Alex Singleton

  • Titus 2: God’s grace is offered to all

    In Titus 2, Paul talks about how God showed his grace though Jesus by cleansing us of our sins and now wants us to be “eager to do good works”. He writes (CSB): For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to…

  • Obadiah and the perils of schadenfreude

    Taking a break from New Testament letters, today I’m looking at the minor prophet in the Old Testament called Obadiah. A big theme of the Obadiah’s written down prophesy, which forms the smallest book in the Old Testament, is that of schadenfreude. This is “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune” according to the…

  • Titus 1 and the sanctification of the Spirit

    Paul writes to his missionary friend Titus in Crete to address a problem that has arisen in the local church. Some people on the Greek island are probably running small house churches with the wrong motivations. The letter suggests that they are only interested in money, have lots of weird theological ideas, and behave badly.…

  • The theology of sola fide in ‘The Cross’

    The Bethel Music song The Blood highlights the idea of “sola fide” – the Reformation concept, in Latin, of salvation by faith alone. The lyrics read: It’s never been about performancePerfection striving for acceptanceLet me tell youIt’s only by the bloodIt’s never been about deserving or earningIt’s a gift that’s freely givenLet me tell youIt’s…

  • Jude versus fake teachers in the early church

    In the 1992 Genesis single Jesus He Knows Me, Phil Collins portrays a US television evangelist who’s motivated by money and not by God. The lyrics include: Won’t find me practisin’ what I’m preachin’Won’t find me makin’ no sacrificeBut I can get you a pocketful of miraclesIf you promise to be good, try to be…

  • Colossians 4: full-on prayer lives

    The Bible continually flags prayer as important and powerful and central to our relationship with God, yet it’s something that’s easy to overlook. We can be great organisers of activities, distributing leaflets, sharing messages on social media, making sure there are custard creams and tea bags at the ready, and ensuring the sound system is…

  • Colossians 3: how to live as a Christian

    In yesterday’s instalment, I looked at the so-called Colossian heresy. Paul urged the Colossians to avoid weird ideas and stick the what we might call orthodox Christianity. Now, in Colossians 3, he moves on to some encouragement on the sort of lives the Colossians should live. In short, he urges them to “set your hearts…

  • Colossians 2 and the Colossian heresy

    In Colossians 2, Paul urges the young church in Colossae to stick firmly to what we might now call orthodox Christian views. In the background, this church faces a danger now know as the Colossian heresy. This is not a church that has gone completely off the rails and reinvented itself into a cult: Paul…

  • Colossians 1:24-29: progressive revelation

    Today we are going to look at three of the big ideas in Colossians 1:24-29, including an especially big idea about “progressive revelation”. 1. Christianity involves suffering Although the Holy Spirit has been provided to us and many miracles have taken place, God has not offered us a magic wand in which anything miraculous will…

  • Colossians 1:22-23: perseverance matters

    Sometimes you’ll hear Christians promote the idea: “Once saved always saved”. It’s a reassuring claim – though not one that I subscribe to, in part because of passages such as Colossians 1:22-23. Andrew David Naselli, a prominent Calvinist scholar and pastor in the US, says the concept is “misleading“. What does Colossians 1:22-23 say? Paul…

  • 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…

  • 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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Abraham Bartimaeus Ben Witherington III Charles Wesley Handel Isaac Isaiah 6 James 1 James 2 James 3 James 4 James 5 John Wesley Justification King David King Solomon Magi Mark 8 Mark 10 Matthew 5 Moses N.T. Wright Nathan the Prophet Penal substitutional atonement Pharaoh Richard Dawkins Romans 8 Scot McKnight Sovereignty The Children's Society Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion Zacchaeus Zadok the Priest