The Living Bible (384 page)

Philemon

From:
Paul, in jail for preaching the Good News about Jesus Christ, and from Brother Timothy.

    
To:
Philemon, our much-loved fellow worker, and to the church that meets in your home, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus who, like myself, is a soldier of the cross.

    
³
 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you his blessings and his peace.

    
⁴
 I always thank God when I am praying for you, dear Philemon,
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 because I keep hearing of your love and trust in the Lord Jesus and in his people.
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 And I pray that as you share your faith with others it will grip their lives too, as they see the wealth of good things in you that come from Christ Jesus.
⁷
 I myself have gained much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because your kindness has so often refreshed the hearts of God’s people.

    
^8-9
 Now I want to ask a favor of you. I could demand it of you in the name of Christ because it is the right thing for you to do, but I love you and prefer just to ask you—I, Paul, an old man now, here in jail for the sake of Jesus Christ.
¹⁰
 My plea is that you show kindness to my child Onesimus, whom I won to the Lord while here in my chains.
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 Onesimus (whose name means “Useful”) hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is going to be of real use to both of us.
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 I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart.

    
¹³
 I really wanted to keep him here with me while I am in these chains for preaching the Good News, and you would have been helping me through him, 
¹⁴
 but I didn’t want to do it without your consent. I didn’t want you to be kind because you had to but because you wanted to.
¹⁵
 Perhaps you could think of it this way: that he ran away from you for a little while so that now he can be yours forever,
¹⁶
 no longer only a slave, but something much better—a beloved brother, especially to me. Now he will mean much more to you too, because he is not only a servant but also your brother in Christ.

    
¹⁷
 If I am really your friend, give him the same welcome you would give to me if I were the one who was coming.
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 If he has harmed you in any way or stolen anything from you, charge me for it.
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 I will pay it back (I, Paul, personally guarantee this by writing it here with my own hand) but I won’t mention how much you owe me! The fact is, you even owe me your very soul!
²⁰
 Yes, dear brother, give me joy with this loving act and my weary heart will praise the Lord.

    
²¹
 I’ve written you this letter because I am positive that you will do what I ask and even more!

    
²²
 Please keep a guest room ready for me, for I am hoping that God will answer your prayers and let me come to you soon.

    
²³
 Epaphras my fellow prisoner, who is also here for preaching Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings.
²⁴
 So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.

    
²⁵
 The blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon your spirit.

Paul

Hebrews

1
 
2
 
3
 
4
 
5
 
6
 
7
 
8
 
9
 
10
 
11
 
12
 
13
 

Hebrews
1

Long ago God spoke in many different ways to our fathers through the prophets, in visions, dreams, and even face to face,
*
telling them little by little about his plans.

    
²
 But now in these days he has spoken to us through his Son to whom he has given everything and through whom he made the world and everything there is.

    
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 God’s Son shines out with God’s glory, and all that God’s Son is and does marks him as God. He regulates the universe by the mighty power of his command. He is the one who died to cleanse us and clear our record of all sin, and then sat down in highest honor beside the great God of heaven.

    
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 Thus he became far greater than the angels, as proved by the fact that his name “Son of God,” which was passed on to him from his Father, is far greater than the names and titles of the angels.
^5-6
 For God never said to any angel, “You are my Son, and today I have given you the honor that goes with that name.”
*
But God said it about Jesus. Another time he said, “I am his Father and he is my Son.” And still another time—when his firstborn Son came to earth—God said, “Let all the angels of God worship him.”

    
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 God speaks of his angels as messengers swift as the wind and as servants made of flaming fire;
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 but of his Son he says, “Your Kingdom, O God, will last forever and ever; its commands are always just and right.
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 You love right and hate wrong; so God, even your God, has poured out more gladness upon you than on anyone else.”

    
¹⁰
 God also called him “Lord” when he said, “Lord, in the beginning you made the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
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 They will disappear into nothingness, but you will remain forever. They will become worn out like old clothes,
¹²
 and some day you will fold them up and replace them. But you yourself will never change, and your years will never end.”

    
¹³
 And did God ever say to an angel, as he does to his Son, “Sit here beside me in honor until I crush all your enemies beneath your feet”?

    
¹⁴
 No, for the angels are only spirit-messengers sent out to help and care for those who are to receive his salvation.

Hebrews
2

So we must listen very carefully to the truths we have heard, or we may drift away from them.
²
 For since the messages from angels have always proved true and people have always been punished for disobeying them,
³
 what makes us think that we can escape if we are indifferent to this great salvation announced by the Lord Jesus himself and passed on to us by those who heard him speak?

