salvation – Three Minute Bible

April 21, 2025April 21, 2025

Colossians 4:12 – Epaphras’s Prayer

Picture of the jailer in Acts 16 who is asking Paul, "What must I do to be saved?"

Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.

Summary: Epaphras’s prayer is a wonderful model of what to pray for ourselves and each other.

In this passage, we learn a bit more about Epaphras.* Paul says he is “one of you” which I take to mean he is originally from Colossae. Somewhere along the line, Epaphras must have met up with Paul because Paul explains that Epaphras brought the Gospel to Colossae “on our behalf.”

February 21, 2025February 21, 2025

Colossians 3:11 – A Place Called “Here”

Picture of a mirror , two butterflies, and a caterpillar.

Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Summary: There is a place that is not a place where God wants us to be. When we get there, we discover that our differences are not what we thought they were.

There is a place where hate and division do not exist. It is not a physical place, although you might say the place Paul is talking about is in the physical place we live.

Where is this place within a place?

February 7, 2025February 7, 2025

Colossians 3:7 – Working for Heaven

Illustration of Matthew 10:1-16 where the landowner pays his workers at the end of the day.

You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.

Summary: It is one thing to understand that God offers us salvation through his Son, Jesus Christ. It is another to understand the difference between our lives before knowing Jesus and after.

After hearing that the “wrath of God” is coming, there is nothing more delightful to the soul than hearing that there is hope of avoiding God’s wrath.

Paul has just listed some of the reasons God’s wrath is coming. They include but are not limited to sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed. (Paul has other lists in his letters that are more extensive.)

November 5, 2024November 5, 2024

Colossians 1:23a – IF

… if …

Summary: A short little word can mean a lot, especially when used as a condition for Christ’s redemption.

October 14, 2024October 14, 2024

Colossians 1:14 – The Key to Heaven

… in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Summary: Saving us from hell turns out to be a complicated business. Some we may never understand. What we do know suggests that the cost of our salvation is very high.

September 24, 2024September 24, 2024

Colossians 1:5b-6a – The Devil and the Details

… and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.

Summary: Paul has a lot to say about the Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. Sometimes it is hard to sort out the gift from the wrapping paper.

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023

Ephesians 4:24a – Programmed for Life

… and to put on the new self,

Summary: Using a computer for a modern metaphor for a spiritual concept is helpful. We operate in a similar way. The one major difference is that unlike the computer, we get to choose our “programming.”

September 4, 2021September 4, 2021

2 Peter 1:3c — The Day Everything Changed

… through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Summary: Peter reminds us that the reason for Jesus to be born as a human here on earth was to establish a new covenant that replaced the old.

August 13, 2020August 13, 2020

1 Peter 2:24 (c) — The Back Side of the Page

Picture: Earth as seen from space with an unearthly glow.

…“by his wounds you have been healed.”

As we work our way through Peter’s letter, I find myself marveling at how much information Peter was able to pack into a few words. I also admire how well it correlates with the rest of the Bible. In a way, it is as if Peter has handed us a key to understanding the rest of Scripture.

In “Innocence Found” (1 Peter 2:24 (a)), we explored a thought experiment that ended with a close-up view of Jesus on the cross. To say that we have been healed by Jesus’ wounds is, at the very least, thought-provoking. How does that work? We know what kind of wounds Jesus suffered for our sake, but what kind of wound were we healed from?

June 23, 2020June 23, 2020

1 Peter 1:12 (b) — Beyond Measure

Even angels long to look into these things.

Every once in awhile a verse seems to jump out of the Bible at me. This is one of those verses.

Peter is telling us about salvation. Broadly speaking “salvation” in this case refers to several things. It begins with God’s plan for redeeming His creation. Remember the story in Genesis where God says, “… you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die”? (Genesis 2: 16-17)

Interestingly, the current version of the NIV is in the minority here. Thirty-eight of fifty-two translations available at Biblegateway.com use some version of “day,” as in “… in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (ESV) As I understand the text, when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3, God’s word holds true. They “die” from God’s point of view.