March through Colossians - wrapping up

Well, if you have been a participant in our march through Colossians this past month, I do hope that it has been fruitful for you. It was somewhat of an experiment, and I can confidently say that it’s something that I’d like to do again soon with another book of the Bible, perhaps this summer. I'm thankful that we all had the opportunity to increase our knowledge of Scripture, and my hope is that it also found its way into your heart and life. I’ll be posting things here and there on this blog, and eventually I'll mention plans for doing another book of the Bible, so stay tuned! If this systematic way of reading Scripture has helped you, let me encourage you to continue in it. I’m a fan of Bible reading plans, rightly used, and I commend your use of them. It takes the guesswork out of your Bible reading and gets you into parts of Scripture you wouldn’t normally be drawn to. For a great post on resources for Bible reading, check out this link (to Justin Taylor’s blog). All 13 of Paul’s epistles (including other books in the New Testament) end on the note of grace (“Grace be with you,” 4:18). Surely this says something about the centrality of grace in Paul’s understanding of our lives as believers. Picture yourself as the apostle Paul, sitting in a room, wrapping up this letter to the church in Colossae. You write the first part of verse 18 (“I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains.”). What will you say next to close out the letter? What final note will you strike? For Paul, the answer was clear and consistent: the grace of almighty God at work in the lives of His people. Grace is what gives us hope and joy, because it is by grace and because of grace that we are able to have fellowship with the living God, through the person and work of Jesus. The whole reason why we are able to know and to fulfill our chief end, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, is because the grace of God is with us. The grace of God is with you right now, and will be with you today. So, let Paul’s final note resound in your whole being today. You have new life in Christ; grace be with you!

March through Colossians - the home stretch

(having trouble with the editing, sorry this appears as one long, daunting paragraph!) How should we think about these greetings that we find at the end of Colossians? I mean, it’s one thing to try to understand and apply Colossians 1:13: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” It is quite another to try to understand and apply Colossians 4:7a: “Tychicus will tell you all about my activities.” Here are a few thoughts to guide your reading of this last section of Colossians over the last few days of our march. -These greetings, no less than the parts of the letter that are more doctrinal, are the very words of God. Paul wrote them (or, perhaps dictated them to a scribe), but he did so as he was “carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21), so that these words have their ultimate origin in God. So even if their value or their applicability is not immediately obvious to us, we have to start here. They are the words of God, for His church. -These greetings remind us of the realness of the Bible. God chose to give us His self-revelation through the agency of a real person. His words did not just drop out of the sky and get collected together like a bunch of fortune cookie messages. Paul, a real person, wrote an ordinary letter (qualify “ordinary” with what I said above) to a real congregation in the city of Colossae. They would have known who Tychicus was, and Onesimus, and Aristarchus, etc. So when you read these personal greetings, think for a bit about the fact that God’s Word addresses real people in real situations with His powerful grace. -Try to picture yourself as a member of this church in Colossae hearing this letter read for the first time. That might help you read these greetings with a little more attention. -We have a kids’ CD we’ve been listening to recently that has a line in it that says, “Your Word’s got nuggets of gold.” That’s true for all the parts of God’s Word, but we should carry that perspective into the way we read these greetings. So dig for gold! Think about what these verses say about the importance of real, personal relationships in the body of Christ. Notice how Paul describes his fellow workers. Meditate on phrases like “encourage your hearts,” “they have been a comfort to me,” and “the beloved physician” (do you love your physician? :) ). Be challenged and stirred up by the example of Epaphras who was “always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” Continue with 4:12-13 tomorrow, then 4:14-18 Wednesday, and then one final reading of the whole book on Thursday. I’ll wrap up our march with a final post on Thursday.

