Good morning. But in
actuality, Paul did have a letter. You are our letter, written in our hearts,
known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ,
cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not
on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Letters are nice, but they
are not permanent. Ink can fade or run, and paper/parchment can be torn or
destroyed. What is written can only be seen by those people with whom you share
the writing. But what is written on the heart by the Holy Spirit lasts forever
and can be seen by all people that you come in contact with, whether or not you
desire for them to see it. Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.
Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from
ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. Father thank You for another beautiful
day. Help us to show what You wrote on our hearts to those around us.
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me
Good morning. Paul then gives a list of a lot of things that he has gone through as an apostle. I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. There could be many people that you listen to either in church or through the Internet or other means; but there was only one person (as a general rule it was a person) that lead you to Christ. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. He was saying that just like a child imitates his or her father, they were to imitate him. He says that again seven chapters later. Since it is easy to forget some things about people we have not seen in a while, Paul says that he sent Timothy to them to remind them of his ways which are in Christ, just as he taught everywhere in every church. Some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. I shall find ou...
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