    
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 God always has shown us that these messages are true by signs and wonders and various miracles and by giving certain special abilities from the Holy Spirit to those who believe; yes, God has assigned such gifts to each of us.

    
⁵
 And the future world we are talking about will not be controlled by angels. 
⁶
 No, for in the book of Psalms David says to God, “What is mere man that you are so concerned about him? And who is this Son of Man you honor so highly?
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 For though you made him lower than the angels for a little while, now you have crowned him with glory and honor.
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 And you have put him in complete charge of everything there is. Nothing is left out.”

    
We have not yet seen all of this take place,
⁹
 but we do see Jesus—who for a while was a little lower than the angels—crowned now by God with glory and honor because he suffered death for us. Yes, because of God’s great kindness, Jesus tasted death for everyone in all the world.

    
¹⁰
 And it was right and proper that God, who made everything for his own glory, should allow Jesus to suffer, for in doing this he was bringing vast multitudes of God’s people to heaven; for his suffering made Jesus a perfect Leader, one fit to bring them into their salvation.

    
¹¹
 We who have been made holy by Jesus, now have the same Father he has. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers.
¹²
 For he says in the book of Psalms, “I will talk to my brothers about God my Father, and together we will sing his praises.”
¹³
 At another time he said, “I will put my trust in God along with my brothers.” And at still another time, “See, here am I and the children God gave me.”

    
¹⁴
 Since we, God’s children, are human beings—made of flesh and blood—he became flesh and blood too by being born in human form; for only as a human being could he die and in dying break the power of the devil who had the power of death.
¹⁵
 Only in that way could he deliver those who through fear of death have been living all their lives as slaves to constant dread.

    
¹⁶
 We all know he did not come as an angel but as a human being—yes, a Jew.
¹⁷
 And it was necessary for Jesus to be like us, his brothers, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God, a Priest who would be both merciful to us and faithful to God in dealing with the sins of the people.
¹⁸
 For since he himself has now been through suffering and temptation, he knows what it is like when we suffer and are tempted, and he is wonderfully able to help us.

Hebrews
3

Therefore, dear brothers whom God has set apart for himself—you who are chosen for heaven—I want you to think now about this Jesus who is God’s Messenger and the High Priest of our faith.

    
²
 For Jesus was faithful to God who appointed him High Priest, just as Moses also faithfully served in God’s house.
³
 But Jesus has far more glory than Moses, just as a man who builds a fine house gets more praise than his house does.
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 And many people can build houses, but only God made everything.

    
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 Well, Moses did a fine job working in God’s house, but he was only a servant; and his work was mostly to illustrate and suggest those things that would happen later on.
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 But Christ, God’s faithful Son, is in complete charge of God’s house. And we Christians are God’s house—he lives in us!—if we keep up our courage firm to the end, and our joy and our trust in the Lord.

    
^7-8
 And since Christ is so much superior, the Holy Spirit warns us to listen to him, to be careful to hear his voice today and not let our hearts become set against him, as the people of Israel did. They steeled themselves against his love and complained against him in the desert while he was testing them.
⁹
 But God was patient with them forty years, though they tried his patience sorely; he kept right on doing his mighty miracles for them to see.
¹⁰
 “But,” God says, “I was very angry with them, for their hearts were always looking somewhere else instead of up to me, and they never found the paths I wanted them to follow.”

    
¹¹
 Then God, full of this anger against them, bound himself with an oath that he would never let them come to his place of rest.

    
¹²
 Beware then of your own hearts, dear brothers, lest you find that they, too, are evil and unbelieving and are leading you away from the living God.
¹³
 Speak to each other about these things every day while there is still time so that none of you will become hardened against God, being blinded by the glamor
*
of sin.
¹⁴
 For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as we did when we first became Christians, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.

    
¹⁵
 But
now
is the time. Never forget the warning, “
Today
if you hear God’s voice speaking to you, do not harden your hearts against him, as the people of Israel did when they rebelled against him in the desert.”

    
¹⁶
 And who were those people I speak of, who heard God’s voice speaking to them but then rebelled against him? They were the ones who came out of Egypt with Moses their leader.
¹⁷
 And who was it who made God angry for all those forty years? These same people who sinned and as a result died in the wilderness.
¹⁸
 And to whom was God speaking when he swore with an oath that they could never go into the land he had promised his people? He was speaking to all those who disobeyed him.
¹⁹
 And why couldn’t they go in? Because they didn’t trust him.