March through Colossians - 4:5-6

A couple of observations of what Paul is saying here that really challenge me:

1. "Walk in wisdom toward outsiders" assumes that we will actually be spending time with "outsiders" (non-Christians).
2. In terms of our interaction with outsiders, "walk," "making the best use of the time," "let your speech be...", and "to answer each person" assumes a whole range of interactions with non-Christians, not just a project-oriented exchange here and there.
3. On speech, the ESV Study Bible connects this "seasoned with salt" metaphor with Jesus saying we should be "the salt of the earth." "When applied to conversation, the metaphor suggests speaking in an interesting, stimulating, and wise way." Sometimes hard for me.
4. "Let your speech always be gracious." Grace is what defines us as believers, and the deeper we go in our appreciation of it and thankfulness to God for it, the more it will flow out of us towards others who need it like we do.

March through Colossians - 4:2-4

We would all admit that prayer is an area of weakness for us. In these verses Paul urges the Colossians to pray as an expression of their new life in Christ. Listen to what he says about prayer:

-Continue steadfastly in it (in other words, "Don't give up").
-Be watchful in it (kind of like Jesus said to His disciples in the garden, "Watch and pray").
-Do it with thanksgiving ("that outward expression of gratitude to God the Father who has already freed them from a tyranny of darkness, transferred them into a kingdom in which his Son holds sway and given them a share in the inheritance of the saints in light" -O'Brien).
-Pray for the spread of the gospel (which means we pray for something/someone other than ourselves).

4:5-6 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - whole book

There's a great book I want to recommend to you called Promises Kept: The Message of the New Testament, by Mark Dever. There is one on the Old Testament too. Mark Dever is the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church right on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., and the essence of these 2 books came from sermons he preached at his church. The sermons were "overview sermons" where he preached the main content of a Bible book in a single sermon (so, 66 sermons in all). His strategy is fascinating, and behind it lies a desire for God's people to understand (and live in light of) the whole storyline of Scripture. Seeing the forest.

I hope that the opportunities we've had to read the whole book of Colossians in one sitting have helped you to see the forest so that you can better understand the trees.

Here's a great excerpt from Dever's book:

"I cannot remember when I first thought of preaching sermons like this. It may have been when I was discipling a recent Muslim convert and asked him to teach me the book of Hebrews in three meetings (I thought he would learn it better by teaching me). At each meeting, I would read a sentence or two from Hebrews and ask him where the verse fit into the book's argument. I did not so much care if he could tell me chapter and verse references; I was more concerned about whether he understood the overall flow of the book, and how any one idea from the book fit into that flow.

"As we worked through Hebrews this way, I found that an overview was beneficial not just for my friend but also for me as a pastor. When I preach a passage like Ephesians 2, do I approach the chapter in context? That is, am I using chapter 2 in the same way Paul uses chapter 2 within his larger argument as it unfolds in Ephesians?

"The Hebrews overview also got me to thinking about my congregation. I want the members of my church to become so familiar with the books of the Bible that they know how to turn there as easily as they turn to popular Christian books. So when the members of the church struggle with conflict, I will encourage them to read the book on conflict resolution by Ken Sande, but I also want them to have been trained by an overview sermon to immediately ask themselves, 'I wonder what James says about this situation?' When members want to learn about the Christian life, let them read C.S. Lewis and J.I. Packer; but let them also think to read 1 Peter and 1 John! When people struggle with discouragement, by all means read Ed Welch on depression; but also read Revelation! When people worry they are slipping into legalism, I hope they know to reach for Martin Luther or C.J. Mahaney on the cross-centered life; but I also hope they know to reach for Galatians. I am even happy for the congregtation to read Dever on the church, but I would prefer for them to know Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians."

By the way, in his chapter titles he summarizes each Bible book with a word or phrase. The one for Colossians is...(can you guess? What would you say?) "New Life."

So when you feel weighed down and fogged by anything bad, especially your own sin, you could do worse than to take 10 minutes to read the book of Colossians and be refreshed and reoriented by the new life you have in Christ.

March through Colossians - 3:23-4:1

In this section Paul continues to describe and urge upon the Colossians what their new life in Christ should look like. We stopped at 3:22 yesterday, but 3:22-4:1 really go together as Paul addresses slaves and masters.

