54+ articles · Verse by verse
Long-form study. Plain English.
Every article does the hard work — what the words meant to the first readers, the historical context, the first-century background — then hands it to you in words you already know.
54 articles · page 2 of 3

Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals still divide churches today. Paul calls them a shadow, and then names the thing casting it.

The thing that changed how I read the Bible was seeing Christ at the centre of all of it. That also makes it easier to spot teaching that quietly moves Him off centre.

Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. Before you can argue about the rules, you have to follow Paul's train of thought, and that is a skill worth learning.

You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul describes something that has already happened to you, whether or not it feels that way.

Dying to self and rising with Christ is not a figure of speech to Paul. Baptism is where he says that actually happened.

“Seated at the right hand of God.” The phrase comes from Psalm 110, the psalm the New Testament quotes more than any other, and it is a promise being collected.

Eschatology is not a side hobby for prophecy enthusiasts. Paul builds his instructions for ordinary daily life directly on top of it.

Seek the things above, set your mind there, and put to death what belongs to the earth. Three commands that carry the whole chapter.

Paul calls them the elect of God, and that one word has divided Christians for centuries. The main interpretations, laid out fairly.

Tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Paul hands out a wardrobe rather than a checklist, and love is the belt that holds it together.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts. One phrase from my wife settles me faster than almost anything: not my circus, not my monkeys.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Not visit occasionally, not drop by on Sunday. Dwell. A look at what that would actually take.

“In the name of Jesus” gets used like a password at the end of prayers. Paul means something closer to acting under someone else's authority.

Few verses raise the temperature faster than this one. What Paul is actually asking of wives, read in full and in context rather than in isolation.

Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. The word Paul chooses for love is the costly one, and the warning attached is worth hearing.

Children obeying parents comes with a promise attached. What that promise is, and what it is not guaranteeing.

Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. A short verse aimed squarely at dads, and it lands harder than it reads.

Paul tells bondservants to obey rather than calling for abolition, and that troubles modern readers. The historical context matters enormously here.

Prayer draws less attention than the rapture and the antichrist, which says something. Learning to actually talk to God, from Paul's instructions to Colossae.

A devout Pharisee meets the risen Christ on a road and ends up shaping Western civilisation from a prison cell. Paul's story still moves me.

Walk in wisdom, redeem the time, season your speech with salt. Living deliberately in a world engineered to keep you distracted.

Always be ready to answer, and answer with grace. Apologetics is not about winning arguments, and tact is not a compromise.

Paul closes Colossians with a list of names most readers skim straight past. Every one of them was carrying part of the work, and that is exactly the point.

Before there were church buildings, there were living rooms. A look at where the first Christians actually met, and what Colossae and Laodicea tell us about it.