is our witness—

⁶nor did we seek honor from people, either from you or from others, though we could have asserted our authority as apostles of Christ.

⁷But we proved to be gentle among you. As a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children,

⁸in the same way we had a fond affection for you and were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

⁹For you recall, brothers and sisters, our labor and hardship: it was by working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, that we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

¹⁰You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly and rightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers;

¹¹just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children,

¹²so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

¹³For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of mere men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe.

¹⁴For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,

¹⁵who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all people,

¹⁶hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always reach the limit of their sins. But wrath has come upon them fully.

¹⁷But we, brothers and sisters, having been orphaned from you by absence for a short while—in person, not in spirit—were all the more eager with great desire to see your face.

¹⁸For we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, more than once—and Satan hindered us.

¹⁹For who is our hope, or joy or crown of pride, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? Or is it not indeed you?

²⁰For you are our glory and joy.

¹Therefore, when we could no longer endure it, we thought it best to be left behind, alone at Athens,

²and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the benefit of your faith,

³so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we have been destined for this.

⁴For even when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it happened, as you know.

⁵For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be for nothing.

⁶But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we also long to see you,

⁷for this reason, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and affliction we were comforted about you through your faith;

⁸for now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord.

⁹For what thanks can we give to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice because of you before our God,

¹⁰as we keep praying most earnestly night and day that we may see your faces, and may complete what is lacking in your faith?

¹¹Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you;

¹²and may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you;

¹³so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.

¹Finally then, brothers and sisters, we request and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel even more.

²For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

³For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;

⁴that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,

⁵not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

⁶and that no one violate the rights and take advantage of his brother or sister in the matter, because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you previously and solemnly warned you.

⁷For God has not called us for impurity, but in sanctification.

⁸Therefore, the one who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

⁹Now as to the love of the brothers and sisters, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;

¹⁰for indeed you practice it toward all the brothers and sisters who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to excel even more,

¹¹and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we instructed you,

¹²so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

¹³But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as indeed the rest of mankind do, who have no hope.

¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead, so also God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.

¹⁵For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁶For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

¹⁷Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

¹⁸Therefore, comfort one another with these words.