Untitled Sermon

Colossians 1 NIV84

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

John MacArthur Study Bible Notes

The Epistle of Paul to the Colossians

Introduction:

Title: Colossians is named for the city of colossae, where the church it was addressed to was located. It was also to be read in the neighboring church at laodicea ()

Author and Date:  Paul is identified as author at the beginning (, cf , ), as customarily in his epistles. The testimony of the early church, including such key figures as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius, confirms that the opening claim is genuine. Additional evidence for Paul's authorship comes from the book's close parallels with Philemon, which is universally accepted as having been written by Paul. Both were written (ca. A.D. 60-62) while Paul was a prisoner in Rome (, , ; , , ,); plus the names of the same people (Timothy, Aristarchus, Archippus, Mark, Epaphras, Luke, Onesimus, and Demas) appear in both epistles, showing that both were written by the same author at about the same time. Biographical information on Paul see Introduction to Romans: Author and Date. 

Background and Setting: Colosse was a city in Phrygia, in the Roman province of Asia (part of modern Turkey), about 100 miles east of Ephesus in the region of the seven churches of .The city lay alongside the Lycus River, not far from where it flowed into the Meander River. The Lycus Valley narrowed at Colosse to a width of about 2 miles, and Mount Cadmus Rose 8,000 feet above the city.

Colosse was a thriving city in the 5th Century B.C. when the Persian King Xerxes (Ahasuerus, cf. ) marched through the region. Black wool and dyes (made from the nearby chalk deposits) were important products. In addition, the city was situated at the junction of the main north-south and east-west trade routes. By Paul’s day, however, the main road had been rerouted through nearby Laodicea, thus bypassing Colosse and the leading to its decline and the rise of the neighboring cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis. 

Although Colosse’s population was mainly Gentile, there was a large Jewish settlement dating from the days of Antiochus the Great (223-187 B.C.). Colosse’s mixed population of Jews and Gentiles manifested itself both in the composition of the church and in the heresy that plagued it, which contained elements of both Jewish legalism and pagan mysticism.

The church at Colosse began during Paul's 3-year ministry at Ephesus (). Its founder was not Paul, who had never been there (); but Epaphras (), who apparently was saved during a visit to Ephesus, then likely started the church in Colosse when he returned home. Several years after the Colossian church was founded, a dangerous heresy arose to threaten it-one not identified with any particular historical system. It contained elements of what later became known as Gnosticism: that God is good, but matter is evil, that Jesus Christ was merely one of a series of emanations descending from God and being less than God (a belief that led them to deny his true humanity), and that a secret, higher knowledge above the scripture was necessary for enlightenment and salvation. The Colossian heresy also embraced aspects of Jewish legalism, eg., the necessity of circumcision for salvation, observance of the ceremonial rituals of the OT Law (dietary laws, festivals, Sabbath), and rigid asceticism. It also called for the worship of angels and mystical experience. The Epaphras was so concerned about this heresy that he made the long journey from Colosse to Rome (), where Paul was a prisoner.

This letter was written from prison in Rome () sometime between A.D. 60-62 and is, therefore, referred to as a Prison Epistle (along with Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon). It may have been composed almost contemporaneously with Ephesians and initially sent with that epistle and Philemon by Tychicus (; ). See Introduction to Philippians: Author and Date for a discussion of the city from which Paul wrote. He wrote this letter to warn the Colossians against the heresy they faced, and sent the letter to them with Tychicus, who was accompanying the runaway slave Onesimus back to his master, Philemon, a member of the Colossian church (; see Introduction to Philemon: Background and Setting). Epaphras remained behind in Rome(cf. ), perhaps to receive further instruction from Paul.

Historical and Theological Themes: Colossians contains teaching on several areas of theology, including the deity of Christ (;  ), reconciliation (), redemption (; ; ), election (), forgiveness (), the nature of the church (, ; ; , ). Also, as noted above it refutes the heretical teaching that threatened the Colossian church ().

Interpretive Challenges:

Outline:

Personal Matters (1:1-14)

Paul’s Greeting (1:1-2)

Paul’s Thankfulness (1:3-8)

Paul’s Prayer (1:9-14)

Doctrinal Instruction (1:15 - 2:23)

About Christ’s Deity (1:15-23)

About Paul’s Ministry (1:24 - 2:7)

About False Philosophy (2:8-23)

Practical Exhortations (3:1 - 4:18)

Christian Conduct (3:1-17)

Christian Households (3:18 - 4:1)

Christian Speech (4:2-6)

Christian Friends (4:7-18)