Introduction
The City
We need to take a look at a map first.
It’s not apparent at first, but the city of Colosse is
located on the trade route between the eastern part of the Roman Empire and the
Western part. As such, it is a meeting point for ideas from the eastern and
western worlds. The church in that city was probably founded by Epaphras. The
reason we think so is that Paul addresses his letter to the people there, but
doesn’t reference anyone personally. It is, however, near several other
churches where Paul is known to have spoken. The letter itself was written
approximately A.D. 63. This would be about two years before Paul’s death. We
hear nothing about Colossae after this; there is no other correspondence with
the church in that city. According to Eusebius the reason for this is that an
earthquake destroyed the city approximately A.D. 70.
The Circumstances
At the time of this writing, Paul is in prison. Apparently,
Epaphras has come to him to encourage him. In the process he tells him about
his home church. We suspect that Epaphras asked Paul to write this letter to
the church at Colossae for their encouragement. It has been suggested that the
reason for this is that a fraudulent letter, purporting to be from Paul, was
circulating in the area. Paul, in this letter, lays out the nature of Christ
and what we should do about it — which therefore makes letter is very useful to
us today.
The Competition
As we said, this city is a meeting place of ideas. There
were two particular Jewish ideas going around the city at the time.
·
There was a very strange hybrid of Zoroastrianism and Judaism.
Zoroastrianism, for those of you not familiar, holds that there are two equal
and opposite spiritual forces. One of these is good; one of these is evil. Star
Wars fans will remember the dark side of the force, for example. It’s one of
those ideas that pops up every now and then. How you mix this with Judaism I do
not know, but they did.
·
Another group prominent in the area is familiar to you: the
Essenes. These are the people whose brothers in Palestine wrote out what are
now called the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were largely an ascetic group.
At the same time, the beginnings of the Gnostic heresy are
arising. One version, the Docetic, held that Jesus did not have a real,
physical body. His body was just an appearance; the word they used for this was
“icon.” It is very much parallel to the icon in use for Microsoft Windows
system. The other version, the Cerinthian, separated Christ from Jesus. Christ
was some sort of spiritual being who came to Jesus at his baptism and left as
he was dying on the cross. Both of these stem from the Greek philosophical
position that the flesh is inherently evil.
In addition to these versions, we had several other
religions running around the place. There was a very secretive cult named
Mithraism, which is very typical of what is called a mystery religion. Most of
its tenets are unknown to us today; its major appeal was that if you joined,
you were in on the secret. There was also a religion based on a fertility
goddess, Cybele. These two particular religions were strong in the area around
Colossae. Interestingly, the one based on Cybele has recently been revived — in
the form of a cult that holds certain sexual practices known as female
domination as being necessary to the conduct of marriage. Apparently, since the
priests of Cybele castrated themselves to become such, they felt this
particular form of ancient religion was most suitable for their purposes.
Further investigation into these two religions I leave to the reader – with
caution.
Paul’s Prayer
Colossians 1:1-8 NASB
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, (2) To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from
God our Father. (3) We give thanks to God,
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, (4) since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and
the love which you have for all the saints; (5)
because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in
the word of truth, the gospel (6) which has
come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and
increasing, even as it has been doing in
you also since the day you heard of it
and understood the grace of God in truth; (7)
just as you learned it from Epaphras,
our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our
behalf, (8) and he also informed us of your
love in the Spirit.
There is a puzzle in the opening remarks of this letter. Do
you see the phrase, “Saints and faithful brethren?” Why does Paul make this
distinction? The best answer I’ve been able to determine is this: it is a
poetic repetition. The word “Saints” denotes our relationship with God; the
phrase “faithful brethren” denotes our relationship with each other.
We Give Thanks
Paul often begins his prayers with thanksgiving — a practice
which has its merits. There are three things for which he is thankful:
·
First, for their faith in Christ Jesus. It is important to
remember that these people have never met Jesus in the flesh, and apparently
have never even talked to an apostle in the flesh. In that sense, they are much
closer to us than the people in Ephesus, to whom Paul preached. When you
consider the other religious options around, you can see that these people
resemble us in a great number of ways.
·
Second, for their love for the saints. This should not be
misinterpreted in the Catholic sense, as that type of Saint has yet to arise.
Rather, it means that they perform the ordinary acts of Christian hospitality
and charity towards one another. This, we are told, is how the world will know
that we are Christians: by our love.
·
Finally, for their hope. This seems a little vague to us, but in
the early church and had only one real meaning. That meeting was the hope of
the resurrection of the dead at the return of Christ. This is something that
has disappeared from the preaching in the author’s home church lately. We may
assume, however, that God Almighty has not changed his mind on the subject.
The Gospel
Paul incidentally describes the gospel in his prayer. He
begins by referring to it as the “word of truth.” This is something which is
quite important to the Colossians, considering the vast mix of religions that
are around them. They need the reassurance that they have selected the right
one, that they are selected the one that is true. Paul gives them two pieces of
evidence for this:
·
The first is the fruit that the gospel is bearing within the
Colossians themselves. The argument is simple: take a look at what’s happening
in your own life, since you accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you see the
fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life, then you know that this is something you
didn’t do yourself — and that what you believe is in fact the real truth. In
short, look at the evidence.
