Book of Common Prayer

Paul’s companions are on their way

¹⁶ But God be thanked, since he put the same eagerness for you into Titus’s heart. ¹⁷ He welcomed the appeal we made, and of his own accord he was all the more eager to come to you. ¹⁸ We have sent along with him the brother who is famous through all the churches because of his work for the gospel. ¹⁹ Not only so, but he was formally chosen by the churches to be our traveling companion as we engage in this work of grace, both for the Lord’s own glory and to show our own good faith. ²⁰ We are trying to avoid the possibility that anyone would make unpleasant accusations about this splendid gift which we are administering. ²¹ We are thinking ahead, you see, about what will look best, not only to the Lord, but to everybody else as well.

²² Anyway, along with the two of them we are sending our brother, who has proved to us how eager and enthusiastic he is in many situations and on many occasions. He now seems all the more eager because he is convinced about you. ²³ If there’s any question about Titus, he is my partner, and a fellow worker for you. As for our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, the Messiah’s glory. ²⁴ So please give them a fine demonstration of your love, and of our boasting about you! Show all the churches that you mean business!

⁹ He told this next parable against those who trusted in their own righteous standing and despised others.

¹⁰ “Two men,” he said, “went up to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other was a tax-collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood and prayed in this way to himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the other people—greedy, unjust, immoral, or even like this tax-collector. ¹² I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

¹³ “But the tax-collector stood a long way off, and didn’t even want to raise his eyes to heaven. He beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful to me, sinner that I am.’ ¹⁴ Let me tell you, he was the one who went back to his house in the right before God, not the other. Don’t you see? People who exalt themselves will be humbled, and people who humble themselves will be exalted.”