Category: Epistles – Is his letter to our church?

Epistle of Paul to the Romans

Epistles ἐπιστολή or Letters

I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.

Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians

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JUNE 2024 – 2025 —

1 CORINTHIANS

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Letters – Is he writing to me?
The short answer: YES.

In their epistles or 1st century church letters the Apostles and other men sent out by Jesus build up the saints [small – ‘s’] or members of local first century churches.

A Disciple or other witness of JESUS would write it. Messengers then delivered these church letters to many isolated worshipers.

Followers of Jesus Christ receive these letters as a major encouragement to their personal faith. Then leaders read them to worshipers of their church.

Although the Epistles 0r Letters to the Church were originally written to churches of the first century,

Romans through Jude will seem like letters to your 21st century church.

What do Peter, Paul, John and others tell us we must do?
Is he talking about an issue in your 21st c. church as well?
How does the writer’s advice, warning, or encouragement to the 1st c. believers apply to you as well
Is the writer of this letter talking about something you need to address in your 21st century ‘christian’ life?

Contemporary Application of the Letters (Epistles)

Most New Testament writers take on specific issues confronting faithful followers of Jesus Christ. These same issues continue to confront believers until the Lord’s coming again in these last days.

Certainly Christ our Lord will come again to those God has chosen for eternal life.

Believers currently suffer more than most of you who know Christ in your local church can imagine.

In other lands Christians continue to suffer by the hand of the ungodly.
Go into all the world

A 21st century Common Era church can see and hear nearly any atrocity of man or artificial imagination of sinful man’s mind, yet ‘christians‘ dare not speak of any absolute truth of the Lord God or talk of JESUS CHRIST.

Will YOU comment on Scripture and share the Gospel?

I invite you to read the inspired word of Scripture written in these LETTERS TO THE CHURCH.

YES, He IS writing to YOU.

Beloved brother or sister in Christ Jesus,

Will you read this ‘CHURCH LETTER’ and talk of JESUS through your comment, sharing and email to me about this ‘Letter to you?”

Roger@talkofJesus.com

Letters from Proselytes of Galatia to Paul
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Premise: The Apostle Paul likely received one or several letters to which the Apostle responds with Epistles to several churches and certain important persons.
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Who wrote to the Apostle Paul?

Think about this —

Paul and other Apostles come into your town or city, proclaim some Good News, build a church of Christ followers, establish some local leaders. AND then after some time these missionaries leave to go somewhere else into all the world.

ACTS of the Apostles details some of these encounters which occur after numerous encouraging visits of various apostles sent out to them.

Apostles Sent to the Gentiles with a Letter of the Council

Many apostles and letters communicate Good News of one faith in Christ for all the world.

Although we have no preserved documentation of any messages or letters delivered to the Apostle from the Gentiles, I suspect that Paul perceives a crisis of faith in the churches of Galatia — a crisis conveyed to him by faithful disciples of the risen Christ and perhaps even believers considering IF they should abandon The Way of the Lord for a more prevalent cultural Judaism.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The Apostles, including the Twelve and Paul, James and other church leaders communicate in person and by messenger by the Spirit who has sent them out into each mission.

Who are the Galatians?

In Paul’s day, the word Galatia had two distinct meanings. In a strict ethnic sense, Galatia was the region of central Asia Minor (modern Turkiye) .. a Celtic people who had migrated to that region from Gaul (modern France) .. (in) 25 B.C. when Galatia became a Roman province, incorporating some regions not inhabited by ethnic Galatians (e.g., parts of Lycaonia, Phrygia, and Pisidia). In a political sense, Galatia came to describe the entire Roman province, not merely the region inhabited by the ethnic Galatians.

Paul founded churches in the southern Galatian cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:14–14:23).
Commentary of John MacArthur – BlueLetterBible.org
You will recognize these Galatian cities from Paul's early missions into all the world.
WHY did Paul write to the Galatians?

Regardless of who founded any of the Galatian cities in the A.D. first century Roman Empire, every town had an ethnic challenge common to all churches established by the apostles in every Roman province.

Proselytes – Judaizers fleeing Persecution for the Cross of Christ

The covenantal culture of the Jews opposed the pagan practices of peoples of other cultures. SO the Jews insisted on certain traditional identifications of Jewish men such as circumcision.
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Who are these proselytes?
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Even as Paul, Barnabas, Silas and other apostles had encountered opposition from Jews seeking their own disciples, so had the Lord Jesus.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Gospel of Matthew 23: 15 LSB
The Lord Jesus Christ describes the culture of Judaizers rejecting their own Messiah

An Apostolic Urgency to Write to the Galatians

PAUL must urgently address the concerns of those men in Galatia struggling in the faith

AND like all Christians, pursued by the Jews.

