Month: January 2025
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Colossians 1:15-20: Jesus in the Trinity
In the second portion of Colossians 1, Paul switches to talking about Christology – the part of theology that studies the nature and work of Jesus. But before we dig into the content, let’s quickly look at the style. Some consider the passage to be an early Christian hymn, called The Hymn in Honour of…
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Colossians 1:1-14: ‘the gospel is bearing fruit’
Colossians 1 starts with Paul giving some encouragement to his audience. But who are they? Paul’s readers in Colossians Colossae was part of a major trading route in the Lycus valley, named after a river in Phrygia in Anatolia. This is now modern-day Turkey. It was famous at the time for manufacturing woollen fabrics. There…
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The case against church membership covenants
In their book A Church Called Tov, Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer flag up the dangers of churches making people sign membership covenants in order to join. They point to how such contracts, apparently increasingly common in US churches, have been weaponised. They require people to raise concerns only in fixed ways and have been…
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‘Forget not all his benefits’, urged King David
Yesterday, I wrote that Christianity doesn’t offer “cheap grace”. That’s the idea that someone can claim to be a Christian, spend a lifetime ignoring God and then expect to be saved at death. Christianity, in fact, involves becoming a disciple. Some might find the consequences of that unappealing compared with the excitement of the world.…
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Christianity doesn’t offer ‘cheap grace’
One of the things Christians are accused of is promoting a religion that’s too demanding. People thought that they could go to church soemtimes, have a nice time, be served a custard cream after singing a few hymns and then end up in heaven. And then they come across these Christians – maybe members of…
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1 Peter 5: be servants to the flock
The idea of God, and of leaders who follow him, acting as a shepherd runs through the Bible. In Genesis, Jacob refers to “the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day”. The term is best associated, in the Old Testament, with David. In 2 Samuel, David is anointed King of…
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1 Peter 4: don’t give in to peer pressure
Peter continues his theme of suffering for being a Christian, now addressing the problem of peer pressure. In 1 Peter 4, he connects the suffering that Jesus purposefully experienced on the cross and says that we should arm ourselves with the same resolve. He writes (in the NIV): For you have spent enough time in…
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Philemon: Paul urges freedom for a slave
Philemon, the New Testament letter from Paul to a Christian leader, offers a diplomatic, though compelling, message that Philemon needs to give up his slave. The backstory is that Onesimus, a runaway slave “owned” by Philemon, has fallen out with his “master” but become friends with Paul, who is imprisoned (probably) in Ephesus. And the…
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1 Peter 3: be ready to ‘sing the wonderous story’
Peter is famous in the Gospels for the unfortunate part where he denies Christ three times before a chicken disrupted everyone’s peace. Yet Jesus recommissions him. In John 21, after Jesus has been brought back to life, the Messiah asks Peter three times whether he loves him. After that effective verbal reversal of the three…
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1 Peter 2 v11-25: suffering in the early church
Suffering is a running theme through the whole book of 1 Peter. In this passage, the second half of the chapter, the followers of Jesus in are encouraged to let Christ’s light shine through their lives, despite the problems they face. Shining light despite suffering The apostle starts off by returning to an idea, from…
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1 Peter 2 v4-10: what does the Bible mean by cornerstone?
When I was a teenager, I spent a summer holiday working on a building site. It involved a lot of mixing concrete and cement. Yet when I first properly thought about the building term “cornerstone”, as it appears in 1 Peter 2, it was a little alien. That’s because modern construction methods don’t require one.…
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1 Peter 2 v1-3: crave spiritual milk
In the James Bond film Spectre, 007 uncovers the work of a sinister global criminal organisation. The body, Spectre, stands for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. It actually embeds its support for malicious intentions in its name. Most people, however, would like to think of themselves as good, even when there’s a…