Colossians: Week 1

How to study the bible

What is the Bible:

The bible is a book comprised 66 books and two testaments

The there are two testaments the old testament goes by many different names. Hebrew bible, OT, old covenant , ect. the book focuses on Gods work with the nation of Israel.

The OT is comprised of many covenant that were made by God and his people such as the Noaic, Mosaic, and Davidic these covenant find their fulfillment in the NT

NT starts witht Gospels M M L J, followed by the acts of the apostles. from there we get what is called an espistle.

Epistles are letters that cover various teaching of jesus and instructions for how believers should act live and be.

most of the epistles with the expection of hebrews, Peter 1,2. the letters could be written to whole churches such as cor, col, thes, Rom, or it could be addressed to a person such as tim, Philimeon

The book concludes with a books tittled revelation which was writen by an apostle named john of patmos

all of these books came to being and makes up what we now call the canon of scripture

The canon refers to the authoritative word of God. this means that the 66 books we have and their order matters as the process took years and many concils

we say that the bible was written by God this means that through the holy spirit God used mans hand to make what we now use as scriptures and we can have confidence that this is the word of God.

How do we study the bible

Art and science : the bible shouls be read as both factual but also artisitc there are many accounts in the scripture where the author take an artisic or poetic take on an event to covey a reality.

Historically: The bible contains historical accounts which are backed up by archeology and extra biblical acounts such as philo and jospheus and various other historians. additonally the bible is full of historicall figures

Artisitcally: as mentioned earlier the bible is packed full of beautifull imagery to potray theological realities Isiah, ezikeil

Theologically: the bible informs all of our theology surrounding God. and

Devotionally: The general purpose of a devotional is to encourage spiritual growth.

Contextually: we need to read the bible in context. it is written to for us but not to us we need to understand the context of the time and who it was written to.

Jerimiah 29: 11 example

Philipians 4:13

Colossians

This is a pauline epistle. which means it is written by the apostle paul. who was a converted jew and roman citizen turned chrsitian.

Paul writes his letter to the church in colosae. the colossian church belonged to a town called colosaae which was destoryed in the 8th century by an earthquake

this epistle has two authors paul and another one named timothy it was written to a church that was relativly new. the church was likely started in the early years of pauls ministry the church started between 52-55 and the letter was written in the year 62

Importance of reading the bible as whole

the church got its start from a believer who heard pauls preaching in Acts 19:10

Acts 19:10 ESV

10 This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

Colossians 1:7 ESV

7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf

Intent: The text was written to educated the believers about dangerous false teachings and help believers reach maturity

the whole theme of the book is to point that chirst is lord over all creation including the things unscene and that he secured redemption of his people enabling them to participate with him in his death deatha nd resurection .

Colossians 1:15 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

The colossian church was a community of believers who were full of faith but they needed to grow. they were in culture who sought to discredit their faith in christ and needed to be ready to know their stance with christ

I believe that the spirit lead me to study this book for us to grow. we are a community who knows God now and i pray you all love God but i believe that all of us can and should take the next step in our faith and seek to grow with christ i believe that we can learn from the church of colosae and the power of the spirit.