Twentieth Century [1904], THE TWENTIETH CENTURY NEW TESTAMENT A TRANSLATION INTO MODERN ENGLISH Made from the Original Greek (Westcott & Hort's Text) (The Fleming H. Revell Company, NEW YORK & CHICAGO) [word count] [B14200].
To look up a word in a dictionary, select the word with your mouse and press 'd' on your keyboard.
III.—Christ and the Gnostic Teaching.
note
1 I want you to know in how great a struggle
I am engaged for you and for Christ's People
at Laodicea, and for all who have not yet seen
me;
2 in the hope that they, being bound to one another by
love, and keeping in view the full blessedness of a firm conviction,
may be encouraged to strive for a perfect knowledge of
God's hidden Truth,
3 even Christ himself, in whom all treasures
of wisdom and knowledge lie hidden. note ⪆⪆
4 I say this to
prevent any one from deceiving you by plausible arguments.
5 It is true that I am not with you in person, but I am with you
in spirit, and am glad to see the good order and the unbroken
front resulting from your faith in Christ.
note
6 Since, therefore, you have received Jesus, the
Christ, as your Lord, live your lives in union with
him—rooted in him,
7 building up your characters through
union with him, growing stronger through your faith, as you
were taught, overflowing with faith and thanksgiving.
8 Take care there is not some one who will carry you away
by his ‘philosophy’—a hollow sham!—following, as it does,
mere human traditions, and dealing with puerile questions of
this world, and not with Christ.
9 For in Christ the Godhead
in all its fulness dwells incarnate;
10 and, by your union with
him, you also are filled with it. He is the Head of all Archangels
and Powers of Heaven.
11 By your union with him you
received a circumcision that was not performed by human
hands, when you threw off the tyranny of the earthly body,
and received the circumcision of the Christ.
12 For in baptism
you were buried with Christ; and in baptism you were also
raised to Life with him, through your faith in the omnipotence
of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And to you, who
once were ‘dead,’ by reason of your sins and your uncircumcised
nature—to you God gave Life in giving life to Christ!
14 He pardoned all our sins! He cancelled the bond which
stood against us—the bond that consisted of ordinances—and
which was directly hostile to us! He has taken it out of
our way by nailing it to the cross!
15 He rid himself of all the
Powers of Evil, and held them up to open contempt, when he
celebrated his triumph over them on the cross!
note
16 Do not, then, allow any one to take you to task
on questions of eating or drinking, or in the
matter of annual or monthly or weekly festivals.
17 These things are only the shadow of what is to
come; the substance is in the Christ.
18 Do not let any one
defraud you of the reality by affecting delight in so-called
-- --
‘humility’ and angel-worship. Such a man busies himself
with his visions, and without reason is rendered conceited by
his merely human intellect.
19 He fails to maintain union with
the Head, to whom it is due that the whole body, nourished
and knit together by the contact and connexion of every part,
grows with a divine growth.
note
20 Since, with Christ, you became dead to the
puerile teaching of this world, why do you submit,
as though your life were still that of the
world,
21 to such ordinances as ‘Do not handle, or taste, or
touch’?
22 For all the things referred to in them cease to exist
when used. You are following mere human directions and
instructions. note
23 Such prohibitions appear reasonable where
there is a desire for self-imposed service, and so-called
‘humility,’ and harsh treatment of the body, but are of no
real value against the indulgence of our earthly nature.
Twentieth Century [1904], THE TWENTIETH CENTURY NEW TESTAMENT A TRANSLATION INTO MODERN ENGLISH Made from the Original Greek (Westcott & Hort's Text) (The Fleming H. Revell Company, NEW YORK & CHICAGO) [word count] [B14200].
|