Book of Common Prayer
Thanksgiving for the gospel’s work
1 Paul, an apostle of Messiah Jesus by God’s purpose, and Timothy my brother; 2 to God’s holy people in Colossae, the Messiah’s faithful family; grace to you and peace, from God our father.
3 We always thank God, the father of our Lord, Messiah Jesus, when we pray for you, 4 because we’ve heard of your faith in Messiah Jesus and the love you have for all God’s holy people, 5 because of the hope which is kept safe for you in the heavenly places. You heard about this before in the word of truth, the gospel 6 which has arrived on your doorstep—just as, in fact, it’s producing fruit and growing in all the world, as it has been among you, from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth. 7 That’s how you learnt it from Epaphras our beloved fellow slave. He’s a loyal and faithful servant of the Messiah on your behalf. 8 He it was who gave us the news about your love in the spirit.
Prayer for wisdom and gratitude
9 For this reason, from the day we heard it, we haven’t stopped praying for you. We’re asking God to fill you with the knowledge of what he wants in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. 10 This will mean that you’ll be able to conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Lord, and so give him real delight, as you bear fruit in every good work and grow up in the knowledge of God. 11 I pray that you’ll be given all possible strength, according to the power of his glory, so that you’ll have complete patience and become truly steadfast and joyful.
12 And I pray that you will learn to give thanks to the father, who has made you fit to share the inheritance of God’s holy ones in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son. 14 He is the one in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Teachings on the sabbath
6 One sabbath, Jesus was walking through some cornfields. His disciples were plucking and eating ears of grain, rubbing them with their hands.
2 “Why,” asked some Pharisees, “are you doing something that isn’t permitted on the sabbath?”
3 “Haven’t you read what David did?” replied Jesus. “When he and his men were hungry, 4 he went into God’s house and took the ‘bread of the presence,’ which no one but the priests was allowed to eat. He ate some, and gave it to his companions.
5 “The son of man,” he declared, “is Lord of the sabbath.”
6 On another sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching. A man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 The scribes and Pharisees were watching him, to see if he would heal him on the sabbath, so that they could find an accusation against him.
8 He knew what they were thinking.
“Get up,” he said to the man with the withered hand, “and come out here in the middle.” He got up and came out.
9 “Let me ask you something,” Jesus said to them. “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath or to do evil? To save life or to destroy it?”
10 He looked round at all of them.
“Stretch out your hand,” he said to the man.
He did so; and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with rage, and discussed with each other what they might do to Jesus.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.