Come and study Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast, The Whole Council of God.

Father Stephen is a former Protestant pastor and Bible teacher in the Reformed Church,

but now an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Now may the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,

that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And just to note, that word believing, again, is the same verb as faith.

And so it would be better translated, peace and faithfulness.

All right. So that as you're faithful to Christ, as you're living your life of faithfulness, God would fill you with joy and peace

so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. That sounds like a conclusion.

Yes, this is his second sort of benediction.

Remember?

He said back in verse 5,

Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you.

So these are his sort of parting benedictions.

We're working our way.

We're coming to the end here.

He says in verse 14,

Now I myself am confident concerning you, my brethren,

that you also are full of goodness,

filled with all knowledge,

able also to admonish one another.

This is that exhortation one.

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