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Introduction
Paul’s letter to the Colossians is two-thirds the size of his letter to the Ephesians, but follows the same general pattern. That pattern is 1) a review of the gospel followed by 2) its practical application to daily life. Both letters devote roughly the first half of the letter to the gospel and the second to its application. Romans and Hebrews are the only other letters that follow this general pattern, though, in both, the gospel explanation gets the vast majority of attention and its application is addressed much more briefly. The remainder of Paul’s letters are not general in nature but rather deal with issues specific to the recipients and Paul usually deals with those issues in a more personal way. Colossians’ distinction and benefit is that it is the shortest general letter of Paul’s, and it gives a relatively balanced treatment of gospel and practice. Therefore, it’s a great summary of the Bible for you and your family.
The city of Colossae was situated in the region the New Testament calls “Asia” – what we today call the nation of Turkey. This Asia included lots of cities that are mentioned in the New Testament. For example, Colossae was near the seven cities to which the apostle John sent the book of Revelation (Laodicea being the closest). Farther to the west, near the Aegean Sea, was Ephesus. To the east was the sub-region of Galatia. Still farther to the east was Paul’s hometown of Tarsus. It was a big region. Although Paul traveled through this area on both his second and third missionary journeys, we have no record of his ever having visited Colossae. There were just too many cities to go to them all.
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Colossians 1
Col 1:1 – In half of Paul’s letters, he names a co-author. In this case, it’s Timothy. For a complete list of Paul’s letters that have one or more co-authors, see “Co-Authors” in the BSN note on Paul.
Col 1:2 – The greeting of “grace and peace” was not unique to Paul. Peter (1 Pet 1:2; 2 Pet 1:2) and John (2 Jn 1:3; Rev 1:4) used it, too. Grace and peace constitute the apostles’ attitude to all they wrote. Thus, the New Testament, and the entire Bible, is grace and peace to you and your family. Whether you’re opening it for your personal devotions or for your family’s, you should seek grace and peace between its covers – and you will find it.
Matt 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Matt 7:8 “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Sure, the Bible will correct, reprove, and even rebuke you and your family, but it does so in a spirit of good will for the purpose of bringing you and your family grace and peace every time you open it. It is the word of God to you and therefore it is the word of a just but loving Heavenly Father. He can be severe at times, but He prefers to be kind.
Rom 11:22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.
Col 1:3-8 – Paul was the first to preach the gospel in Corinth and Ephesus, but not in Colossae. That honor went to Epaphras. Paul will mention him again near the end of this letter.
Col 1:9-14 – In both this paragraph and the previous one, Paul is demonstrating his view of how prayer applies to believers. He may be praying for the unbelievers in Colossae, but all he’s talking about in this letter is praying for the believers there. This tells us that believing in Jesus Christ does not mean we no longer need prayer! You are the priest appointed by God for your family. No one should be praying for them more than you. And they need for prayer to be offered on their behalf – starting with thanksgivings. Here are our marching orders as men with regard to our families.
Heb 5:1 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins;
Heb 5:2 he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness;
Heb 5:3 and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.
Heb 5:4 And no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.
Col 1:13-14 – Notice the similarity of what Paul says here with what Jesus said to him.
Acts 26:18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’
Paul – like all the apostles – is always remaining faithful to what Jesus told him.
Col 1:15 – See BSN Glossary entry on “the image of God.”
Col 1:16 – Notice the similarity between this and what the apostle John said.
John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
Col 1:17 – Notice the similarity between the first half of this verse and what the apostle John said.
John 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
Col 1:18 – How can He who is to have first place in everything ever be made the second person of anything? (There Is No Trinity; There Is Christ!)
Col 1:19-20 – Notice the similarity between what Paul says here and what he wrote to the Corinthians.
2 Cor 5:18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
2 Cor 5:19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Col 1:21-23 – Paul is describing to the Colossians what he knows experientially as well as intellectually, for he himself was “formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds” – from Acts 7:58 until 9:6.
