Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

After telling the church of his suffering for the gospel () and what God has revealed in Christ which was hidden for ages ().

The warnings and teachings concerning Christ and his coming () and the struggle he has had for them () that their hearts may be encouraged and knit together in Christ.

He tells them to Walk in Christ as they have received him.

To “walk” is the first IMPERATIVE in the text.

It is the first OUGHT after the IS.

The first command given to the churches.

It comes after Paul had highlighted the things Christ has done for the people and the people had done in Christ.

The command to do follows instructions on what has been done already.

Instructions and commands don’t just come; they are issued after some other things have been done.

Usually most commands or imperatives come after the author has passed on the teaching and doctrine but in this case, in Chapter 2 he issues four commands as part of the instruction.

There many more commands in Chapters 3 & 4 as those are the "application" sections of the letter.

This morning we will be looking at the text of Colossian chapter 2 focusing on verses 6 to 19 but we will read the text of that chapter to take in the fragrance of the word of the Lord.

In light of the problem that Church was facing dealing with the heresy working around them, the simplest thing they could do was to walk in Christ as they had received him.

He gave them pictures of what he meant.

He wanted them to be ROOTED as in the roots of a tree to the ground and soil; he wanted them to be BUILT UP as the house is built upon a solid foundation and he wanted them ESTABLISHED in the faith as a foundation for a great building is established.

These are all expressions saying similar things with emphasis; let your walk in, and the person of Christ be solid and secured based on what you were taught and growing thanksgiving.

The Psalmist said in “I have stored your word in my heart that I may not sin against you”.

The only way to really know Christ more is to read about Christ more and appreciate what he is doing in the life of his church more.

We can’t grow in Christ outside of Christ.

We can’t grow in Christ without growing in his word, and we can’t know the real Christ if we have been introduced to another Christ.

Paul sends this message and makes this comment to ensure that he is speaking of the Christ he taught about which Epaphras heard about and taught to the Colossians.

The Christ Jesus the Lord.

He speaks of his divine nature, his mission to save people from their sin and his stature as the special servant of God that Isaiah spoke about in .

This Jesus is the one they have to be grounded in just as they were taught.

Our walk in Christ and our growth in Christ cannot happen independently of the teaching that is found in the Lord.

When it works the way the Lord has designed it, our Thanksgiving is natural, it is not induced, it is spontaneous, and when we obey his commands, it will be grounded in thankfulness.

The Letter to the Colossian was written by Paul to Apostle to a church he did not found but heard about the challenge they were facing with respect to the things the had heard of Christ and how those things were being challenged by some strange teachings.

Colossae was a city placed by the Lycus river a city of Phrygia in the present day Turkey.

It is about 1500km away from Rome.

Epaphras who founded the church seems to have communicated with Paul on the situation he and the church were contending with.The text of the bible to not spell out the specific heresy that was bothering threatening the church at Colossae but from Paul’s response in this letter we can observe that it had something to do with someJewish religious observations, coupled with some roman-graeco mysticism mixed with some idea of angel worship.

Paul wrote the letter and asked them to share the material with the church at Laodicea that they may learn from it.

This makes sense as Laodicea was about 17km away from Colossae [just like this church here is about 17km away from the Akwa Ibom State University Ikot Akpaden].

Another reason for this is because of the proximity, whatever is in vogue here will not take too long to get there even the means of transportation is by foot.

By my calculations using the google maps, it should take the average walker about 4 hours to move from this Church to the location.

So it was a church distance that could be made in a day.

Paul aware of this geographical situation encouraged the Colossian church to share their letter with their brethren at the other Church in the other city.

The apostle did not waste time to get to the heart of the matter.

He taught about the person of Christ, his position, what God has done through him, How every thing is in him.

After the doctrinal part of the letter as is common with his letters, he went into application in the individual and then in the church body as a whole.

We are going to focus on Colossians chapter 2 which is the second chapter out of four chapters with our emphasis on verses 6 -19.

In this chapter 2 using the ESV version, Christ is referenced SEVEN times more than any other word that is not required to allow the discussion to flow.

The passage will be reviewed under 3 sections, Walk in Christ as received , Live as those in Christ and Stand as those in Christ .

Walk in Christ

After telling the church of his suffering for the gospel () and what God has revealed in Christ which was hidden for ages ().

The warnings and teachings concerning Christ and his coming () and the struggle he has had for them () that their hearts may be encouraged and knit together in Christ.

He tells them to Walk in Christ as they have received him.

To “walk” is the first IMPERATIVE in the text.