The Bible is characterized by both unity and diversity. It is diverse, for example, in the sense that it was written by lots of different people to lots of different people in lots of different places and situations. It is also unified (which is really the dominant characteristic, though we should not lose sight of its diversity), for example, in the sense that behind all the human authors stood/stands the one Divine Author, which gives the 66 books of Scripture a union and cohesion that allows us to appropriately read one part of Scripture in light of other parts of Scripture. Scripture sheds light on Scripture. In the case of this section from Colossians, it is interesting and illuminating to read the parallel section from Ephesians (Ephesians and Colossians are very similar).

"Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven." -Col. 3:22-4:1.

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him." -Eph. 6:5-9.

Verse 23 ("Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men") reminds me of one of Jonathan Edwards' resolutions, which I often recall and (only sometimes) put into practice: "Resolved, to live with all my might while I do live." Whatever you are doing today, whether it's something you had planned to do or something God had planned for you to do instead, do it with all your might, for the Lord.

Read the whole book tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 3:18-22

Rather than comment on individual verses in this section, I want to remind you of the big-picture message of Colossians by helping you see how this section fits into and relates to the rest of the book.

Could you summarize the message of the book of Colossians in a couple of sentences? What if you were having lunch with a new believer and they said to you, “So, I know you’ve been doing that March through Colossians thing…can you help me understand what the book of Colossians is all about?” How would you respond?

I might say something like the following. Colossians is written to a group of people who had trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation but who were in danger of being led astray from the centrality of Christ by some false teaching in the church. The letter is mainly about the supremacy of Christ over all things, including the false teaching/teachers, and also including the salvation and the new life of believers in Christ. As a letter, it includes things like thanksgivings and prayers, personal greetings and benedictions. It speaks to both who we are in Christ and how we are to live in Christ.

So, how does today’s part of the letter fit into and relate to the rest of the letter? I said that Colossians speaks to both who we are in Christ and how we are to live in Christ. Today’s section mostly contributes to the how we are to live in Christ part. It talks about family and work, basically. It addresses wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters (which is related to but not equal to employees and employers). Paul has already said that God has delivered these believers from the domain of darkness and transferred them to the kingdom of his beloved Son. Now he is telling them what life in that kingdom should look like (as we said for 3:12-17). He is saying, “This is what it looks like to be a wife in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, no longer under the dominion of darkness.” “This is what it looks like to be a husband who walks in a manner worthy of the Lord.” “Kids, this is what it looks like to live as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.”

Part of the point is this: families matter; work matters. How we relate to each other in our families is significant. How we do our work is significant. Both of these spheres of our life should be characterized by the centrality and sufficiency of Christ. And when we lean into the sufficiency of Christ in our families and in our work, what joy and fulfillment we will experience! And we will be fulfilling our chief end: to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

3:23-4:1 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 3:12-15 and 3:16-17

Well, I missed another post yesterday. Sorry about that! It’s easier for me to post something during the week, and I haven’t come up with a good system yet for posting during the weekend at home. Yesterday’s reading (Sunday) was 3:12-15 and today’s is 3:16-17. Those 2 readings really make up one paragraph, so I’ll just comment on both in one post today.

In this part of the letter, Paul addresses the Colossians positively about how they should relate to other people in the body of Christ. So listen up! He is saying to them and to us, “You have died with Christ! You have been raised with Christ! You have put off the old self and have put on the new self which is being renewed! So, put on all these things as you relate to each other.” He assumes that sin will be active and aggressive. He assumes that our relationships with others in the church will be affected by selfishness and anger. He says to bear with one another because he assumes we will need to do just that.

First, I think we should take note of the mercy and wisdom of our God in actually giving us these verses. We should do that for every part of Scripture actually. But what I was thinking about was that God would be merciful towards us not only in delivering us from the domain of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, but also in telling us what life in that kingdom should look like. He made us a part of His family, and He cares about the relationships among the members of His family. He wants us to put off the old way of life in sin (which is still around, by the way) and to put on the new way of life in Christ.

