286+ 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.
286 articles · page 9 of 12

The Greek word Paul chooses for revealed points to a single past event, not a slow drip. What God unveiled, He unveiled once, and it holds.

Paul writes “as it is written,” then quotes a line you cannot quite find in the Old Testament. What he was drawing on, and what he wanted it to stir in us.

For this reason, I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church. (1 Co 4:17).

Who are the rulers of this age who crucified the Lord of glory? Roman officials, Jewish leaders, or something standing behind both? Scholars are genuinely split.

There is a wisdom God settled on before the ages began, and the rulers of this age missed it completely. Had they seen it, Paul says, they would never have crucified Him.

Paul determined to know nothing among them except Christ and Him crucified. One message, preached everywhere, and he never once apologised for repeating it.

Young preachers learn delivery, polish, and stage presence. Paul came to Corinth in weakness and trembling, and says that was entirely deliberate.

Paul spent eighteen months in Corinth making tents and preaching the gospel. How he carried a trade and a ministry at the same time without dropping either.

Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble. Paul tells the Corinthians to look around at who God actually chose, and explains why that is the whole point.

Pop-eschatology reads Matthew 24 as a future Great Tribulation. Before accepting that, it is worth asking who Jesus was speaking to and what He told them to do.

Jews wanted a sign, Greeks wanted an argument, and God gave them a crucifixion. Why the least impressive option turned out to be the powerful one.

The cross looks like foolishness to a clever world. Paul is not being anti-intellectual here; he is telling us where real wisdom actually comes from.

Paul thanks God he baptised almost nobody, then keeps remembering more people he baptised. Behind the comedy is a serious point about who your loyalty belongs to.

Church splits and personal feuds are not a modern invention. Corinth had them first, and Paul's response to the drama is blunter than you would expect.

I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. The Corinthians had picked teams, and Paul answers with a question that still lands: is Christ divided?

Many traditions mark faith with a rite called confirmation. Paul uses the same idea for something God does, and keeps doing, right to the end.

Paul is about to spend sixteen chapters correcting this church. He opens by thanking God for them, and that order is not an accident.

“This generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.” Reading Jesus' prophecies without deciding in advance what they must mean.

One phrase, “the church of God,” ended up on a hundred denominational signs. What Paul meant by it in the Greek, and how far it travelled from there.

Paul called himself an apostle, and plenty of people claim the title today. Here is what the New Testament actually attaches to that word, and what it does not.

Paul planted the Corinthian church around 50 AD in a wealthy port city built on trade. Knowing what Corinth was like explains almost everything that follows.

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.

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.

Endless speculation about the antichrist produces fear and paralysis, not faith. There is a steadier way to read prophecy, and it starts with what was already fulfilled.