as a priest of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the service of God's gospel. My aim is to make the Gentiles an acceptable offering, consecrated by the holy Spirit.
But the Lord said to him, "Go; I have chosen him to be the means of bringing my Name before the Gentiles and their kings as well as before the sons of Israel.
I will not make free to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished by me in the way of securing the obedience of the Gentiles, by my words and by my deeds,
But then, I set no value on my own life as compared with the joy of finishing my course and fulfilling the commission I received from the Lord Jesus to attest the gospel of the grace of God.
come and, like living stones yourselves, be built into a spiritual house, to form a consecrated priesthood for the offering of those spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
to them it was revealed that they got this intelligence not for themselves but for you, regarding all that has now been disclosed to you by those who preached the gospel to you through the holy Spirit sent from heaven. The very angels long to get a glimpse of this!
May the God of peace consecrate you through and through! Spirit, soul, and body, may you be kept without break or blame till the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Brothers, you recollect our hard labour and toil, how we worked at our trade night and day, when we preached the gospel to you, so as not to be a burden to any of you.
At Philippi, as you know, we had been ill-treated and insulted, but we took courage and confidence in our God to tell you the gospel of God in spite of all the strain.
Your debt to me is fully paid and more than paid! I am amply supplied with what you have sent by Epaphroditus, a fragrant perfume, the sort of sacrifice that God approves and welcomes.
When He supplies you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, is it because you do what the Law commands or because you believe the gospel message?
Ministers of Christ? yes perhaps, but not as much as I am (I am mad to talk like this! ), with all my labours, with all my lashes, with all my time in prison — a record longer far than theirs. I have been often at the point of death;
They have done more than I expected; they gave themselves to the Lord, to begin with, and then (for so God willed it) they put themselves at my disposal.
by the force of miracles and marvels, by the power of the Spirit of God. Thus from Jerusalem right round to Illyricum, I have been able to complete the preaching of the gospel of Christ —
my ambition always being to preach it only in places where there had been no mention of Christ's name, that I might not build on foundations laid by others,