Second, I think one of the most powerful phrases in this paragraph is found at the end of verse 13: “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” It’s so easy to let our eyes just run over the words “as the Lord has forgiven you,” without really taking it in. Take time today to reflect on that. How has the Lord forgiven me? Let your mind wander through Scripture, filling in the answer to that question with gospel truths. If we carry around in us a deep and genuine appreciation for the forgiveness we have in Jesus, we will be inclined to forgive others. Our relationships will be characterized not by coldness and criticism but by the warmth and love that Jesus Himself has shown to us. That’s part of how God wants us to live in His family, for His glory.

3:18-22 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 3:9-11

You can see again in this section the relationship between the indicative and the imperative that we noticed earlier on. “Do not lie to one another [imperative], seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self [indicative]. As Christians, we have already put off the old self (our life before Christ and our way of life before Christ) and we have already put on the new self (our new life in Christ now). And we are continually being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator.

The ESV Study Bible note is helpful here: “A qualitative change of identity has already occurred in the lives of believers. It now only remains for them to bring their behavior into line with their new identity.” In this letter God graciously reveals to us our identity in Christ and then unfolds for us what our new life in Him should look like.

3:12-15 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 3:5-8

Even though we have died with Christ and have been raised with Christ (3:1-4), sin is still present in us because we are not yet in glory (3:4). Every part of us is still stained by sin: thoughts, words, actions, choices, feelings, responses, desires, daydreamings. So how does God intend for us to address this?

Put sin to death. Put it all away. When sin rears its ugly head again, slay it. Slay it through prayer. Slay it through remembering God’s Word, especially what is true of you in Christ (notice Paul’s logic: you have died…now put to death). Slay it by choosing to live in that moment for God and not for yourself. Slay it because you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

3:9-11 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 3:1-4

What a great paragraph of Scripture this is! Such rich truth and such motivating exhortation. The main thought Paul is conveying to the Colossians is something like, “You have died with Christ and you have been raised with Christ; therefore seek and set your minds on things that are above.”

We could spend a thousand lifetimes exploring the depths of what it means for us to have died with Christ and to have risen with Christ. Or what it means to seek and set our minds on things that are above. But the one thing I want to point out today is the relationship between these 2 elements of the paragraph. Paul’s exhortation to the Colossians is grounded in what he says is true about the Colossians in Christ. This is a clear example of something you find all over Scripture: statements of what is true about believers in Christ always precede statements about how believers should live in Christ. The indicative precedes the imperative (actually, this isn’t always the case in the order of the text itself, but this is always the case logically and theologically; in other words, sometimes a passage will say “Do this” and then it will say “And do it because of who you are through God’s grace,” like in Phil 2:12-13; but many times it will say “This is who you are through God’s grace” and therefore “Do this,” like in our passage today).

So here’s the takeaway from this point. The first thing to do today if you want to seek and set your mind on the things that are above is to consider the reality that you have died with Christ and have been raised with Christ. Your life (your status of being spiritually alive now instead of spiritually dead) is hidden with Christ in God. These realities are what should drive the seeking and the mind-setting that you are called to as a Christian.

Keep it up! 3:5-8 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - whole book

If you've been following along in the reading schedule, this will be the 3rd time now that you've read through the whole book of Colossians in one sitting. I hope you are benefiting from this, much like the original hearers/readers of Colossians would have benefited when the letter was read to them (no doubt in its entirety), or perhaps when they had occasion to read it themselves.

I came across this great anecdote a while back on another blog. The quote is from a work by James Gray (1851-1935) called How to Master the English Bible. It appears that he has much to say in this book that is helpful, and let's not get on him too much for his title (most certainly our primary goal should be to be mastered by the Bible, but we would do well to have a goal of mastering the special revelation God has given to us). Here's the anectdote:

"The first practical help I ever received in the mastery of the English Bible was from a layman. We were fellow-attendants at a certain Christian conference or convention and thrown together a good deal for several days, and I saw something in his Christian life to which I was a comparative stranger—peace, a rest, a joy, a kind of spiritual poise I knew little about. One day I ventured to ask him how he had become possessed of the experience, when he replied, 'By reading the epistle to the Ephesians.' I was surprised, for I had read it without such results, and therefore asked him to explain the manner of his reading, when he related the following: He had gone into the country to spend the Sabbath with his family on one occasion, taking with him a pocket copy of Ephesians, and in the afternoon, going out into the woods and lying down under a tree, he began to read it; he read it through at a single reading, and finding his interest aroused, read it through again in the same way, and, his interest increasing, again and again. I think he added that he read it some twelve or fifteen times, 'and when I arose to go into the house,' said he, 'I was in possession of Ephesians, or better yet, it was in possession of me, and I had been "lifted up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus‚" in an experimental sense in which that had not been true in me before, and will never cease to be true in me again.'"

