An Introduction to Colossians, Part 1
Notes
Transcript
Handout
This sermon will endeavor to look at the life of Paul as an example of a life redeemed and lived in service to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to value the legacy that has been left for us because of the way he chose to live in that redemption. From the examples he has left us we will strive to make practical application as to how we can live a life redeemed in service to the Lord Jesus.
Colossians 1:1 .
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
What do we know about Paul?
From this phrase we learn three things:
First, he is the author of the book of Colossians.
Second, he is an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Third, his apostleship is by the will of God.
What else do we know about the author who was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write Colossians?
We do not have extensive biographical information on Paul since he is not the focus of the Scriptures. However, we do have windows into his life, his weaknesses and his strengths, all of which from his rebirth were lived for the glory of God.
Spencer, in his biography on Paul, writes: “From the Acts of the Apostles and from Paul’s own letters we gather the little that we really know about his parentage and early life. He was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised the eighth day, a Pharisee according to the Law, and born a Roman citizen in Tarsus of Cilicia according to Acts 22:3; Philippians 3:5. This information, though scanty, is supremely important. For, throughout his life, Paul’s allegiance was strongly divided between the pagans whom he had learned to know and understand in Tarsus and the Jewish nation to which he belonged by birth.” (Spencer, F. A. Beyond Damascus: A Biography of Paul the Tarsian. First Edition, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1934.)
Paul received two names which reflect his origin history. We, in Scripture, are first introduced to him in Acts 7:58 as Saul, which is his Hebrew name. We are then introduced to him again in Acts 13:9 as Paul, which is his Greek name. Acts chapter thirteen is the beginning of Luke following Paul’s three missionary journeys to plant and strengthen churches, and his imprisonment in Rome for the proclamation of the gospel, all for glory of God.
Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books of the NT; 14 if you count the book of Hebrews, but that is up for debate. We would not have over half of the NT books if he had not responded to God’s call on his life to be faithful with what God had placed before him.
Paul, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote: Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and possibly Hebrews.
Paul’s life, like every life, started in the womb of his mother, in the city of Tarsus of Cilicia, which is modern day Tarsus, in Mersin, Turkey.
Tarsus was situated on the great caravan route between the west and the east, and its life represented a curious blend of Oriental and Hellenic, and of Jewish and pagan, elements. Paul spent his childhood in this city of blending and God used it to equip him to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
Spencer, speculating on Paul’s childhood based on historical accounts of the education of Jewish children in the first century, writes, “The sun had not yet risen when Saul, now six years of age, set out for school with his smoking lantern. He was headed for the so-called House of the Book, or place of reading and writing maintained in the local synagogue and kept up by a tax levied on the whole community. For all good Jews believed, in the words of the unwritten Law, that a town without a school ought to be destroyed.
The teacher whom Saul met at the school-room door was the synagogue sexton, a married man of unblemished character and unhesitating speech. When all was in order, the sexton seated himself on a cushion. The class crouched before him “in the dust of the feet of the wise.” The sexton, after some preliminary drill on the rudiments, lined out a sentence from the first chapter of Leviticus (with which book formal instruction always began): “And the Lord called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle, saying—” In relays of twenty-five, swaying from side to side as they did so, Saul and the rest chanted the words after their teacher. Again and again they recited the same lesson, patiently, oftentimes too noisily for the taste of persons who lived near the school. A sentence, once learned by heart, was copied, and so the process went on until the whole of the Law had been covered, from day to day. Such work was laborious in the extreme. Saul and his friends were kept hard at their chanting from sunrise until after sunset, with only a short recess allowed, even on the Sabbath, for the learning was of a sacred, not secular, character. (F. A. Spencer, Beyond Damascus: A Biography of Paul the Tarsian, First Edition. (New York; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1934), 19–20.)
