Lesson 26: Disciples Learn in Community with One Another

What we want students to learn: That embracing Christian community means growing in the knowledge of Christ together.

What we want students to do with what they’ve learned: To identify, and commit to, specific ways they can grow in their knowledge of God with others in their community.

Scripture Focus: Colossians 1:3-12

Supporting Scripture: Acts 2:42, 46

One of the things we see most powerfully in the Jerusalem church is their commitment to learning about God together. Over and over again in Scripture, we see groups of people gathering together to learn about God. You’ve already made the case for your students that an important aspect of being a disciple is hungering to know God. What we learn is that a big part of embracing Christian community is embracing the practice of corporately growing in our knowledge of God, specifically through Bible Study OR through listening to someone teach the Bible. This is a habit that many of your students already practice. But understanding that it is a VALUE of people seeking to follow after Christ will help your students take their commitment to the next level.

The Scriptures are often written to US. Not Me!

In this portion of the beginning of the letter to the Colossians, Paul is thanking God for the faith of the Colossians and encouraging them to continue pursuing God. Paul does not want their faith to stagnate, but wants to continue pushing them to learn, grow, and “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:9). Not only does Paul address the church as a group that is growing together, he treats them as partners, even though he is not their pastor. Paul sees the Christian movement growing in the knowledge of God together, not separately or individually.

“one-vs-all” style. (NO PHONES!)

Timer: 45 seconds and start the quiz. After you’ve given them enough time, go over the answers. The answers are as follows:

Penny: Abraham Lincoln

Nickel: Thomas Jefferson

Dime: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Quarter: George Washington

$1 Bill: George Washington

$5 Bill: Abraham Lincoln

$10 Bill: Alexander Hamilton

$20 Bill: Andrew Jackson

$50 Bill: Ulysses S. Grant

$100 Bill: Benjamin Franklin

This is a pretty difficult task to do on your own. It’s hard to remember, but many times others remember things you didn’t.

Ask the student who took the quiz alone: What made this so hard?

The answer to this will probably be “yes.”The idea that you want your students to see is the value of being with others – they can fill in some gaps and help you see things, remember things, and learn things that you couldn’t on your own.

It’s easy for us to think that we have to figure everything about Christianity out on our own. We feel like we need to be perfectly pursuing God in our own lives before we can really discuss it with others. That’s like trying to rely only on your own memory. It’s so much better when we can work together – even in learning about God!

FIRST, start with asking your students to open up their Bibles to Colossians. Then, provide the context for the book using the Bible Background. Then, have a student read Colossians 1:1 “1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,”

What do you notice there? Apparently, Paul did not write this letter alone. Timothy was also there – they were working together.

Colossians 1:3-8 “3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.”

Paul says that he and Timothy thank God for the Colossians. Why do they thank God for them?

Answer: Look at verse 4. They’re thanking God because of their faith in Jesus and the love that they have for other believers.

Why do you think is it such a big deal to Paul that these folks are worshipping in Colossae?

Answer: It was an encouragement for Paul to see people worshipping Jesus in other places – it wasn’t because he had started up a big movement, it was because they loved Jesus. Explain to students that Paul hadn’t been to Colossae, but there was a group of people worshipping Jesus there. Think about how encouraging that would be: it’s not as if there were only churches in the places Paul planted them. God was growing Christians even in places Paul had never been! The passage points to this in verse 6, when Paul mentioned that the Gospel is “indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing.” Paul is seeing the story of what Jesus has done spread throughout the whole world!

How did this group of people in Colossae find out about Jesus?

Answers will vary. You might get some answers about the Bible or others, but encourage your students to really look at the passage you’re reading. Point them to verse 7. The ESV Study Bible notes that the Colossians learned from Epaphras. Ephaphras was a Colossian (Col. 4:12), who returned to his hometown and helped the church begin there. He most likely met Paul while Paul was in Ephesus. The church in Colossae is an example of how God was moving through Believers working together to spread the story of what Jesus had done!

Paul is not just pointing out that he and Timothy and Epaphras were working hard for the Gospel of Jesus, but that he wanted the Colossians to join with them in growing in faith. The Gospel was not only growing and increasing in the world, but in the Colossian church. Paul is going to demonstrate this in his second prayer for them.

Read Colossians 1:9-12 “9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.”

What is Paul saying that he and Timothy are praying for the Colossians in this passage?

Answer: He’s really praying one thing: that they would grow in the knowledge of God and what He is calling them to do. Paul does not want the Gospel to stop its growth by going to Colossae, but to continue the growth in their hearts.

What would the result be of the Colossians being filled with the knowledge of God like this?

They will walk in a manner worth of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God (vs. 7). It’s interesting that Paul mentions more increase in the knowledge of God; this growth is not something that stops.

What does it mean to “walk in a manner worth of the Lord”?

Help them see that Paul is moving the Colossians toward an understanding that they are representatives of Jesus. The same is true of us. If we are claiming to follow Jesus, the world will look at us for an example of how to follow God. Are we walking in a way that is worthy of that? Do we show the world a good example of what it looks like to follow Jesus?

Paul ends this passage by talking about what Jesus has done for us. Read vs. 10-12 again. Why does Paul talk about us sharing “in the inheritance of the saints?”

Answer: As Paul discusses our faith in Christ and how that changes the way we live, he points again to the fact that we are not alone. We’re not expected to learn about God by ourselves, follow Him perfectly by ourselves, or even pray for others by ourselves. We are living the Christian life together!

Explain to students that the idea of togetherness in faith is an important one. There will be times in life when they feel alone. They may feel like they are the only one in their friend group who is really trying to follow Jesus. It’s so important for us to realize that God has given us a Christian community to pursue Him with together. Even if we don’t feel like there is anyone immediately in front of us to walk arm-in-arm with, we are a part of a global, historical movement of Christians!

In Colossians, Paul was talking to people who lived in a different city but who had placed their faith in the same Jesus as he had. He was witnessing the spread of the truth of Jesus. We’re going to close the lesson by looking at how that started in the book of Acts.

Think about the quiz we took at the beginning. Imagine if school worked that way. What if you had the option to take every quiz with a group of people. Why would you ever choose to take something alone? Yet, that’s exactly what we do with our faith. God has given us relationships with other people to help us grow in our faith, but we try to do everything by ourselves.

The church that Paul was writing to in Colossae believed that Jesus died for our sins, came back to life, and ascended back to be with God. How did that message get from the disciples to the Colossians? It started to spread after Jesus left, in Jerusalem, where the disciples were gathered. As you recall from last week, Peter preached about Jesus and thousands of people believed. Jesus told them that this would happen, but He didn’t exactly tell them what to do next.