TWO QUESTIONS HERE:
- WHO represents the earthly authority of GOD?
- IF it is CHRIST, what is PAUL’s authority over the JEW and non-Jew?
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Later, I will get to a Twenty-first century C.E. challenge
of this AUTHORITY in Christ which has now challenged the Church for some 500 years.
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How will the Apostle answer?

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”
Galatians 5:1 KJV

Galatians 1 – Paul’s Authority
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The Apostle begins his Epistle to the Galatians by firmly establishing his authority and leadership of the churches.
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Paul, an apostle—not sent from men
- nor through man,
- but through Jesus Christ
- and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead—
- and all the brothers who are with me,
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Pretty convincing.

Paul opens fire against familiar enemies of Christ (Judaizers).
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6 I marvel that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
- Paul clearly states that the Galatians must choose:
  - – between him as a representative of God the Father and Christ Jesus OR
  - – teachers of a false and distorted gospel
    
    (which is not good news but a Jewish tradition chained to the Law and regulations of the flesh).
Paul defends not only his credentials and calling by Christ, but once more presents his case of Christ’s freedom to these gentile believers caught between the Gospel and the yoke of the Judaizers.

2:17 But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be!

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.
Galatians 2:21 LSB
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PAUL goes straight to the QUESTION of deceitful men claiming a GOSPEL other than Christ crucified and risen -- Judaizers seeking to lure these Galatian Christ-followers back to a Law of social Judaism. 
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3 O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?

THEN the Apostle clearly asks these men of the church a key QUESTION of their calling.

2 This is the only thing I want to learn from you:

Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law,

or by hearing with faith?

“The righteous shall live by faith.”

What does Paul seek to prove here refuting Judaizers requiring circumcision of gentile proselytes?

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying,

“All the nations will be blessed in you.”
Galatians 3:8 LSB

The Apostle QUOTES Hebrew SCRIPTURE from BEFORE the LAW.

From Genesis 22:

22:18 וְהִתְבָּרֲכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ עֵקֶב אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקֹלִי׃
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 “By Myself I have sworn, declares Yahweh, because you have done this thing and have not spared your son, your only one, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.

“In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have listened to My voice.”
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LATER comes THE LAW of Moses by which the Christ was crucified on a Cross as a redemptive Sacrifice for our sins. (It was NOT ONLY for the Jews, but for ALL the seed of Abraham — every sinner.

The Apostle makes further legal arguments and adds an allegory comparing:
- Ishmael & Isaac
- flesh & promise
- Hagar & Sarah,
- Jerusalem and Mount Sanai and slavery,
- Moses & Christ
- the Jerusalem above and freedom. (Study its juxtaposition if you like.)
The Apostle’s closing argument
1. 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are being justified by law; you have fallen from grace!
2. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.
3. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.
Faith Reformed in Fact

Jewish faith — to Christian faith — to Scriptural faith informed in the Good News of the Word of God…

Who has believed our message?

The Galatians and every other culture encountered by the Apostles —

~ ano Domini 49 – 50

~ A.D. 49 Paul has just written to the Galatians out of the Apostle’s concern for their failing faith being replaced by a false gospel.
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NEXT: Paul will also write to the THESSALONIANS out of his same love for the children of Christ Jesus the Apostles have led so far.
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WHERE could other gospels lead these Christian flocks of the Empires?

A fall of Rome, a division with an Orthodox New Rome (Constantinople) and Western father of Bishops and Princes competing for pawns of populace.

New temples built as CATHEDRALS for poor pilgrims to look up to God and well-mannered robed men who could actually READ the Holy Bible of God…

And then printing presses and challenges by Reformers pointing to Scripture in place of the yoke of Law and even Church law.

In my heart reigns this one article, faith in my dear Lord Christ, the beginning, middle and end of whatever spiritual and divine thoughts I may have, whether by day or by night.
From Luther’s Introduction, ano domini 1538

THEN what should happen in yet another 500 years once common men and women of the Common Era COULD (yet did not) actually READ the BIBLE?

a brief application …

My HOT reaction to a 1st. c. Hot Topic

Talk of JESUS . com

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel
January 26, 2024
Personal Letters from Nicopolis – Intro
Personal Instructions and Greetings

When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, be diligent to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there.
Letter of the Apostle Paul to Titus 3:12 Legacy Standard Bible

We have been following the missions of Paul and others in Acts of the Apostles for some time now and might easily miss a small personal instruction such as this found at the end of one of the Apostle’s many letters.

Just a brief record of one winter:
- Paul will stay in Nicopolis for one winter.
- He instructs Titus that he will send one of two others to him, either Artemas or Tychicus.
I emphasize in my pause in ACTS by this introduction to Paul’s letters in context that during these historical missional journeys all of the apostles nurtured both personal and community relationships with those won to the Lord Jesus Christ.