·
The second is the gospel bearing fruit and increasing in the
world around them. What does this mean? It means that the other people in Colossae
are examining this message of the gospel and finding it superior to the mystery
religions and strange combinations of ideas. This is not surprising; for the
most part those other religions are man-made. Christianity explicitly invites
the nonbeliever to examine the roots and foundations of the faith. Reason is
not the enemy of faith, but the ally.
Epaphras
Paul now puts in a word for the local boy. He wants them to
be assured that what they heard from Epaphras is the same thing they would’ve
heard from Paul. Paul’s reputation is, of course much greater; therefore it is
appropriate for him to certify the preacher they have locally. He makes three
points:
·
Epaphras is Paul’s beloved fellow bondservant. Break that down
with me. He is “beloved” — not just somebody that’s tolerated. Paul knows the
man personally and loves. He is also Paul’s “fellow bondservant.” In other
words, he’s doing the same work as Paul — and with the same attitude. That
attitude is that he is not someone high and mighty in the church (the one
apostle, if anyone, could make that claim) but rather a servant of Christ to
the point of being a slave.
·
Epaphras is faithful on behalf of Paul and those who are carrying
the gospel. In other words, Epaphras is not inventing some extra things or leaving
things out, but rather he is preaching the entire truth to the people of
Colossae.
·
Just in case you folks thought you could relax now, and rest upon
your reputation, Paul now reminds him that Epaphras bragged on them. They now
have a reputation to live up to.
For This Reason
Colossians 1:9-14 NASB
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it,
we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the
knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, (10) so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the
Lord, to please Him in all respects,
bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; (11) strengthened with all power, according to His
glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously (12) giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified
us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. (13) For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and
transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, (14)
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
For this reason? What is this reason for which Paul prays
for the Colossians? Let me summarize it in the three words used before: faith,
hope and love. These three things, Paul assured the Corinthians, are the things
that abide. They also move Paul to pray for those he has never met. We may now
examine his prayers.
Prayer: Filled with Knowledge
The word used for knowledge here is epignosis —
meaning a full and complete knowledge. There are three things he wants them to
have knowledge of:
·
The first is God’s will. As he is writing to a large group, we
may assume that this implies the will of God which should be known by each and
every Christian.
·
The second is for spiritual wisdom. It is a curious phrasing in
the Greek, and sound strange to modern ears. We are not much acquainted with
wisdom as a desirable thing, and spiritual wisdom seems to be almost a
contradiction in terms. Our emphasis today on the idea that things spiritual
are things emotional is the cause of this. They would’ve seen no contradiction
between wisdom (an intellectual activity) and things spiritual, which did not
to them imply purely emotional.
·
The third is for understanding. The Greek word for this means
something like to mentally put it all together. The concept here is one of
understanding the big picture as well as the tiny details.
Prayer: Walk
Of course, prayer does you no good unless you attempt to put
it into practice. You have to “walk the talk,” as the old phrase goes. Interestingly,
Paul starts out which is something almost self defining. He tells you to walk
in a manner worthy of the Lord. It’s as if he is saying that you should know
how to do this; it should be obvious. You’re there to please him, and not just
partially. So what is it that God is looking for?
·
The first thing is that you are bearing fruit. If you have the
Holy Spirit in your life, your life should be different than it was before. All
those fruits of the spirit should be showing up in your life.
·
Next, you should have increasing knowledge of the faith. This is
the reason that you are encouraged to read the Bible daily. Those who have made
a practice of this over many years will understand the phenomenon. You come
across a passage that you’ve read ten or twenty times before and suddenly
discover some new meaning. You just weren’t ready for it last year, but now is
the time. If this doesn’t happen to you, perhaps you should be examined your
reading program. Or start one.
·
Finally, your faith should be strengthened as you go. Paul gives
us two descriptions of this strengthening faith.
o
First, he talks about attaining all steadfastness and patience.
Those who believe that faith is an emotional experience will have some
difficulty with this. They would view it differently. They would view that this
is the normal result of increasing faith. Faith is not something that floats up
and down with the minute, but his calm and steady.
o
Next, he says that this is something that happens joyously. Paul
was never an advocate of sour persimmon faith. The life of faith is the life of
triumph; the life of triumph is the life of joy.
Prayer: Enabled
There is a bit of a problem in verse twelve. It appears that
we are to give thanks to God the father now that we are qualified to be saints.
In the original language, it is clear that this is not something that we did —
but rather something that God did for us. That is something for which we should
give thanks.
It seems like Paul has just slipped this into the stream of
thought, so we might want to consider this just a bit more carefully. The
picture he’s drawing for you here is that before we met Christ we were in the
domain of darkness. It might’ve been one of those mystery religions, or some
strange combination of Judaism and who knows what else. But the truth is we
were stumbling around in the darkness, trying to figure out what all those
things were that we were bumping into. One of the characteristics of many other
religions is the explanation that there is no explanation. Things just happen.
You’re supposed to walk around in the dark. As a result, it’s easy to get let
down a path which leads to sin and destruction — because you have no light to
tell you where the path is going.
But that’s not us. We have been transferred — military veterans
will think of this is a permanent change of station — to the kingdom of Christ.
Things were vague before; now they are clear. Methods seem to be strange
formulas and incantations; now we talk to God. The lights are on; we know where
were going. Not only that; we have been redeemed by the forgiveness of sins. We
have been set right with God; indeed, let us give thanks.