How to Study the Bible — Nigel Lee

Reading Each Biblical Book as a Whole

Let me throw out, first of all, five simple principles, and then we'll see how we get on applying them as we go. And as I say, what I'm going to pass on is what I have learnt, what others have taught me, and there's no monopoly on its rightness or truth.

But my own approach to any book of scripture is to begin usually by taking the whole book as a book, to read the whole book through. Very often, in our Bible study, we read a few verses from the first chapter, and then we try and squeeze some meaning out of that, and then we go on the next day and squeeze a bit more.

It's sort of a toothpaste approach to Bible study. You sort of squeeze a little bit out for each day. Would you apply that principle to the reading of almost any other piece of literature? An example I sometimes use is Shakespeare's play Macbeth, known well to you all I'm absolutely sure.

You remember how it starts with those three witches, just three old hags on the stage at the beginning of the play, and they're talking to each other, when shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain, you see.

And if you were reading the play, you wouldn't say, now stop, stop, let me just meditate deeply on this. What is Shakespeare really trying to say? How is he trying to communicate? No, you'd wait to see.

What are they up to? Why are they plotting? How do they drip poison into Macbeth's mind? How does that destroy his family, first of all, his close friends and associates, through jealousy and so on, and eventually the state, and cause the whole of Scotland to be carried into bloody war with England?

You don't understand that until you've read the whole thing. Now, it's the same with the Bible. Very often our approach to the Bible never gets beyond the daily word for me in a sort of present tense devotional something to suck and meditate on during the day.

That's good. But it's not perhaps all that there is. So, read a whole book right through and read it again. If you were going to tackle something like Philippians, you're thinking for your reading, your study, in the next two or three months, I would sit down and simply read the whole thing through.

And at first sight, you don't know what it's about, really. It almost seems like chaos. And then read it right the way through again, from beginning to end. And don't stop to try and pick up all the jewels that you think are three inches under the surface on the way.

Read the whole thing right through again. And again. So that you get a sense, beginning to grow, of the purpose perhaps of the whole thing. Secondly, a key question in Bible study is always, what is the picture of God himself that's emerging from this book?

Discovering God's Character in Each Book

If our purpose in Bible study is to meet God, finally that must be it. Then you will notice, as you read around in the Bible, that God speaks of himself in quite different ways in different books of Scripture.

For instance, the book of Daniel speaks of God as the Lord Most High. Again and again that phrase comes. You get the impression that the Jews in exile are being reassured and taught by Daniel that God is sovereign.

He's not limited to Israel. He is also sovereign up in the refugee camps by the River Tiber, where they've been taken by the Babylonians. God Most High, it's a title for God, and it's a picture of God that comes again and again.

That doesn't come in Philippians at all. The picture of God in Philippians is quite different. We looked at perhaps the central passage this morning, very briefly, in our devotions. It's a picture not of God Most High reigning in the affairs of men, but of a servant who humbles himself.

No place is too low for him to come. Now, why not speak to the Philippians about God Most High? I mean, surely they need to know about God Most High, almighty, sovereign, reigning. Why not speak to the Jews in exile about God in his humility?

Why does God do that? Why in 2 Corinthians is Paul again and again reminding his readers that God is a God who comforts people. He's the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. You see, different books written for different reasons.

I mean, surely you're beginning to be aware of that in your own work using Scripture with people. If you were to be talking to someone who was a very able person from a Roman Catholic traditional background, what book of Scripture would you think might be most helpful to them?

Zechariah? Jonah? What do you think? Is it the book of Judges that will really help them? Hebrews, somebody whispers in the front row. Yes, Hebrews. If someone's got problems with the assurance of their salvation, one day they think they're in, the next day they think they're out.

Is there a book of the Bible that has been designed to give God's final answer to that problem? Maybe there is. What did you say? One John? Just John? Well, yes, these chaps have been reading the Bible in the front row.

I want that idea to sink into your mind so that you begin to get used to the pastoral uses of book after book. I was sitting chatting with a friend of mine here yesterday at lunchtime. It's one of those conversations that seem to be very beneficial and perhaps particularly belong to the Leadership Training Conference.

And he has had training in psychiatry, psychology, and he was talking about the psychological need that some people have in any leadership situation to set up alternative leadership. They just have a need to set up an alternative government.

