For when we made known to you the power and Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we were not eagerly following cleverly devised legends, but we had been eye-witnesses of His majesty.
Afterwards He was on the Mount of Olives and was seated there when the disciples came to Him, apart from the others, and said, »Tell us when this will be; and what will be the sign of your Coming and of the Close of the Age?«
»I am,« replied Jesus, »and you and others will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the divine Power, and coming amid the clouds of the sky.«
And the Word came in the flesh, and lived for a time in our midst, so that we saw His glory–the glory as of the Father's only Son, sent from His presence. He was full of grace and truth.
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the Good News; and not in merely wise words–lest the Cross of Christ should be deprived of its power.
And as for myself, brethren, when I came to you, it was not with surpassing power of eloquence or earthly wisdom that I came, announcing to you that which God had commanded me to bear witness to.
And my language and the Message that I proclaimed were not adorned with persuasive words of earthly wisdom, but depended upon truths which the Spirit taught and mightily carried home;
We are; for, unlike most teachers, we are not fraudulent hucksters of God's Message; but with transparent motives, as commissioned by God, in God's presence and in communion with Christ, so we speak.
Nay, we have renounced the secrecy which marks a feeling of shame. We practice no cunning tricks, nor do we adulterate God's Message. But by a full clear statement of the truth we strive to commend ourselves in the presence of God to every human conscience.
So we shall no longer be babes nor shall we resemble mariners tossed on the waves and carried about with every changing wind of doctrine according to men's cleverness and unscrupulous cunning, making use of every shifting device to mislead.
who, in the exercise of the power which He has even to subject all things to Himself, will transform this body of our humiliation until it resembles His own glorious body.
and the attention they bestow on mere fables and endless pedigrees, such as lead to controversy rather than to a true stewardship for God, which only exists where there is faith. And I make the same request now.
Thirsting for riches, they will trade on you with their canting talk. From of old their judgement has been working itself out, and their destruction has not been slumbering.
It was also about these that Enoch, who belonged to the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, »The Lord has come, attended by myriads of His people, to execute judgement upon all,
He is coming in the clouds, and every eye will see Him, and so will those who pierced Him; and all the nations of the earth will gaze on Him and mourn. Even so. Amen.