Absent in Body, Present in Spirit (Revelation 3:14–22)
1 UDB I want you to realize that I am doing my best to help you and those in Laodicea and also the believers who have never seen me personally. BSB BSB: For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me face to face,
2 UDB I do this so that I might encourage them so that they will be able to join together in love. I desire that they would have the wonderful riches and complete understanding of the truth about God's secret; and that secret is Christ! BSB BSB: that they may be encouraged in heart, knit together in love, and filled with the full riches of complete understanding, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ,
3 UDB It is only by means of Christ that we can know what God is thinking and how wise he is. BSB BSB: in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 UDB I am telling you this so that no one may deceive you. BSB BSB: I say this so that no one will deceive you by smooth rhetoric.
5 UDB Even though I am absent from you physically, I am very much concerned about you, just as if I were indeed with you. Yet I am rejoicing because I know that you follow Christ in a way that no one can stop you and that you trust in Christ without giving up. BSB BSB: For although I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and I delight to see your orderly condition and firm faith in Christ.
Alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:1–10)
6 UDB You began to believe in Christ Jesus the Lord by trusting in him, so also live by trusting him. BSB BSB: Therefore, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him,
7 UDB You should rely completely on Christ Jesus the Lord, just like a tree spreads its roots deep into the ground. You learned to trust Christ very much in this way, like men build a house on a good foundation. And you should always give thanks to God. BSB BSB: rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
9 UDB because the man Jesus Christ is fully God. BSB BSB: For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.
10 UDB Now God has given you everything you need because he has joined you to Christ, and he rules over every other person, spirit, and angel. BSB BSB: And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
11 UDB It is as if God had circumcised you also. But this was not as though a human being cut a piece of flesh from your body. Instead, by this "circumcision" Jesus took away the power of your sinful self that was within you. BSB BSB: In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands.
12 UDB Because you were joined with Christ when they baptized you, God considered that when men buried Christ they also buried you. When God made Christ alive again, it was a promise that he also would raise you up to live a new life. You had faith in the working of God who had made Christ alive again. BSB BSB: And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 UDB Because of the sins you committed against God, you were spiritually dead. And because you were Gentiles, God had not chosen you to be his people. But when God made Christ alive, he also made you spiritually alive with Christ, and he forgave all our sins. BSB BSB: When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses,
14 UDB We have all sinned so much, but God has forgiven our sins. It is like a man might forgive people who owe him money, so he tears up the papers they signed when he loaned them the money. But as for God, it is as if he had nailed those papers on which he had written all our sins and all the laws that we had broken to the cross on which Christ died. BSB BSB: having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
17 UDB These kinds of rules and events only picture what is truly coming. What is truly coming is Christ himself. BSB BSB: These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.
18 UDB Those same people pretend to be humble, and they love to worship angels. Do not let them convince you to do the same. If you do, you will lose what Christ has promised you. These people are always talking about visions they say God has made them see. They boast about these things because they think like people everywhere think who do not honor God. BSB BSB: Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you with speculation about what he has seen. Such a person is puffed up without basis by his unspiritual mind.
19 UDB Such persons are not joined to Christ. Christ is the head of the body, and that body is all those who believe in him. The whole body depends upon the head. The head takes care of each part and puts together all the bones and ligaments so they work together, and it is God who makes it grow. BSB BSB: He has lost connection to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God causes it to grow.
20 UDB God considers that you died with Christ when he died. So now the spirits and all the rules that people make for how to please God—none of these things rule you anymore. So why are you still living as if these things were real? Why do you still obey those things? BSB BSB: If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations:
21 UDB These rules are such as: "Do not handle certain things. Do not taste certain things. Do not touch certain things." Do not think you still have to obey such regulations. BSB BSB: “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”?
22 UDB These rules are all about things that perish in this world as people use them, and they were made up and taught by men, not by God. BSB BSB: These will all perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.
23 UDB These rules may seem to be good. But people made them because they were trying to honor God in their own way. That is why those people often look so humble; that is why they often hurt their own bodies. But if we obey these rules, we do not really stop wanting to sin. BSB BSB: Such restrictions indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-prescribed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body; but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.