It's amazing how people do that. They wrap it up in theology very often, but it's a clearly observable psychological problem, need, that some people have. Is there a book of the Bible that will deal with that?

Well, maybe, yes, there is. Perhaps 1 Samuel has something to do with it, or 2 Samuel may have something to do with it. In other words, what I'm saying is that as you identify problems in your church life or your team life, you may find that there is a particular passage or book of Scripture that you're drawn to study.

And often, the answer to the thing you're grappling with will lie in God's own character. God is multi-personal. Can I say that and you not misunderstand me? He is so personal, so much a person, that he is expressed in three persons while being one God.

And there are different facets to God's amazing character. And we need to look, as we study through Scripture, for the picture of God that emerges from the book, because it will vary a little bit, book by book by book.

Working Through the Chaos of Bible Study

That's the second thing. The third thing is that very often in Bible study, your first experience is of chaos in your thinking. You read through a book, and then you read it again, because the man told you, and then you read it a third time, and you don't know what it's all about.

It's just a mess. You can see little bits, and you don't know how it fits together, and why does he put that chapter after the first chapter, and so on. Don't be discouraged at that point. Because Bible study, I find, is somewhat like cooking a good meal.

There are meals that you can get out of a tin. Baked beans, cups of soup, just add boiling water, and that's it. But if you're going to cook a really, really splendid meal, you're going to go into the kitchen, and that meal is going to go through various stages.

There's going to be potato peelings on the floor, there's going to be bits of meat and blood lying around on the top of the work area, there's going to be splashes down your front, there's going to be stages when what you're cooking is inedible.

Mm-hmm. Some of you want, you see, to get food five minutes after you've started. You want to eat the potato before it's even got the peel taken off. You open the Bible, and you want something to zap you within two minutes of starting.

Well, God in his mercy does often give us zappy things, occasionally. But actually, the best meals take some time to cook, don't they? And you're going to have to work your way through the chaos stage in your thinking.

Taking Notes and Working by Faith

And that leads me on to two other things, quickly. Don't be afraid to use paper, and plenty of it. We're lucky we've got blackboard. Some friends of mine sometimes, when we get together to do a bit of Bible study, we'll use wallpaper, the back of wallpaper.

You can buy large quantities of it and write things up, and then tear it up and burn it if it's all wrong. Don't be afraid to use paper to put down questions, ideas, outlines, things that you can scrap.

God will keep the Swedish forests growing if it's to provide paper for Bible study. You don't have to get all ecological and worry about using paper. Write. I don't see how you can do proper Bible study without paper and pencil beside you.

And the final thing, and it is the second most important principle, is that Bible study, like everything else in Christian life, is a matter of faith. And God watches you from the moment you open the book.

And he is actually concerned in the process of Bible study to develop your character as you do it. That involves not giving you everything easily on a plate the first moment. It's the same as bringing up kids, isn't it?

You don't make everything totally easy for them. You let them learn and work and struggle. And God himself wants to see whether you really believe that this was written by him, whether it really is his answer to the world's needs, and whether you are prepared to work at it a little.

What do you expect? Do you think the Bible is going to be easy like some little Red Riding Hood story? Some television jingle advertising something? This is God expressing himself. We have the written word, the living word, God communicating.

And what is in here is not always easy and rewards hard work. I often go to the Bible and I read something and I think about it, and the worst thing possible is if I've got to preach tomorrow on it. Because then I've got to get something out and squeeze out the old bits of dry juice.

Many, many times I've read in the Bible and I've not really understood why it's there, what's going on. And I have to wait and come back and read tomorrow and puzzle it over. Think and read a bit more.

And then get a few ideas and then find they're all wrong. But in that process my diligence of character, my willingness to live by faith, to say, yes, God did write this, this is worth persevering with, that is growing.

You remember the old story of a roof gleaming in the fields. Come back with her mother-in-law, gone to get work in the field of a man she didn't even know. And she was trying to pick up little grains of corn, little stalks and strands, day by day in the burning sunshine, to get a little something to feed herself.

She was a widow and she was trying to look after one other person. And so day after day she went to get a little bit, just to feed herself. She didn't realise that she was being watched by, shall we call him the Lord of the Harvest?