Paul declares himself a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees, in Acts 23:6. If Paul’s father was a Pharisee he would have grown up binding himself to observe not “only the 613 prohibitions and injunctions of the written Mosaic code, but also the hair-splitting oral prescriptions which the ingenuity of industrious rabbis had accumulated. For example, He would have chosen to abstain strictly from the 1,521 things which a Pharisee was forbidden to do on the Sabbath, such as not eating an egg which was conceived, let alone laid on the Sabbath.” (F. A. Spencer, Beyond Damascus: A Biography of Paul the Tarsian, First Edition. (New York; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1934), 17.)
Concerning the views Paul was probably taught as a child, Spencer writes: “He is accustomed to hearing that pagan schools and pagan deities are things of the devil. Many times he has seen his father handle gingerly the city coins, on which appeared the image of Hermes, deity and patron saint of Tarsus, Bringer of Luck, God of thieves, liars, and business men. He burns no incense on the altar of any god as do his pagan neighbors from their earliest childhood. He is schooled to look with horror on weak Jews who possess works of art, sneak down dim alleys to eat pork in a pagan tavern, or sit in the Circus to watch nude wrestling, races and gladiatorial combats. These convictions Saul will never entirely outgrow. He will later declare to the Corinthians that pagan gods are demons” as he states in 1 Corinthians 10:20. (F. A. Spencer, Beyond Damascus: A Biography of Paul the Tarsian, First Edition. (New York; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1934), 18.)
20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.
We learn from Acts 18:3 that Paul was a tentmaker by trade. If the first century customs were followed, he would have started learning the trade from his father at the age of twelve, after finishing the House of the Book. Tent making in the first century is not what we picture in our minds. Spencer gives us a likely description. “It is probable that various members of the tentmakers’ guild not only performed the final labor of stitching cilicium into tents, but also spun and wove black goat-hair into the cilicium cloth which they used. One can easily reconstruct a scene in the shop where Saul learned his trade … Saul’s first task is merely to look on. Then at length he is allowed to pass from watching or clipping fleece and tend the spinning-wheel. He takes the place of the regular craftsman who pays out a long cord for the weaver, twisting it and feeding into it hairs from a bag that hangs over a stout apron from his shoulder. Next the boy is permitted to seat himself cross-legged on a soft skin for his first turn at the loom. Clumsily at first, then skillfully, he learns to seize the feeder’s cord, separate the warp-threads with a wooden knife, string them up and down on the loom with weights attached at the bottom, and, passing his shuttle along, set the tightened warp in order. Now with a stroke of his wooden comb he pulls out warp and woof. His shuttle flashes back and forth, faster and faster, over and through the threads.… For weary hours on end the clacking of the loom never ceases. The men hardly vary their positions. They move like figures in a trance.… Thus, learning his trade step by step, working constantly among the piled-up skins, Saul soon took on the acrid perfume of the goat, an aroma which doubtless clung to him all his working life, and which would certainly have repelled most of his stanchest modern friends. His hands every day grew numb with constant use of shears and wheel, of carding-tool, needle, and thread. In later life, when he wrote his signature at the end of a letter dictated to an amanuensis, he did so in the sprawling style of a day laborer.” (F. A. Spencer, Beyond Damascus: A Biography of Paul the Tarsian, First Edition. (New York; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1934), 28.) This idea of tent making abusing his hands for writing is taken from Galatians 6:11.
11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.
We are often limited and discouraged in the weaknesses that our bodies or circumstances place on us. We think our weaknesses are bigger than what God is doing. Paul’s life here and in several other passages demonstrates to us that God wants to and is showing himself strong in our weakness. Paul will even say in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Paul’s strength comes from trusting in God’s work through his weakness, and living for the sake of Christ. He writes in Colossians 1:28–29, “Christ we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”
We are not done with the life of Paul or the introduction to Colossians, but I am out of time, so I want to leave you with a few questions to ponder.
Where are you when it comes to the weaknesses in your life?
Are you trusting that God will show himself strong?
Are you living for the sake of Christ?
Have you decided to follow Jesus in your weakness?