Commentary on Colossians

Contents

In a few places the lemma printed in a passage belongs to a neighbouring verse (the digital text misnumbers verses); the passage keeps its staged number.

Reading pages: 0.1–1.29 · 2.1–2.23 · 3.1–4.18

1. 0.1The prologue explains that Paul writes to keep the Colossians from false teachers who urged reverence for the cosmic elements, and to fix their hope on Christ alone.
2. 1.1Paul greets the Colossians in his usual way.
3. 1.4Paul thanks God for the Colossians' faith and love, which rest on the hope laid up in heaven.
4. 1.7The Colossians' faith bears fruit and draws others; Paul prays that they may know God's will so their devotion may be wise and fruitful.
5. 1.11Believers should grow in knowledge and patience, giving thanks to God, who rescued them from the darkness of the underworld into his Son's kingdom; since Christ's victory, the faithful who die are led to heaven.
6. 1.14Through Christ come redemption and release from the underworld; he is the image of the invisible God not as something visible but as equal in nature to the Father, seen through his divine works, while the Father never appeared.
7. 1.16Christ is begotten, not created, before all creation; all things, including the angelic powers, were made through him from nothing and hold together in him; as he made all, so he restores all, first from the dead.
8. 1.19All fulness dwells in Christ, who can create, restore, give life, and judge, and so is perfect God.
9. 1.20God reconciled all things in heaven and on earth through the incarnate Christ's teaching and death, so that his creatures might live in him their author.
10. 1.21The gentiles, once enemies of God's counsels and devoted to idols, have been freely reconciled through Christ's death and must remain holy for the judgment.
11. 1.23Christ's sufferings, continued in the persecution of his apostle, profit only those who remain in the faith; since all depends on Christ, no element, angel, or power is to be worshipped.
12. 1.25Paul was appointed to fulfil among the gentiles the mystery hidden for ages.
13. 1.27The revealed mystery is that gentiles share in Christ, the hope of glory, without circumcision.
14. 1.29True wisdom is knowing Christ, and Paul labours, with miracles to silence opponents, to bring all to full understanding of Christ's divine and human births.
15. 2.1All wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, so the Colossians need no worldly learning or other powers; Paul, present in spirit like Elisha, warns them against subtle reasoners.
16. 2.6The Colossians must remain firmly rooted in the Christ they were taught, avoiding corrupters of the faith.
17. 2.8Paul warns against philosophy that reduces God's power to natural reasoning and worships the elements and stars; all fulness of divinity is in Christ, so no other is to be worshipped.
18. 2.10Believers, filled in Christ and indwelt by the Spirit, surpass the elements that pagans worship.
19. 2.11Baptism is the true circumcision of the heart, in which believers die and rise with Christ and renounce the devil, who seeks worship under the guise of the elements.
20. 2.13Christ forgave all sins, including the inherited sin of Adam that kept the dead in the underworld, by nailing it to the cross; the sinless one, unjustly killed, made the powers guilty and stripped them of their captives.
21. 2.16Food laws, feasts, new moons, and the sabbath were shadows whose authority ceased with Christ, as an emperor's image loses authority when he is present.
22. 2.17Those who worship the stars, which Paul calls 'angels', keep souls bound below the heavens by the devil's work; turning back to Christ the head, creation grows for God.
23. 2.20Baptism means dying to the world and its elements; a baptized person who still reveres them remains bound within the world, estranged from God.
24. 2.21Taboos of human tradition lead to corruption and turn people from the one God.
25. 2.23Worship of the elements, disguised as religion, is sacrilege that binds minds to earth and severs them from Christ the head.
26. 3.1Those risen with Christ in baptism set their minds on heaven, where Christ reigns as judge; resurrection comes first for the soul, then for the body.
27. 3.2Believers should seek the highest heavens, not the powers in and below the firmament.
28. 3.3The life of Christ and his people, though they seem dead to the world, is hidden in God's heavenly kingdom.
29. 3.4When Christ, the author of life, returns as judge, believers will appear with him in glory.
30. 3.5The sins to be put to death include greed, which is idolatry because, as idolatry steals God's name, greed seizes for one person the goods God made common to all.
31. 3.6God's judgment will come on those who pursue these sins.
32. 3.7The Colossians, once living in those sins, should rejoice in their rescue and obey Christ.
33. 3.8Believers must put off lesser sins too and put on the new man, renewed in the image of the Creator by good conduct, in which all races are one in Christ; Ambrosiaster distinguishes this image, shared by women, from the image of God in the first man, and digresses on the Scythians.
34. 3.14Love, the bond of unity, perfects all other virtues and always brings true peace.
35. 3.16Believers should sing Christ's praise in psalms and hymns from the heart, for God, not for human favour.
36. 3.17All words and deeds should glorify Christ; wives are to be subject to their husbands as God ordained in Genesis.
37. 3.19Husbands must temper their authority with love, since the wife is their own flesh.
38. 3.20Children please God by honouring and obeying their parents.
39. 3.21Fathers should be moderate, remembering they were once sons, so that children may be submissive.
40. 3.22Slaves should serve sincerely, since faithfulness in small things prepares faithfulness toward God.
41. 3.23Slaves who serve as to the Lord will be rewarded in Christ's kingdom as servants of Christ, a title of dignity.
42. 4.1God created all free; slavery arose from human injustice, and before God the true slave is the sinner, so masters, themselves God's servants, must treat slaves justly.
43. 4.2Paul urges persistent prayer and asks the Colossians to pray for his bold preaching.
44. 4.5Christians must speak of their faith wisely and gently, choosing time and hearer, and yield to the hostile, especially when rulers oppose the faith.
45. 4.7Paul sends Tychicus and Onesimus to exchange news, since a visible observer makes people more careful.
46. 4.10Paul commends Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus Justus, the only Jewish believers who supported his preaching against circumcision.
47. 4.12Paul commends Epaphras, their fellow citizen, who prays constantly for the Colossians' perfection.
48. 4.13Epaphras's labour for them should spur the Colossians' own care for their salvation.
49. 4.14Luke, author of the Gospel and Acts, was Paul's constant companion.
50. 4.15Paul greets the Laodiceans and Nympha, whose whole household was Christian.
51. 4.16Paul's letters were meant for all churches, so the Colossian and Laodicean letters were to be exchanged.
52. 4.17Archippus, who succeeded Epaphras as leader of the church, is reminded through the congregation to fulfil his ministry.
53. 4.18Paul signs the letter himself and asks them to remember his sufferings for the gentiles.