And after some days of watching this girl coming back again and again, he said, who is she? And they told him. And then he commanded his executive servants that in future they leave in front of this girl great armfuls of corn.

And so there came a day when she came back and she was going along picking up a little bit here and she came round the corner and, oh! And she picked up this stuff. She thought she'd got it, you know.

She thought she'd discovered it. Not a bit of it. The Lord of the Harvest, who'd been watching her for days, had deliberately left it there for her, in her path, and caused her to find it. Now there are times, and it doesn't happen every day, when you're studying God's Word and suddenly whole new windows open up.

You see things that you, oh, you never dreamed were there. How on earth can I be so stupid to read this thing again and again and not? See this. See why it's written. How it's working. See how it applies to me.

And you think, you know, perhaps that your hard work has finally prized open the door. No. God is involved in your Bible study. And God will cause you to have revelation of himself and of his Word as he sees you persisting in faith with it.

The rewards are tremendous. Not every day do you get these things, but often enough in God's timing, as he sees your faith and your character developing as you approach the thing. So there's five sort of ideas at the start that I'd like you to ponder on and seek application in your own experience.

Five Principles for Studying Scripture

Now let's turn to Philippians.

Yeah. Very quickly. Read it again and again and again.

Secondly, what is the book or the chapter, if you're just focusing on chapter, what is it centrally showing me of God's character? Thirdly, don't be put off by chaos to start with in your thinking. Don't expect it to be easy.

Fourthly, use plenty of paper. And fifthly, God is watching. And the very process of Bible study is an exercise of faith in which your character is developed. Okay? Happy? Yeah, sure? No, that's what I said.

But you'll be amazed, you know, I did once have a real bash at Ezekiel. And I have discovered some things about Ezekiel which I could preach. Almost from memory. But I only understand about the first 20 chapters.

There's a lot that hasn't come yet. You'll find that too. You'll get somewhere with a book and then circumstances become too busy or you put a thing on the back burner for a while and let it simmer away.

But God knows how far you've got with it. I would still say it's worth sitting, reading, trying to get an overview. Questions will be posed at the beginning of a book that are answered at the end. The start of Exodus.

They're all in Egypt. Slavery, drudgery. They want to be free. What are they doing at the end of the book of Exodus? Are they sitting around at some holiday camp getting a suntan, free, not working anymore?

Is that what freedom is? Well, the book will pose the question at the start. What is the nature of real freedom? Perhaps. I'm suggesting. There's a possibility. By the end of the book, you've begun to get some ideas on that.

And so on, you see. So even with the big books, I would urge you to be willing to give them time. I would think, if a person's just beginning to say to God, Lord, I really don't want to come to the end of my life and have vast areas of the Scriptures that are completely foreign and closed to me.

I do now want to give significant honour to you in the fact that you've written this book for my learning, by giving time to study. I would start, perhaps, with easier books. I look back at my own. For years now, I've been taking different books.

I remember when Galatians came to me in a very real way, followed by Hebrews. There are huge areas that I haven't got the slightest idea about. There are other books I could almost preach from memory.

I have a friend who's influenced me tremendously in this. He's a single man. Maybe that's significant. I don't know. But I've learnt a great deal from him. And I remember one night, very vividly on my memory, where we'd been studying together something.

I can't remember what it was now. Genesis, I think. And I kept pestering him to tell me something about the epistle to the Romans. And he's a night bird. He comes home from his work, gets home at six.

We start Bible study at 7 .30. We go through to about two or three in the morning. One night, about midnight, I was due to leave his home where I'd been staying the next day. Midnight, I said, what about Romans?

I found Romans a very puzzling book. Heavy. I'm intimidated by it. Can you tell me anything about Romans? So we wandered through into his kitchen and made a cup of tea. And then he sat down on a sort of a sofa thing that he kept in his kitchen.

Put his feet up. He'd left his Bible in the other room. And he expounded to me, as I sat at the kitchen table, the first eight chapters of Romans, verse by verse, from memory. He's an unusual man. I've often thought that if ever I got locked up in a prison somewhere, I'd like to be in the same cell as him.

