Colossians 3:17Plain English VersionDo everything the way our leader, Jesus, wants you to do it, and talk the way he wants you to talk. And always thank God, our father, for the good things that Jesus does for us. See the chapter |
The first thing I want to do is to say thank you to my God. I can talk to God and say thank you because Jesus Christ made us God’s friends. I thank God for all of you Christian mob there. You really believe in Jesus now, and people everywhere in the world are talking about how you really trust in Jesus.
I am Paul, and this letter is from me. Silas and Timothy are here with me, and they are helping me write this letter. We are sending this letter to you Christians that are in God’s church, in the town called Thessalonica. You belong to God our father and to Jesus Christ our leader. We are asking God and Jesus to be good to you, and to make you feel happy and quiet inside yourselves.
Just like stones join together to make a house, you join up with Jesus to make a special house for God, so he will live with you. And Jesus will help you do good things and make God happy, just like the men that look after God’s ceremonies gave him good things to show him respect and make him happy.
But you are the people God picked out for himself. Together you work for him, like the men that looked after his ceremonies. You are his own family. God called you away from doing bad things, so you can do good things. It is like you used to live in the dark so that nobody could see you do bad things there, but now he called you away from that to live in his good light. So let’s tell everyone that God is really great and really good.
If you can tell stories to people, then tell them God’s story, and tell it clearly. If you can help other people, then let God make you strong so you can help them properly. Do everything properly so that when people see it, they might say that God is really great. If they know that you follow Jesus, they might thank God for sending Jesus to us. Jesus has really great power now, and he will have that power for ever. That’s true.