If that person will not listen to all of you, then go to the church, and tell the people in the church what happened. Let them sort it out and talk to that person. If that person doesn’t want to listen to them, then you can treat them like somebody that doesn’t follow me. They are like somebody that doesn’t know God, or like somebody that doesn’t do what God says.”
Romans 16:17Plain English VersionListen, my Christian friends, I’m telling you straight, you’ve got to be really careful about people that make you split up and argue with each other. Remember that you heard the true message about Jesus Christ, and you learned to follow his way, but there are some people that want you to leave that way and go another way. They tell you a different story, and they get you to argue with each other. So don’t listen to them. Keep away from them. See the chapter |
25 Cross References
Then Jesus told them, “Always be careful. Don’t believe everybody. There are some people that reckon they are telling you a message from God, but they are liars. They try to get you to think they are like sheep, like they are soft and will not give you any trouble. But really, they are like wild dingoes. They will give you trouble, like dingoes hurt sheep. If you believe their words, then you will get lots of trouble.
Even though you are Christians you still don’t live like Christians. You still let your old human spirits control you. You want things that other people have. And you argue with each other. That shows that you are letting your human spirits control you, not the Holy Spirit. You are still like people that don’t know God.
Some people might try to make you believe some ideas about God that are wrong. Those ideas didn’t come from Jesus Christ, but they came from bad spirits, and from the people of this world. People taught those ideas to their kids, and to their grand-kids. But those ideas are not true. They might sound good, but they are tricky lies. Be careful. Don’t believe them.
Listen, Christian friends, Jesus Christ, our leader, wants us to tell you this. If anyone says they are a Christian, but they sit down and never want to do any work, you have to keep away from that person. Remember when we were with you. Think about what we were like. We didn’t sit around doing nothing. And we told you, “Don’t be lazy.” We want you to live the way we lived when we were with you.
Remember when we were in Ephesus, and I left that town to go to Macedonia country. At that time, I told you to stay there in Ephesus. There were some people there that were teaching the wrong message, and I wanted you to stay there and straighten them out. Those people think a lot about old time stories that are not true, and they think about the lists of names of people in their families, and then they use those stories and lists of names to teach lies to people. Anybody that listens to them just gets into useless arguments. People shouldn’t do that, but instead they have to learn about God, and the way he works. They have to learn to believe in God and to do whatever he wants. So I want you to tell those lying teachers to stop teaching those lies.
Some people teach things that are different from God’s true message. They get Christians to fight with each other, so you have to tell those people to stop. You might even have to tell them 2 times. And if they don’t stop after you tell them 2 times, then leave them and don’t have anything more to do with them.
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