That is the result of years. Probably, on average, about four hours a day of Bible study. That's in addition to a full-time teaching career at a university. And quite often, three or four nights a week, preaching.

He doesn't go to bed terribly early. But very often between ten and one in the morning, ten and two, he's reading, studying the Bible. And the thing gets into you, don't you find this? If you give time to something, it does begin to sink into you.

I am hopeless at Bible memorization, let me confess it. I mean, I see little people sitting around learning the cards, you know. The navigator cards. I almost feel I'm unworthy to wash their shoes. I can't do that.

It doesn't work for me. But the thing that makes Bible stick in my mind, is having understood it in its context. So I've probably got hundreds of verses actually word perfect in there, but only because they've been studied in context.

And I know where they are. That has been the value of the reading and pondering. And, yeah, start with the small. Smaller stuff, maybe. But I would apply the same methods to the longer books, but not expect to necessarily feel I'd mastered a book.

If you can ever say that. You know what I mean. Feel you've got the thrust of it. Very quickly, if it's one of the longer ones. Ben. You have to speak up because they can't hear you. As far as reading is concerned, possibly yes.

You could do it mathematically and say 65 chapters, let me take 10 a day, and, you know, just over about a week I've done it. Or you could read it through a few times and decide how the book itself breaks itself up.

Because you may well find that the first 12 chapters are a unit, shall we say, for instance. And then it goes from 13 to 24 or something. I mean, I don't know, I'm just playing with numbers. And you could read it that way.

Are we happy? Can we turn? You've got some of the general ideas. Can we turn back now to Philippians? Dennis, do you want a seat? There's a beer box over here. You prefer eutychus to beer box, do you?

Close to this one. Empty beer box, is that also it? What do you know about the founding of the church in Philippi? That's a good question to ask yourself. Do I know anything about the background of this book?

The Founding of the Church at Philippi

Let me just assemble my ideas. Well, where are we going to look? Where are we going to look for the origins of the church in Philippi? Chapter 16? It was actually quite an important point, wasn't it? It was a turning point in the history of the development of the church.

Because instead of working east, Paul now was guided by a vision and went west. Went into Europe. Very significant stage in the unfolding guidance of the Spirit of God. There was a vision from a man of Macedonia which I'll know more about him.

But the result of that vision was an electric response of Paul. He crossed the water, he came into Europe, and I presume he started to look around to find the man from Macedonia who said, come over and help us.

And Paul never found him. At least there's no record of finding him. I imagine him wandering around Philippi for a day or two looking for this man. And he finished up in a ladies' meeting down by the river.

And they were gracious enough to give him five minutes and he preached a little bit and Lydia was very interested. And within probably less than a week Paul was imprisoned. And this is the start of the European evangelistic campaign.

He has come to this important city. It was a trading centre. It was on a major crossroads. It was a Roman colony. Significant tactical, strategic reasons for going there, but almost the entire work was done in a prison.

Interesting, isn't it? As you reflect on the origins of that church. All the human reasons that we might think out as to why it would be good for there to be an evangelistic campaign there. Actually, God within a very short time has his servant in a prison, locked up, and then the prison gets destroyed.

It's an example of one of the many surprises that the church in Europe is to begin to think about as being implicit in its growth and development from the very beginnings. God's ways are not always clever, thought out, computerised, strategic ways.

God took his servant into the prison and then smashed the prison. When you think of... What did the church consist of when Paul left? It consisted of about three people. Well, maybe a few more if you count the jailer's family.

There was Lydia. What do you know about her? She was a seller of purple. That may not even have been a name or a description of her trait. She seems to have been an oriental, Asiatic kind of lady and probably pretty well-to-do.

Fairly well-off. There's a converted Greek slave girl, demon-possessed up until the time Paul ministered to her. A demented slave girl, socially at the absolute bottom. I mean, the Greeks prized freedom above everything and they despised the slave, the bond-servant, the doulos.

We'll come back to that in a minute. And then there was the Philippian jailer, member of the sturdy Roman middle class. This town was a colony. They used to send out from the Roman army after people had worked, in most cases, 20 years of service.

They would send parties of 300 veterans military men, absolutely soaked in a military way of thinking, send them with their wives and kids and a cash grant of about 250 pounds and they would send them to key places all over the empire.