A.D. 52-57
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Paul's THREE missions over ELEVEN years from ~ A.D. 49 to ~ A.D. 57 would have included 10 winters. 

Please COMMENT if YOU can pinpoint the actual YEAR or place in ACTS when this occurred. 
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Further Personal Greetings, Blessings, Thanks & Instructions

Diligently help send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them.

And our people [that is, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ] must also learn to lead in good [occupations] works to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.

All who are with me greet you.

[Paul does not say who these disciples of The Way traveling to Nicopolis for their winter stay might be, but through the Holy Spirit they remain connected to the church and those who receive his letter through Titus. The Apostle then asks them to extend their love to others in the faith.

Greet those who love us in the faith.

Grace be with you all.

Titus 3:13-15 – closing of Paul’s letter

Greetings and Grace
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Note Paul's humility in Christ and tenderness toward those to whom the Apostle writes:
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Paul, a slave of God

and an apostle of Jesus Christ,

according to [for] the faith of God’s elect and the full knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which the God who cannot lie promised before times eternal [from all eternity]..
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And in Paul's 'sent out' purpose as Christ's apostle to the Gentiles here he connects his servitude to the risen Jesus as they must receive his gospel from God, even referring to Christ as God.
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.. but at the proper time manifested [made known] His word in preaching,

with which I was entrusted

according to the commandment

of God our Savior,
Titus 1:1-3 LSB
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All this deep connection and theology in just a brief introduction and closing of a short letter written to a fellow beloved leader of the church.
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To Titus, my genuine child according to our common faith:

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

Νικόπολις

Nicopolis

Nicopolis meaning “city of victory”

There were many cities by this name, — in Armenia, Pontus, Cilicia, Epirus, Thrace —

The one in Titus 3:12 seems to refer to the city was built by * Augustus in memory of the battle of Actium on a promontory of Epirius.
- Before Augustus Caesar seized power he was known as Octavian. His victory on 2 September 31 B.C. at Actium (pictured above on map near Nicopolis) secured Rome’s strategic position as rulers of the Mediterranean.
- Paul, as a Roman citizen, would have felt at home in such Roman cities.
The one in the subscription of Titus seems to refer to Thracian Nicopolis, founded by Trojan on the river Nestus, since he calls it the city of Macedonia.

When did Paul write?

Our focus in this overview of Paul’s letters is more toward the relationships the Apostle and disciples of The Way create with each other than the how, where and when he wrote.

Paul may have been in Thrace or Macedonia. Perhaps some of these letters were written in part on his journeys abord ships between destinations. And in these ten years having spent extended time in so many towns and cities Paul’s letters may well have been composed from his guest quarters in some of the homes of recipients (perhaps even Titus) to whom the Apostle wrote on a later occasion and circumstance.

What we do know is the approximate times and chronology of most of Paul’s letters.

This chronology and connection to events Luke records in ACTS of the APOSTLES will be the focus of our series looking at Paul’s letters.

Time to Write to Loved Ones
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ALL dates approximate.
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- A.D. 30
  - Resurrection & Ascension of JESUS CHRIST
- A.D. 37
  - JESUS appears to Saul (Paul)
    
    ACTS 9
- A.D. 47
  - Paul and Barnabas depart on their first missionary journey
    
    ACTS 13
- A.D. 49
  - ACTS 15
THE COUNCIL AT JERUSALEM

Epistle from the Council of Jerusalem – Acts 15:20

& Letters to the CHURCH sent out into all the world

THESE INCLUDE LETTERS (or Epistles)

from: James the brother of Jesus & leader (in A.D. 49) of the Jerusalem church

from: Paul to the Galatians

Letters of the A.D. 50’s
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a generation (~20-30 years) after the Lord's resurrection

All dates approximate:
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- A.D. 50 – John Mark, who had accompanied Barnabas and Paul on Cypress writes his GOSPEL.
- Paul writes two letters to the Thessalonians
Three Weeks in Thessalonica- Acts 17

During Paul’s SECOND missionary journey

And during Paul’s THIRD missionary journey (where we have once again paused briefly) THESE LETTERS:
- Paul writes TWO letters to the Corinthians living in the Achaian city larger and more important that Athens.
- The Apostle Paul, a Roman citizen, also writes to the Romans around the end of his third missionary journey (A.D. 57) and two years prior to his own journey to Rome.
Later Letters of the A.D. 60’s – 80’s

Our introduction to these Church Letters is NOT expositional but topical. And these are personally relational to those Christians to whom the Apostles wrote.

I will also point to Scripture from other Epistles yet to be written (as of this pause in ACTS of the APOSTLES ) when later events will connect the Church in many more ways to our struggles of a 21st century C.E. faith.

