and this is why I am suffering. Still, I am not ashamed of it; I know whom I have trusted and I am certain he is able to keep what I have put into his hands till the great Day.
For we have to struggle, not with blood and flesh but with the angelic Rulers, the angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the spirit-forces of evil in the heavenly sphere.
Now I make this appeal to your presbyters (for I am a presbyter myself, I was a witness of what Christ suffered and I am to share the glory that will be revealed),
Well, it is the same with yourselves. Unless your tongue utters language that is readily understood, how can people make out what you say? You will be pouring words into the empty air!
(It was in consequence of a revelation that I went up at all.) I submitted the gospel I am in the habit of preaching to the Gentiles, submitting it privately to the authorities, to make sure that my course of action would be and had been sound.
Therefore, with all this host of witnesses encircling us, we must strip off every handicap, strip off sin with its clinging folds, to run our appointed course steadily,