Colossians 1:1-14
[Nota bene: Even though I have the first section in this book, I am assuming that I am not responsible for introducing the book itself. Therefore, I’m simply offering a pastoral/homiletical commentary on this first set of verses. If you want other things, just let me know.]
Verses 1-2
Paul begins his letter to the Colossians the way he begins almost every other letter he writes, using the common form for letters in the ancient world but giving that form a distinctively Christian character. In this particular letter, he keeps the formula as short as possible, but there are still two affirmations he makes up front that anchor the tone of the rest of the letter.
Unlike modern Western letters, where we sign our names at the bottom, ancient letters began with the identification of the sender. In the first verse, Paul identifies himself as one of Christ’s special representatives (called, literally, “sent ones” or “apostles), and he affirms that this status is one given to him by God and not one that he took upon himself. We know from Paul’s letters and from the Acts of the Apostles that during his lifetime Paul was not the universally revered figure in the church that we see him as today. There were many who opposed his authority, and he often had caused to reassert it. He begins this letter that way as a way of asking the Colossian congregation to take what he has to say to them seriously.
Next, again according to good ancient letter-writing format, Paul identifies the recipients of the letter. It is written to the Christians in Colossae (the “brothers,” or “brothers and sisters,” since the original term didn’t have to be gender-specific), who he identifies as both “holy” and “faithful.” Literally, Paul’s ascription reads “To the in-Colossae-holy-and-faithful-brothers-in-Christ.” Paul often identifies the Christians to whom he writes as “holy” or “saints,” focusing on the set-apart-for-God status that is a distinguishing feature of the church in the world. To that normal ascription, he adds the affirmation that they are faithful, something he does only here and in Ephesians (which is in many ways a sister-letter to Colossians). This means that Paul sees the Colossian Christians as living in ways that show their trust in God, something he will explicitly affirm in just a few verses.
Paul does not seem to have ever visited Colossae, or at least does not seem to have done so when he wrote this letter (see Col 2:1). We learn in verse seven that the evangelistic work in the area was done by Epaphras, but Paul takes care to connect himself with the work by identifying Epaphras as his beloved fellow servant. However, even though Paul did not found this congregation, he felt a spiritual connection to it and he cared for it. This letter, then, is an attempt to help them become more deeply grounded in the doctrine of Christ so that they will be more empowered to live better for Christ in the world. Because of this, the letter is a pretty easy letter to preach and teach from. Its concerns are not so tied to a specific situation that you do have to do a lot of historical digging to figure out what Paul is getting at. In fact, if Paul had known about the churches we serve and inhabit—like he knew about the Colossian church—he might have had cause to send us a very similar letter.
Verses 3-8
Paul moves from his typical introduction into his typical statements of thanksgiving (see 1 Cor 1:4, Phil 1:3, 1 Thes 1:2, etc.). What Paul is thankful for with the Colossian congregation is the good report he has heard about them, a report that Paul articulates in terms of his favorite theological virtues: faith, hope and love. Where in 1 Cor 13, he focuses on love as the greatest of these virtues, here he articulates them differently, giving priority to hope as the ground of the other two. Paul praises the Colossians for their faith and trust in Christ and for their love for their fellow Christians, but he sees both that faith and that love as flowing out of hope. Hope, in other words, has let the Colossians see the end or purpose or goal of their journey, and because they see that goal, they work toward in both faith and love. Hope is, in some sense, the essence of the gospel message. God was actively involved in redeeming the world in Christ, and Christ’s resurrection was God’s “down-payment” on the coming resurrection God would bring at the end of time. Because God enabled the Colossians to see the future toward which they were moving, God also empowered them to actively live toward that future and not just wait passively for it to happen. For Paul, that’s what it means to live in faith and in love. We trust God and we work for the good of others because we see God’s faithfulness and the good that God will eventually bring about.
Using the metaphor of agricultural growth, Paul implicitly compares the gospel to a seed, one that God planted through the work of Epaphras, who then reported to Paul how well that seed was growing. The point for Paul is that the Gospel bears fruit. It’s productive; it does something. In Paul’s view, the gospel is not just a report of something that God did in the past (“Jesus died for our sins back there”) but a message that is active toward the future, a hope that empowers the way people live here and now. Once you “comprehend” God’s grace—which means “grasp” both in the sense of “understand” but also in the sense of “seize” and “hold on to”—you live differently. And that living differently is what the gospel is all about. Later in the letter, Paul will remind them of the past they had left behind and the new life that they were now living, but for now he simply affirms that the message of God’s grace in Christ was doing what it was supposed to be doing, what it does anywhere in the world that it is proclaimed.
Verses 9-12
In verse 9, Paul explicitly identifies the ongoing fruitfulness of the gospel as the main motivation for his prayers for the Colossians. He prays for them because he wants that process to continue. He also outlines that process in a bit more detail in these next six verses. First, Paul prays that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Once the Colossians understand what God wants—something that comes to them through spiritual wisdom and insight and not the earthly kind—then they will be empowered to live toward their hope in a way that properly (worthily) reflects God’s character. Living this way starts induces a cycle that includes good works and opens the door for greater knowledge, which allows one to live even more worthily, and so on and so on. Note that it is important for Paul to include the presence of good works in this cycle but also for the Colossians to understand that they derive from the work of God in their lives—they are not pre-requisite to it.
Paul then articulates one of his prayers for the Colossians, moving from description to benediction. He prays that God would strengthen them as only God can, and that this strength would empower their endurance. Paul knows well that living a life worthy of God means living at odds with the world, and that brings suffering. This suffering, however, is well worth it, and so believers can be joyful—even in the midst of things that cannot be enjoyed but only endured—because they know what it is that God has prepared for them. And so we are back, again, to the idea of hope, which is where this section started.
Verses 13-14
Paul finishes this section with a brief reaffirmation of the message of the gospel. He focuses on the reorientation of loyalties that belief in Christ brings about, transferring us from the kingdom of darkness—meaning the kingdom of this world—to the kingdom of God’s son. Again, because we are citizens of a different kind of kingdom, we are expected to lead a different kind of life. It is a life that is based on the life and character of Christ, and so that sets up the Christological ideas that Paul affirms in the next set of verses.