The supremacy of Christ over every philosophy and principality — then and now
Two words open almost every letter Paul wrote. Grace and peace are not filler, and even the order they come in is carrying something.
Epaphras planted the church at Colossae, and the gospel bore fruit there without Paul ever setting foot in the city. The message does not depend on the messenger.
Paul prays they would be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. A look at what he is actually asking God for.
Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power — and then Paul says what that power is for. It is not what most of us would have guessed.
A poster in our church window read “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” I said amen, then wondered how that sounds to someone walking past.
He has delivered us. Past tense, already finished. Why you are not working to maintain a rescue that has already happened.
What would it be like to meet the One who spoke worlds into existence? Some people did, and Paul tells us exactly who they were talking to.
Claiming Christ made everything strikes plenty of people as arrogant and exclusionary. The real question is not whether it offends, but whether it is true.
With thousands of denominations to choose from, newcomers ask which church is the right one. Paul is answering a different question: who is its head?
Alienated, enemies in the mind, and then reconciled through a death. Paul's blunt description of where the Colossians were and what actually changed.
“If indeed you continue in the faith.” That small word if has unsettled readers for centuries, and it deserves an honest look rather than a quick answer.
Paul says he fills up in his own flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. The sentence alarms people, and once you see his meaning, it should not.
The mystery hidden for ages turns out to be this: Gentiles included, Christ in you. What was being kept quiet, and why it was finally said out loud.
Him we preach. Two words that mark the boundary of Paul's whole ministry, and quietly rule out a great deal of what passes for preaching now.
Paul agonises over a church he has never met face to face. What that says about the kind of love that binds a minister to people he barely knows.
Paul rejoices over the Colossians' good order and steadfast faith, not over their signs and wonders. What a healthy church actually looked like to him.
Absent in the flesh, present in spirit. Paul uses that phrase more than once and clearly means something by it. Working out what.
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit. Paul's warning to Colossae, and how the very same trap is still being set.
A circumcision made without hands. Paul takes the oldest sign of the covenant and moves it from the body to the heart.
Buried with Him in baptism, raised with Him through faith. What the early church understood baptism to actually be doing.
Paul ties baptism directly to resurrection. If the raising is not real, then the symbol has nothing left to point at.
The handwriting of requirements that stood against us, nailed to the cross. Something in all of us resists rules, and Paul says what Christ did with them.
Principalities and powers. Popular culture is fascinated by the occult, but the Bible's picture of the spiritual hierarchy is stranger and far more ordered.
Reading Paul is like hearing one side of a phone call. You can work out a great deal about the other voice, and here that voice was teaching something dangerous.
Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals still divide churches today. Paul calls them a shadow, and then names the thing casting it.
The thing that changed how I read the Bible was seeing Christ at the centre of all of it. That also makes it easier to spot teaching that quietly moves Him off centre.
Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. Before you can argue about the rules, you have to follow Paul's train of thought, and that is a skill worth learning.
You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul describes something that has already happened to you, whether or not it feels that way.
Dying to self and rising with Christ is not a figure of speech to Paul. Baptism is where he says that actually happened.
“Seated at the right hand of God.” The phrase comes from Psalm 110, the psalm the New Testament quotes more than any other, and it is a promise being collected.
Eschatology is not a side hobby for prophecy enthusiasts. Paul builds his instructions for ordinary daily life directly on top of it.
Seek the things above, set your mind there, and put to death what belongs to the earth. Three commands that carry the whole chapter.
Paul calls them the elect of God, and that one word has divided Christians for centuries. The main interpretations, laid out fairly.
Tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Paul hands out a wardrobe rather than a checklist, and love is the belt that holds it together.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts. One phrase from my wife settles me faster than almost anything: not my circus, not my monkeys.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Not visit occasionally, not drop by on Sunday. Dwell. A look at what that would actually take.
“In the name of Jesus” gets used like a password at the end of prayers. Paul means something closer to acting under someone else's authority.
Few verses raise the temperature faster than this one. What Paul is actually asking of wives, read in full and in context rather than in isolation.
Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. The word Paul chooses for love is the costly one, and the warning attached is worth hearing.
Children obeying parents comes with a promise attached. What that promise is, and what it is not guaranteeing.
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. A short verse aimed squarely at dads, and it lands harder than it reads.
Paul tells bondservants to obey rather than calling for abolition, and that troubles modern readers. The historical context matters enormously here.
Prayer draws less attention than the rapture and the antichrist, which says something. Learning to actually talk to God, from Paul's instructions to Colossae.
A devout Pharisee meets the risen Christ on a road and ends up shaping Western civilisation from a prison cell. Paul's story still moves me.
Walk in wisdom, redeem the time, season your speech with salt. Living deliberately in a world engineered to keep you distracted.
Always be ready to answer, and answer with grace. Apologetics is not about winning arguments, and tact is not a compromise.
Paul closes Colossians with a list of names most readers skim straight past. Every one of them was carrying part of the work, and that is exactly the point.
Before there were church buildings, there were living rooms. A look at where the first Christians actually met, and what Colossae and Laodicea tell us about it.
"Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations- “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandment
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. - (Col 1:19–20).
Paul introduces himself as "an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God." By stating this, Paul emphasizes that his authority and calling as an apostle come directly from Jesus Christ and were not self-appointed or conferred upon him by any human authority.
The apostle Paul begins his letter to the brothers and sisters at the church in Colossae by calling them saints. According to the biblical definition of a saint, Paul’s greeting should not come as a surprise. However, the biblical definition of a saint may not be immediately clea
Welcome to this Bible study on the book of Colossians! Before diving into the text, let us first explore the historical context surrounding this letter.
Despite the challenges facing the church at Colossae, Paul's letter contains a message of hope and encouragement. He reminds the Colossians of the supremacy of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God and the head of the church. Paul emphasizes that it is through Christ that