These include Titus written around A.D. 64-66 on which I have focused today

AND other important ‘personal letters’ instructing leaders and others of the church including:

an Epistle to Philemon and TWO letters to Timothy.

Several letters written in the early A.D. 60’s to churches Paul has already visited on his current and previous missions.

Ephesians

Philippians

Colossians

Luke will also complete his Gospel in the early A.D. 60’s as does the Apostle Matthew.

Nero has been Emperor of Rome during most of these times (A.D. 54-68) and things are about to get much worse for all of the Empire including Jerusalem, which revolts against ROME beginning in A.D. 66 and will eventually be destroyed in A.D. 70 as the Jewish Wars continue on into A.D. 73.

As the world of ROME begins to disintegrate while Paul and Peter and every other Apostle except John are executed, the Gospel and Letters of a New Testament go into all the world — a world to which the Lord Jesus Christ came and died for sinners like you and like me — that we might have eternal life in Him.

MORE Letters arriving SOON… God-willing…
January 13, 2024
When HE takes Vengeance
DOES THE FIRE OF GOD’S ANGER BURN WITH VENGEANCE?

Paradise on fire – Idolatry consumed!

Remember the lyric of lament over a lost love?

Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus?
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way..
Source:
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I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again
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You shall not make idols or any image of things that are in the heavens above or that are upon the earth or that are in the waters under the earth.
Exodus 20:4 New Catholic Bible

Of course FIRE and RAIN are elements of the 12 idolatrous signs of the zodiac,

even as love of a friend, family member or the EARTH or AIR may easily become your WORSHIP of idols.

So Those were the days, my friend, of Paradise

We SANG of them in the paradise lost of our memories. In the year of our Lord 1970, half a century ago – a time of imagined idolatrous paradise where one might honeymoon in Hawaii with the Eve or your dreams or perhaps worship each other’s nakedness in the mind-altering smoke of your California dreamin.

How we all sought the peace on earth of friends with benefits..

And that by the children of Jesus raised in the Commandments by the family of the Church — prodigal children wandering into a paradise lost of our own making.

WE KNOW THE STORIES OF SCRIPTURE,

Yet we try God’s patience

And fail to TEACH OUR CHILDREN WELL in the Commandments and Praises, the Proverbs and Gospel

of the HOLY BIBLE of the LORD God of our cultural prodigal witness!

The Imagery of Apocalypse

WE know it. Yet we quickly attribute God’s vengeance to ACTS of man-made cause.

What more idolatrous treason against the Creator of Heaven and Earth can you imagine than to attribute apocalypse to ‘mother nature’ and to ‘humankind’?

WHY do we so easily dismiss GOD’s warning of His vengeance against SIN and SINNERS (who we have become as we now wallow in the muddied cultures of self-worship and karma of the ashes of their phoenix fallen).

.. angels .. he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones..

Woe to them..
excerpt from the letter of Jude, warning of ‘ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. – v.4b

A Repeated Warning behind the Headline

WE can ‘talk of’ KING JESUS all we want but best not dwell on the glory of grace without heeding the warnings of Christ our Lord.

Recognize the signs of false news which does NOT seek the TRUTH of God or acknowledge the LORD’s story of vengeance against SIN and justification ONLY in Christ.
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Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—

.. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

“Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
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The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ from Luke 17:

Deseret News
‘Apocalyptic’ Maui wildfires death toll reaches 80, making it the deadliest natural disaster in Hawaii — see the latest updates

Sat, August 12, 2023 at 1:16 PM EDT

TWO Pictures of Maui including our COVER PHOTO TODAY:

NOTE warnings IGNORED as you read FACTS

from the story of JULY 12 in A.D. 2019
- thousands were ordered evacuated,
- it was unclear how many people fled the west Maui coastal communities of Maalaea and Kihei.
- three shelters housed about 500 people
- The Maui High School housed about 200 cats and dogs moved from a local animal shelter
Have you NOT READ?
- He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
- “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
- And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
  - excerpts from the Good News of Matthew, quotes of JESUS CHRIST
Vengeance is Mine!

Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
for the time when their foot shall slip;
for the day of their calamity is at hand,
and their doom comes swiftly.’

Deuteronomy 32:35 ESV
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ESV Quotes on Vengeance

Hebrews 10: NEW CATHOLIC BIBLE


Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
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28 A man making void the law of Moses, dieth without any mercy under two or three witnesses:

29 How much more, do you think he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace?

30 For we know him that hath said: Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay. And again: The Lord shall judge his people.

31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay,”
and
“The Lord will judge his people.”
³¹It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Hebrews 10:30b-31 New Catholic Bible
August 12, 2023