3:1-4 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 2:20-23

When you come across a confusing paragraph in Scripture like the one today, sometimes it can be helpful to try to summarize (in a sentence or so) what the author is trying to say to his readers. Obviously we want to deal with the very words of the paragraph and not just our summary, but forcing yourself to summarize can help you move closer to understanding the author's meaning. In this case, it’s probably something like “Why are you submitting to human regulations that are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh?” This is Paul’s question and challenge to the Colossians.

One way of understanding all this is that the true teaching that Paul is defending is centered on Jesus Christ. The false teaching that Paul is denying is centered on man. The false teaching involves “human precepts and teachings” which have “an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body.” But the true teaching says we have died with Christ, and that we have been raised with Christ (3:1). As Paul goes on to show in chapter 3, only this true teaching centered on Christ has value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So when your flesh rears its ugly head again today, act upon the reality that you have died with Christ and been raised with Christ.

Read the whole book again tomorrow, and be on the lookout for how central Christ is to all that Paul has to say to the church.

March through Colossians - 2:13-15, 2:16-19

I got off track a little bit this past weekend by posting 2 times on Friday (Friday’s post and Saturday’s post), and forgetting to post on Sunday. So, today I’ll say something about 2:13-15 (Sunday’s reading) and 2:16-19 (today’s reading).

In 2:13-15 Paul reminds the Colossians about the saving work God has done in them, including bringing them from a state of spiritual deadness in sin to a state of spiritual life in Christ through the cross. Some great truths in this section to take with you today and meditate on, getting all the nourishment you can out of them.

In 2:16-19 Paul again addresses the issue of false teaching in the church, urging the Colossians not to be influenced by what is being urged upon them by the false teachers. While we may not fully understand what’s going on here after a few moments of reading, we can certainly hear Paul’s earnestness that the church hold fast to the Head in the midst of things that would distract them from the Head. Let me encourage you to consider today what usually distracts you from the Head. And remember that you are a part of what’s described in verse 19: from Jesus (who is the Head of the body, the church) the whole body is being nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments (all the various members) and grows with a growth that is from God.

March through Colossians - 2:8-12

When you read a confusing passage like 2:8 (“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”), how do you go from “What in the world?!” to “Ah, now I get it!”? Here are a few steps:

-Don’t respond to a confusing passage by speeding up but by slowing down. Read it again, ask God for help, and read it again. Remember, we should be humbly listening to the Word and patiently sitting under it expecting God to teach us. We should not be trying to hustle on to the parts we understand or think we can apply more easily.
-Think like a Colossian. Remember that this is a real historical document, written by a real person who wrote to a real church in the city of Colossae in the 1st century. Try to think, “now how would a member of the church in Colossae have understood this when it was first read to the congregation?” Reading phrases like “philosophy and empty deceit,” “human tradition,” and “the elemental spirits of the world” may not draw us in like a who-dunnit but they would have been understood by a Colossian believer and they are important to our understanding of the letter today.
-Get some help. You can gain a whole lot by reading a good study Bible like the one I’ve been mentioning (the ESV Study Bible…click here for the note on the verse above). It won’t answer every question you might have, but it will explain a lot and will help you be drawn into the letter through understanding it better, rather than being repelled away by confusion.

Pretty cool to read that we’ve been “filled in him” (2:10), that we have everything we need in Christ and by virtue of our union with Christ.

2:13-15 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 2:6-7

Paul has just told the Colossians about how much he struggles for them in order that they might grow in the knowledge of Christ instead of being deluded by the plausible arguments of the false teachers. He doesn't want them to drift from Christ. He wants to see their good order and the firmness of their faith in Christ.

