colossians on Ministry

Preaching Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Letter to Real People In the understanding of, and preaching on, any section of the Revelation of John , it is ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Letter to Real People In the understanding of, and preaching on, any section of the Revelation of John , it is critical to know that t...

The ministry of Jesus does not end with his resurrection. In his ascension, he does not abandon his humanity. He is not the ascended Lord apart from everything that has happened between his incarnatio...

Kingdom is a signpost to the holy.

Living in the kingdom of God is a matter of living with God's action in our lives.

Origen, in the third century, had a great analogy. He told of a village with a huge statue—so immense you couldn’t see exactly what it was supposed to represent. Finally, someone miniaturized the stat...

‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, Such a dainty, fragile child, But the one we know is bold and strong We can hear that in your dying song, Little boy, little boy. ‘Just a boy of flesh and b...

This kingdom, however, is not a geographical place; it is not even heaven. It is the in-breaking rule of God over the lives of those who submit to God’s rule. It is God’s rule over a creation gone ast...

Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o...

One of the main linguists that worked on Rosetta Stone , a computerized language-learning tool, moved to Vietnam in 1962… of his own free will! He and a ministry partner went to translate the Bibl...

When the Church tries to embody the rule of God in the forms of earthly power it may achieve that power, but it is no longer a sign of the kingdom.

Leader: Arise! Shine! Christ’s Church has assembled. People: We are one body, with Christ as our head. Leader: What kind of body is this? People: The Body of Christ, brought together not by huma...

Jesus made clear that the Kingdom of God is organic and not organizational. It grows like a seed and it works like leaven: secretly, invisibly, surprisingly, and irresistibly.

Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...

My mom studied horticulture and could make a dead stick grow leaves. I do not have her genes. So what I am telling you know comes from sources who do know about fig trees. Here’s what they tell me. Fi...

The kingdom of the Christ-child gets to work when we stop, and pause, and look in wonder once more at the baby lying in the manger, and like Mary ponder in our hearts what it all means. Only through d...

Churches are not the kingdom of God, but are primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of the presence of the kingdom among us.

It would be an understatement to say the term gospel is an important term in the Scriptures. Not only is it central in Scripture, but churches have adopted the term as their most beloved adjective. Yo...

You, oh Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven; You, the land promised to the gentle; You the grazing lands of paradise; You, the hall of the celestial banquet; You, the ineffable marriage chamber; You the...

The kingdom of God is an alternative arrangement of human society around Jesus which leads to human flourishing.

I had just finished presenting much of the material in this chapter [on the role of the Church helping the poor] to an audience in Africa. A very tall and muscular African man in the audience approach...

Dear Lord and God, I thank and praise You for Your Word, the Holy Scriptures, and for the promise that Your Holy Spirit will guide me into all truth. Give me a teachable spirit so that I may learn all...

May you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work ...

Continually, Jesus described the Kingdom in terms that one can’t point to and identify specifically—but in every story, the Kingdom was the essential piece. The Kingdom is mixed in and present already...

The forgiveness of Christ is the foundation of the Christian mission.

The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin word sacramentum. It was used in two ways at the time. First, it described the oath taken by soldiers in the Roman army. It was a sacred pledge of allegiance....

Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own sermons, as I was trying to help a congregation see itself not as a building, but the body of Christ. It has been adapted for TPW. No...

Faith and good works are both necessary. But one is the root and the other the fruit.

Let us enter into worship, acknowledging the Lordship of Christ and his work of reconciliation by proclaiming together the words of Colossians 1:15-20, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first...

Jesus’ good news, then, was that the Kingdom of God had come, and that he, Jesus, was its herald and expounder to men. More than that, in some special, mysterious way, he was the Kingdom.