And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,
and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you,
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more,
Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.