The "therefore" of v. 6 serves as a way of connecting Paul's desires for the Colossians (that they would stay firm in their faith in Christ) with Paul's directives to the Colossians (about how they can stay firm in their faith in Christ). As those who have already received Christ Jesus the Lord they are to:

-Walk in Christ (like the "walk in a manner worthy of the Lord" in 1:10).
-Be rooted in Christ (O'Brien: "the readers have been firmly rooted in Christ and they are to conduct their lives according to this beginning").
-Be built up in Christ (O'Brien: the rooted and built up metaphors "are joined so as to describe the solid foundation upon which believers' lives are to be based").
-Be established in the faith just as they were taught (like the continuing in the faith stable and steadfast in 1:23).
-Abound in thanksgiving (like the thanksgiving in 1:12: "giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light").

O'Brien is careful to point out how central God is in all this: "Whatever responsibilities to Christ the readers had, and these were many, they were not to lose sight of the fact that God had been at work in their midst. It was he who had rooted them in Christ and was presently building them up in him, thereby consolidating [establishing] them in the faith."

These are spot-on directives for us who are in Christ as well, who know how easy it is to drift from Christ and who long to walk in Him.

2:8-12 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 2:1-5

Aha! "For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit" (2:5). So that's where it comes from!

Actually the ESV Study Bible has an intriguing note on this verse: "Because both the Colossians and Paul live 'in Christ' and possess the Spirit of God, there is a sense in which Paul is, in fact, present with them (see also 1 Cor. 5:3-5)."

I think it's appropriate for us to be challenged by Paul's example in this section (to follow him as he follows Christ, 1 Cor. 11:1). He says he wants the Colossians to know how great a struggle he had for them and other believers. O'Brien says that this struggle mentioned here and elsewhere "involves in the first place untiring toil and labor, an intense wrestling and struggle for the spread, growth and strengthening of the faith as the goal of his mission."

What do you struggle for? For what and for whom do you toil and labor? That's not a bad diagnostic question to ask yourself from time to time (or a lot). Remember what Paul labored for, and what by God's grace we can labor for too: for people to know Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

2:6-7 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - whole book

Why do we take time to read the whole book of Colossians in one sitting? Well for lots of reasons, but at least so that we can take in the whole message of the letter at once so that we can rightly understand the parts in their context. Hear what Moises Silva has to say about this in his book, God, Language, and Scripture:

In our effort to interpret the Bible...we should give special attention to the way sentences are joined, how they form paragraphs, and how the paragraphs combine to constitute larger units. At the simplest level, this means that we should read the Bible the way we read other literature. When we receive a letter from a friend, do we read the middle paragraph today, the last sentence next week, the introductory section two months from now? Unfortunately, many Christians use precisely that "method" in their reading of Paul's letters. The biblical books were meant to be read as wholes and that is the way we should read them.

If you have time, read what he says right before the above paragraph:

We should note that even the smallest books of the Bible consist of whole discourses. If propositions by themselves were quite sufficient, the Scriptures might be composed of a long list of individual sayings. Instead, God has given us narratives (some quite long), hymns, letters.
And these various portions are brought together in a coherent and unified whole. The principle that the Bible is its own best interpreter is not wishful thinking. From one perspective, this principle is but a reflection of the nature of all communication: sentences must be understood in the light of their total context. Even if we are reading Plato, we cannot artificially wrench one proposition in the Republic from the philosopher's whole thought. From another perspective, however, this principle is unique to Scripture. For those who are persuaded that the Bible comes from God in a sense that is not true of other writings, its unity and coherence take on a completely new dimension. God does not fail to speak in a consistent fashion - as Plato or an uninspired Paul might - and thus individual propositions in Scripture do perfectly cohere with other propositions and shed light on each other.

2:1-5 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 1:24-29

After mentioning at the end of yesterday’s section that he became a minister of the gospel, Paul takes some time in today’s section to expand on his gospel ministry. I’m sure he did this for a number of reasons, but one that we can spot is that since he was unknown (in person) to the Colossians, he wanted them to be informed about the authenticity of his ministry in light of the claims of the false teachers present in Colossae (2:4-5: “I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit.”).