It is the first OUGHT after the IS.

The first command given to the churches.

It comes after Paul had highlighted the things Christ has done for the people and the people had done in Christ.

The command to do follows instructions on what has been done already.

Instructions and commands don’t just come; they are issued after some other things have been done.

Usually most commands or imperatives come after the author has passed on the teaching and doctrine but in this case, in Chapter 2 he issues four commands as part of the instruction.

There many more commands in Chapters 3 & 4 as those are the "application" sections of the letter.

He tells them to Walk in Christ as they have received him.

To “walk” is the first IMPERATIVE in the text.

It is the first OUGHT after the IS.

The first command given to the churches.

It comes after Paul had highlighted the things Christ has done for the people and the people had done in Christ.

The command to do follows instructions on what has been done already.

Instructions and commands don’t just come, they are issued after some other things have been done.

Usually most commands or imperatives come after the author has passed on the teaching and doctrine but in this case, in Chapter 2 he issues four commands as part of the instruction.

There many more commands in Chapters 3 & 4 as those are the application sections of the letter.

In light of the problem that Church was facing dealing with the heresy working around them, the simplest thing they could do was to walk in Christ as they had received him.

He gave them pictures of what he meant.

He wanted them to be ROOTED as in the roots of a tree to the ground and soil; he wanted them to be BUILT UP as the house is built upon a solid foundation and he wanted them ESTABLISHED in the faith as a foundation for a great building is established.

These are all expressions saying similar things with emphasis; let your walk in, and the person of Christ be solid and secured based on what you were taught and growing thanksgiving.

The Psalmist said in “I have stored your word in my heart that I may not sin against you”.

The only way to really know Christ more is to read about Christ more and appreciate what he is doing in the life of his church more.

We can’t grow in Christ outside of Christ.

We can’t grow in Christ without growing in his word, and we can’t know the real Christ if we have been introduced to another Christ.

Paul sends this message and makes this comment to ensure that he is speaking of the Christ he taught about which Epaphras heard about and taught to the Colossians.

The Christ Jesus the Lord.

He speaks of his divine nature, his mission to save people from their sin and his stature as the special servant of God that Isaiah spoke about in .

This Jesus is the one they have to be grounded in just as they were taught.

Our walk in Christ and our growth in Christ cannot happen independently of the teaching that is found in the Lord.

When it works the way the Lord has designed it, our Thanksgiving is natural, it is not induced, it is spontaneous, and when we obey his commands, it will be grounded in thankfulness.

In light of the problem that Church was facing dealing with the heresy working around them, the simplest thing they could do was to walk in Christ as they had received him.

He gave them pictures of what he meant.

He wanted them to be ROOTED as in the roots of a tree to the ground and soil, he wanted them to be BUILT UP as the house is built upon a solid foundation and he wanted them ESTABLISHED in the faith as a foundation for a great building is established.

These are all expressions saying similar things with emphasis; let your walk in and the person of Christ be solid and secured based on what you were taught and growing thanksgiving.

The Psalmist said in “I have stored your word in my heart that I may not sin against you”.

The only way to really know Christ more is to read about Christ more and appreciate what he is doing in the life of his church more.

We can’t grow in Christ outside of Christ.

We can’t grow in Christ without growing in his word and we can’t know the real Christ if we have been introduced to another Christ.

Paul sends this message and makes this comment to ensure that he is speaking of the Christ he taught about which Epaphras heard about and taught to the Colossians.

The Christ Jesus the Lord.

He speaks of his divine nature, his mission to save people from their sin and his stature as the special servant of God that Isaiah spoke about in .

This Jesus is the one they have to be grounded in just as they were taught.

Our walk in Christ and our growth in Christ cannot happen independently of the teaching that is found in the Lord.

When it work the way the Lord has designed it, our thanksgiving is natural, it is not induced, it is spontaneous and when we obey his commands, it will be grounded in thankfulness.

Live as in Christ

Col 2:8-15

In this next section, the instruction comprehensive and it starts with another OUGHT or IMPERATIVE which is to “See to It”. “To see to it “could mean “to not allow” or “be careful”.

The message is very clear, there was a requirement to the church that effort should be expended with adequate care so that the church is not taken captive.

This ought to be done; it requires being watchful, watching carefully, observing, directing one’s attention the reality that there are people who want to take the church captive in the area of the mind.

No to Gnosticism

These folks want to be able to completely manipulate a person so they can completely control and simply take them captive.

In this case, they wanted to do it by “philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition”.