The truth of Christianity is not a secret which is hidden; it is a secret which is revealed. — The Letter to the Colossians, William Barclay, page 157.

The fact that a man is loved does not give him carte blanche to do as he likes; it lays upon him the greatest obligation in the world, the obligation of being worthy of that love. …it makes things almost agonizingly and impossibly difficult, for it lays upon us this ultimate obligation of seeking to […]

He is the living Lord; He is the source and origin of the Church; He is the constant director of the Church; and He is the Lord of all, by virtue of His victory over death. — The Letter to the Colossians, William Barclay, page 146

The Christian prayer is: “Make me, O Lord, victorious over every circumstance; make me patient with every person; and withal give me the joy which no circumstance and no man will ever take from me.” — William Barclay, Page 132 – The Letter to the Colossians

Part of a series on the History of Christian Theology Background Four Marks of the Church Early Christianity · Timeline History of Christianity Theology · Ecclesiastical polity Trinitarianism · Nontrinitarianism Christology · Mariology Biblical Canon: Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal books Creeds Apostles’ Creed · Nicene Creed Chalcedonian · Athanasian Patristic theology & Councils Church Fathers · […]

Jesus will return Hilda Bright and Helen Pocock This commentary has been through Advanced Checking. Words in boxes are from the Bible. A word list at the end explains words with a *star by them. About this letter The writer Peter wrote this letter. His name used to be Simon, but Jesus changed it to […]

If we are to accept the teaching of Jesus at all, then the only test of the reality of a man’s religion is his attitude to his fellow men. The only possible proof that a man loves God is the demonstrated fact that he loves his fellow men.
— William […]

THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM Revelation 2:12—17 And to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write: These things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword. I know where your home is. I know that it is where the throne of Satan is; and yet you hold fast to my name, and have not denied […]

EPHESUS: A RUINOUS HERESY Revelation 2:1—7 (contd) HERE, we meet a heresy which the risen Christ says that he hates and which he praises Ephesus for also hating. It may seem strange to attribute hatred to the risen Christ; but two things are to be remembered. First, if we love anyone with passionate intensity, we […]

EPHESUS: THE STEPS ON THE RETURN JOURNEY Revelation 2:1—7 (contd) IN Ephesus, something had gone wrong. The earnest toil was there; the gallant endurance was there; the faultless orthodoxy was there; but the love had gone. So the risen Christ makes his appeal, and it is for the three steps of the return journey. (1) […]

THE ISLAND OF BANISHMENT Revelation 1:9 (contd) JOHN tells us that, when the visions of Revelation came to him, he was in Patmos. It was the unanimous tradition of the early Church that he was banished to Patmos in the reign of Domitian. Jerome says that John was banished in the fourteenth year after Nero […]

THE GOD IN WHOM WE TRUST Revelation 1:8 I am alpha and omega, says the Lord God, he who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. HERE is a tremendous description of the God in whom we trust and whom we adore. (1) He is alpha and omega. Alpha is the […]