Paul, as a servant of Christ, like Christ, cares quite thoroughly for His people.

A good study Bible like the ESV Study Bible can give you some help on difficult passages like the one today about “what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (see the ESV Study Bible note here for an explanation).

I like verse 29: “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” Most certainly, based at least on 1:11 (“May you [regular non-apostle believers] be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might…”), the energy and power at work in Paul for his gospel ministry is available to you who are in Christ for whatever calling God has set before you today.

March through Colossians - 1:21-23

So what's the biggest word in this passage? What's the one word that jumps off the page at you? I'm guessing that for some of you it's the "if" of verse 23 ("in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith"). Paul was really on a roll there and then he had to throw in the if.

The short answer about what's happening here is that Paul is encouraging the Colossians about the reconciliation they have in Christ, and then challenging them to continue in the faith. Continuing in the faith (stable and steadfast...) would be evidence that they indeed are genuine believers. Not continuing in the faith would only prove that they were never really reconciled to God. Paul is not doubting that they will continue; he is confident that they will (we know this because of something having to do with the specific form or kind of conditional sentence used [think "if" statement] which my brain is not remembering right now). But his words certainly should challenge us to continue in the faith.

So the "if" seems big. But let's not miss a few other big ones. How about the "once" and the "now"? "And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him." If we could start our days with this "once...but now" perspective on our life, that sure would go a long way to clearing the morning fog about who we are and what we should be about.

March through Colossians - 1:15-20

These verses say a whole lot about the person and work of Jesus Christ. If you have access to a good commentary (the one I've been using by Peter O'Brien is superb), or if you have time for some extended reflection (maybe with a good study Bible nearby), you can go a bit deeper into the numerous statements about Christ made in this section. And I would recommend that.

My suggestion for today though is this: try to capture the big picture of these verses and meditate on that big picture. Turn it over again and again, ask God to help you understand it, and try to squeeze out of it all the implications for your life that you possibly can.

My sense for the big picture of 1:15-20: Jesus Christ is the supreme Lord of every square inch of creation and He is the supreme Lord of redemption and reconciliation, and He is the head of the body that we (through the cross) are a part of.

But don't let me stop you from meditating also on the trees.

1:21-23 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 1:9-14

Most definitely it is not bad for us to pray for our health issues. Or for financial matters. Or for job struggles. Or for whatever is on our mind. But we could also be challenged and trained by Paul’s prayer (really a summary of his prayers) in these verses:

-He and his companions have not ceased to pray for the Colossians (this was a perfectly common way of saying "we have been praying for you regularly," not necessarily "we have organized a 24/7 prayer rotation," though there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with that practice).
-He asks God.
-He asks God that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will (think “knowing how to glorify God in my life,” not “knowing what will happen in the future”), which requires spiritual wisdom and understanding, which he asks for.
-He asks God for the above so that the Colossians would walk (live daily) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him (not a bad goal viewed with a gospel lens), bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (kind of sounds like what the gospel does/produces, from 1:6).
-He asks God to strengthen them with all power according to His glorious might (a necessary power source for the kind of walking/living described above), so that they could
endure with patience and joy and thanksgiving in this crazy world.

I’m not quite sure how we transfer all of that from the reading-it-on-a-blog part of our brain to the putting-it-into-practice part of our brain, but let’s try to be appropriately challenged in our own praying.

March through Colossians - 1:5b-8

Notice what Paul says about the gospel in these verses:

-It was how the Colossians first heard about the hope that is laid up for them in heaven.
-It is the word of the truth.
-It has come to them.
-It is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world.
-It is bearing fruit and growing among the Colossians (since the day they heard and understood it).
-It is something that is heard and understood by people.
-It involved understanding the grace of God in truth (notice: 2nd time Paul mentions truth, probably in light of the false teaching he addresses later).
-It is something they learned from a specific individual (Epaphras [same guy as Epaphroditus in Phil. 2:25, 4:18], who is a servant of Christ).

