Author: Fred Sanders

In Colossians 1:10, Paul prays that the Colossians would be able to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.” In its original Greek, it’s a a rougher sentence, reading something like this: “to walk worthy of the Lord in all pleasing.” Most responsible translations do something to smooth that out,…

Some things are worth thinking about, and some things just aren’t. Some subjects repay closer examination, and the longer you spend meditating on them, the more they reveal their own richness and unfold their conceptual complexity. Other things have the opposite effect: the more time and effort you put into pondering them, the more you…

The redoubtable Dustin Steeve linked recently to a Christianity Today review of the book Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, by John and Stasi Eldredge. The reviewer, Agnieszka Tennant, doesn’t recognize herself in the descriptions of woman offered by this book, decked out in “pop psychology, sentimentality, eisegesis, and clichés borrowed from Harlequin…

Paul’s prayer for the church at Colossae (Colossians 1:9-14) is a catalog of the blessings he wants God to give them: knowledge, spiritual wisdom, understanding, a worthy walk, eagerness to please God, fruitfulness, growth in knowledge, strength, endurance, patience, and joy. With all of that going on in the prayer, I still think it’s safe…

In Colossians 1:6, Paul mentions “The word of truth, the Gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing — as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.” The most important thing happening in…

In Colossians 1:4-5, Paul says that whenever he prays for the church in Colossae, he thanks God because of their faith in Christ, their love for the saints, and the hope laid up for them in heaven. Faith, hope, and love. That triad sounds familiar because Paul uses it to conclude the famous “love chapter,”…

Bruce L. McCormack of Princeton Seminary is a serious theologian. He’s not messing around, trying things out, or riding hobby horses; he’s reading and writing Christian theology as if it matters, as if something depends on it. In an article in the new issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology (“Karl Barth’s Christology as…

The whole Middlebrow team has stayed busy this summer working with Wheatstone Academy, a ministry which runs week-long summer conferences to equip young people to take a full-grown Christian faith and worldview to college with them. Starting Sunday, we’ll be leading the final conference of the summer. At this conference, faculty and students will spend…

Before he gives his testimony of conversion to Christ, Nabeel Qureshi makes it clear that he was perfectly satisfied with Islam as he experienced it. He tells about his upbringing in a devout, peaceful, and intellectual Muslim family, where he was a role model for other Muslim children because he had read the Qur’an in…