And they acted as centres of stability, centres of Roman culture and life. And they placed these colonies, technical term, at key trade posts or near strategic fortresses or barriers or rivers. It was part of the Roman peace that was spread out around the Mediterranean.

So Paul has come to this Roman colony. Interestingly enough, he says to the Philippians in chapter 3 verse 20 that you are a colony of heaven. Your citizenship, you believers, is in heaven from where we await a saviour who is Christ the Lord.

Paul comes to this group and after a very short time he is thrown out of town and the church consists of three nationalities, three different classes. The possibilities for division are enormous. The wealthy Asiatic lady, she's got more money than the rest of them combined.

The converted slave girl, interesting that two out of the three of the first church in Europe were women. And this middle class Roman ex-soldier. And you could hardly imagine a more uncomfortably, awkwardly put together team, could you?

If you were thinking of a church you'd wonder how on earth God would put them all together. What that does to the concept of homogeneity, I don't know. But God's done it anyway and we can't say anything about it because God gave the vision, God took him into Philippi, God allowed him to be locked up, God smashed the prison, God caused the jailer's heart to be absolutely prepared.

But what you've got left is the most ill-assorted group of Europeans different on national and class background. Now all that, with a little bit of background reading we can work out an imagination from the text of Acts 16.

So that'll give you some idea of perhaps a question of unity is going to be there in the background. I mean it doesn't take very much does it to imagine that situation and say well how on earth are those people going to get on.

You look at a team, I look at teams setting off from the summer campaign, you know. In the back of some battered old Dutch van you've got half a dozen assorted nationalities like licorice all sorts led by a person who's never led a team in their life.

They don't speak the language, they don't know each other. Half of them find difficulty communicating. How are they going to manage? They all believe roughly the same things. Well maybe Philippians would have something of a message for that situation as well.

I think of my own church back in England. It's a very interesting church. Ten years ago there, on a Sunday morning there would have been less than ten people. Now, well we have 200 seats and they're all full and people have to stand at the back.

And we've got a complete mixture of people. We've got refugees from local Anglican churches, Christadelphians, Roman Catholic. We've got the people who like to leap and dance. We've got the people who don't like to leap and dance.

We've got very traditional brethren, elders. We've got other kinds of people. All mixed up. Is this the book in scripture which is going to tell an OM team? It's going to speak into an OM conference. It's going to talk to a church like that where we are fundamentally sound.

I mean we all believe the Bible is the word of God. We're not in doubt about the deity of Christ and the resurrection and the second coming. But the difficulties are getting on together. All arising out of our hard attitudes need to be dealt with.

Reading Historical Context Through Cross-References

Now, let's move on a little bit. We still haven't looked at the text, you see, have we? But I'm slowly going through the kind of things that would govern my mind as I approach it. I want to know something of the background and are there any issues that seem to emerge from what the New Testament elsewhere says about the background of this epistle.

I'll give you another little thing you can think about. If you were looking at Ephesians, the previous letter, and you were thinking, well, what do I know about Ephesus in the New Testament? You're actually pretty well off because we know more about the church at Ephesus than any other church in the New Testament.

But the interesting thing is that as you look through a concordance, all the different references to Ephesus, historically, through Acts and over in Revelation and so on, the great majority have to do with fighting, battle, struggle, conflict.

And you'll find as you study through Ephesians that things sort of naturally, like a good sermon, falls into three sections and each section concludes with an enormous battle. The first two between God and Christ and that which is opposed to the purposes of God and then the last section is all about how we are to be clothed in the armour and prepared for war.

See? So looking through the concordance, picking out the references, background information to Ephesus, will give you, if you're alert, the hint that perhaps there's something to do with fighting and struggle and warfare going to emerge from this epistle.

Mm-hmm. Okay? Is the idea floated around? Good. Now then, as we read through the book, let's ask ourselves, does Paul say anywhere why he wrote it? I mean, it's very helpful in Bible study if you know why the thing has been written.

Well, he does. We can pick out a number of reasons. Possibly during the lunch break you might like to go away and read the epistle right through. It won't take you very long. It's only four chapters. He says in chapter 4, between verses 10 and 20, that it's a thank you letter for financial support.