O’Brien says, “Fruit-bearing and increasing were marks of the gospel (Col 1:6). Paul then prays [next in Colossians] that fruit-bearing and increasing may be characteristics of the Colossians too – the fruit of good works and an increase in the knowledge of God (v 10) – that the dynamic of the gospel may characterize the lives of the Colossian believers themselves.” (italics mine)

Be encouraged that this is the same gospel that you have believed, and that God intends for it to bear fruit and grow today in you and around you.

1:9-14 tomorrow.

March through Colossians - 1:1-5a (Part 2)

Did anyone notice in vv. 4-5a the famous faith, hope, and love triad (“since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven”). I didn’t, but a commentary pointed it out to me.

Notice what’s true of these Colossian believers: their faith is in Christ Jesus, they have love for all the saints, and they have faith and love because of the hope laid up for them (by God) in heaven. And Paul thanks God for these things being present in them. This is kind of a summary description of what it means to be a Christian. These are the things we have, and we can thank God that we have them.

You and I could do worse than trying to think a little more today about faith, hope, and love, and to make a point to thank God that we have these things.

Extra note: as you read, keep in mind that Colossians isn't just a sort of magical document that we have to arbitrarily extract things from that we think will help us feel good or make sense of life. It is a real letter, written by a real person, to real people, inspired by a real God who both addressed those real people in it and addresses real people in it today. We have to submit ourselves to it. We have to submit ourselves to God in it, humbly asking Him to help us understand what Paul was saying to this church, and (by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) to all of God’s people, including you today.

March through Colossians - 1:1-5a (Part 1)

So, do you speed up when you are reading the opening verses of one of Paul’s letters? “Yeah, yeah, I know you’re an apostle, I’ve heard you say that before Paul.” Let commentator Peter O’Brien help you:

“The creative variations in the opening [stuff] regarding authorship, where Paul adapts his description of himself and his credentials to the circumstances of each particular letter, the various phrases he employs to describe his Christian readers, and the theological content poured into the greetings all indicate that his prescripts are far from being stereotyped introductions to his epistles.”

So pay attention to the nuances, to how Paul describes himself, to how he greets believers, and to the Grand Canyon of truth conveyed by the simple greeting: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”

By the way, if you are trusting in Jesus for salvation from your sins, you’re a saint. Think about that for a little while.

March through Colossians - Here We Go!

Well we didn't get started on March 1st, but I only thought of this idea on Sunday morning, so we all needed time to gather our thoughts! But here we go.

Hopefully you've taken the time today to read the whole book of Colossians straight through in one sitting. I'm wondering what that was like for you. It probably took about 10 minutes (if you weren't interrupted), and I'm guessing you felt some of the following:

• "Pretty cool. I can't remember the last time I sat down and read a whole book of the Bible straight through. Helps to see the big picture."
• "I'm feeling like I drank from a firehouse just now. I'm not sure what to think, and I'm not sure that I really understood what Paul was saying to say to the Colossians."
• "If I ever write a letter to a church, I'm going to pack all that I have to say in the first chapter and the last chapter, because I can pretty much guarantee that folks are going to drift off somewhere in chapter 2, and then wake back up somewhere in chapter 4."
• "What a joy to read about the preeminence of Christ, and about the blessings of having been raised with him. I look forward to growing in my understanding of these things."
• "I didn't know that so many verses I recognized were in Colossians!"
• "How come we aren't seeing more kids being named Aristarchus?"

Regardless of your initial reaction, I do know that your reading of the whole book today (remember: the forest) will help you make sense of your reading of the parts in the days ahead (remember: the trees). You will see connections you would not have seen otherwise. Your understanding of treasured verses will expand as you come to see them in light of the flow of the book. You will begin to grasp how deep and wide and rich and multifaceted God's written revelation is. And by the power of the Spirit working in the Word, you will be changed to be more like Jesus.

Keep it up. 1:1-5a tomorrow. Read slowly. Read prayerfully. Read expectantly. Read patiently. And read as if God were sitting across the table from you, speaking to you His life-changing Word.