| ….Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, in Colossae: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. |
1-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints. Your faith and love come from the hope that is being safely guarded for you in heaven, of which you heard about previously through the word of the truth, the gospel, when it first came to you. Even as the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing in the whole world, so also it is doing the same among you, since the day you heard about and truly understood the grace of God, just as you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow-slave who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who has also told us about your love in the spirit. | 3-8 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….For this reason, we also, ever since the day we heard these things about you, have not ceased praying for you, and asking that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. We pray this so that you might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him- bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened in all power according to His glorious might in all endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who makes you able to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. For he has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, that is, the forgiveness of our sins. | 9-14 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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15-20 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….You also were once alienated from God, hostile in your thoughts and performing evil deeds, but now you are reconciled in Christ’s physical body, through His death, so that He can present you as holy, without blemish, and innocent before Him- that is, if you persist in your faith, being firmly established, steadfast, and do not shift away from the hope of the Gospel. It is the very Gospel which you heard, and which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. It is the same Gospel of which I, Paul, have become a minister. | 21-23 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ….Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and supplement in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I have become a minister to according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, in order to fulfill the word of God - the mystery which was hidden since eternity past and throughout the generations. But now this mystery has been revealed to his saints, to whom God determined to make known the glorious riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim this truth by warning and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone as perfect in Christ. It is to this end that I also labor, striving according to the power which he powerfully works in me. | 24-28 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Resources Used: |
| Colossians-Philemon, WBC, by Peter O’Brien Colossians and Philemon, TNTC, by N.T. Wright BDAG A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament by Max Zerwick NET Bible notes |
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