Maybe in sending gifts. But I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your thought for me wherein you did indeed take thought but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not sitting here, broke and waiting for the post to drop the letterbox. I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein to be content. I know how to be abased. I know how also to abound in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry both to abound and to be in want.

I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me. How be it you did well that you had fellowship with me that marvelous old word for financial support you had fellowship with me in my affliction and you yourselves also know you Philippians that in the beginning of the gospel when I departed from Macedonia no church had fellowship with me in the matter of giving and receiving but only you.

There was a very special relationship between him and this first church in Europe. They seemed to have been about the only one that he accepted financial support from on a more than occasional basis. For even in Thessalonica you sent once and again unto my need.

More or less the next place he went to there in Greece. You Philippians you had a collection and you sent it. Not that I seek for the gift I seek for the fruit that increases to your account. But I have all things and abound.

I am filled having received from Epaphroditus the things that came from you and so on. So thanks dear friends and prayer partners for what you sent me. But he writes for a second reason and we can pick hints of that in chapter 2 verses 25 to 27.

And it's to do with this character Epaphroditus I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier and your messenger and minister to my need. That's quite a list of things that he's grateful to Epaphroditus for.

Since he longed after you all and was sore troubled because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick nigh unto death. But God had mercy on him and not on him only but on me also that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow.

I have sent him therefore the more diligently that when you see him again you may rejoice and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy and hold such in honour because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service towards me.

Now, what did you detect from that? He sent Epaphroditus back. The Philippians had already heard that Epaphroditus was sick. They had sent this chap and now the rumours come back that the fellow is sick and they think oh gross.

We send him to help Paul out and the first thing he does when he gets there is fall sick all over the place. What a useless ambassador he is on our behalf. Sure he took the bit of money that we collected but he's sprawling about he's not able to help he's not able to do much prayer he's just a burden on Paul and Paul sends him home eventually to carry the letter but he also sends the letter in order to introduce Epaphroditus and he's saying this look, don't ever think of condemning Epaphroditus give him a hero's welcome.

I beseech you because he nearly lost his life in the service of Christ not me. It was Christ that he was serving that idea getting it clear in your mind that you're not just serving people. This is something we get brought back to and have to learn again and again.

People will hurt serve the Lord give him a hero's welcome because he nearly lost his life serving the Lord. So that's the second reason why he's writing to make sure that they receive Epaphroditus not with grumbles and complaints and suggestions that he was a malingerer and he fell sick when he should have been working.

Philippians and the Problem of Disunity

But there's a third reason why he sends and that I think comes more to the core of the book. It is because he wants to share. He wants to respond to the rumours that he's getting of their disunity. Chapter 4 verse 2.

I exhort these two ladies Euodia and I exhort Sintike to be of the same mind in the Lord. These two ladies obviously quote spreading poison in the church. He says in chapter 1 verse 27. I want to hear that you are standing fast with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel.

I want to hear of your unity like gladiators that in the combat arena you are shoulder to shoulder. You're relying on the next person. You're working with the next person you're fighting as one. In chapter 2 verse 2 fulfill my joy that you be of the same mind.

You have the same love you be of one accord of one mind. So as you read through the whole book on one of your various readings it'll hit your head. He does talk an awful lot about unity. Unity. Interesting feature isn't it.

Here we have a church the same church committed to evangelism. And yet there's many tensions. It's often true. Isn't it that in a church that is the most committed to missionary endeavour or to evangelistic outreach in the area around people who have fellowship with Paul in his gospel work.

There you get the greatest divisions. In a church that's asleep. Well people often are fairly united. It's the unity of snoring together. But he wants to deal with what I call a certain tendency to division beneath the surface hasn't broken out.

But it's there and it arises from the heart. Now some of you are taking notes. I want to give you now the fruits of my own. Read Read Read program. Four features that come out of the book as I read through the first of this.

And if you're taking notes write down these words. Because I want you to to be able to go away. And as you read through the book look for traces of teaching on these subjects. The first is work. The book tells us a lot about work.

Work as a Feature of Christian Discipleship

Christian work you start at the beginning. Paul says right from the start I am so grateful when I think I thank my God in all my remembrance of you always in every supplication of mine on behalf of you all making my supplication with joy for your fellowship in furtherance of the gospel.