Col 1:24-27 – The New Testament churches comprised the body of Christ in New Testament times. They were being persecuted – even by Paul at one point – just as Jesus Himself had been persecuted. Note that the following is just how Jesus described it to Paul.
Acts 26:15 “And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
By persecuting the NT church, Paul had been persecuting the body of Christ – and Jesus confirmed this when He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Thus Christ’s sufferings were being replayed in the NT churches. That generation was experiencing the pains of childbirth. It was the greatest generation of all because it bore this pain as they birthed the kingdom of God.
Col 1:28-29 – Notice the similarities between what Paul is saying here and what he said to the Corinthians.
2 Cor 4:5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.
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Colossians 2
Col 2:1-3 – How could “all” the treasures of wisdom and knowledge be hidden in Christ unless God Himself was hidden in Christ? And isn’t this what we keep hearing from all the apostles?
Col 1:19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,
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2 Cor 5:19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself…
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1 Pet 5:10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
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1 John 2:23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
Col 2:4-5 – Brother, listen to me: it’s all about your faith being IN CHRIST!
Gal 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
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1 John 5:11 And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
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2 John 1:9 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.
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John 14:7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”
Col 2:6-7 – Note the similarity between what Paul says here to the Colossians and what he said to the Galatians.
Gal 5:25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Col 2:8-23 – The remainder of this chapter is bookended by the phrase “the elementary principles of the world” mentioned in verse 8 and again in verse 20. Therefore, throughout these three paragraphs (as marked in the NASB: verses 8-15, 16-19, and 20-23) Paul is contrasting the truth of the teaching of Christ with “the elementary principles of the world.” Paul uses similar expressions in his letter to the Galatians.
Gal 4:3 So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.
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Gal 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?
I think we can take Paul’s expression, in whatever form he uses, to mean “any teaching contradictory to the teaching of Christ,” whether it be the Law of Moses taken in its original, literal sense or any other philosophy or ideology regardless of its source. All such teachings are rooted in the world as it was before Christ came to redeem it – whether religious or secular. We can consider them all synonymous with “false teachings” or that which is “antichrist.”
Col 2:8-15 – Re: “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,” see the BSN notes on Col 2:1-5 above. This again is about God being IN CHRIST. Christ is the center of everything. Remember how Paul put it in his letter to the Ephesians:
Eph 1:10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth…
At this point we can say that the theme of Colossians is the centrality of Christ. (This is also the theme of the Bible as a whole.)
Col 2:16-17 – This passage is about using the Old Testament feasts and regulations as pointers to Messiah (Type and Shadows of Christ) rather than as a code of conduct (as Israel had been doing since the time of Moses). In modern times, we are no more tempted to follow the Law of Moses literally than we are tempted to practice slavery. It is not at all that we are so much holier than these believers in Colossae, but rather that 21st-century life has rendered those ways of life anachronistic and replaced them subtler and more effective temptations. The devil’s tempting power is static; he just disguises it differently in each new age.
Col 2:18-19 – Paul had visions – lots of them (2 Cor 12:1-6). Paul came to faith in Christ through a vision, and Luke wrote of that vision three different times in the book of Acts (Acts 9, 22, 26). Yet when Paul wanted to re-lay and reinforce the all-important foundation of faith in the Corinthians (1 Cor 15), he did not focus primarily on his vision of the Lord but rather on the multiple appearances of the Lord to multiple people and groups, mentioning his vision only at the end (1 Cor 15:1-11). In doing this, he also made the point twice that the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord were both “according to the Scriptures.” Thus we see that visions are a blessing, but they rest upon historical fulfillment of ancient prophecy and are insufficient by themselves to support our faith. The Bible is the bedrock upon which all our spiritual experiences are to be fixed and made secure. We take our stand on the Scripture (the OT being documentation of the promises of Christ, and the NT being documentation of the fulfillment of those promises), letting visions find their rightful place in that context. Therefore, if someone comes along and tells you about their vision that supersedes the Bible, “let them be accursed” (as Paul said in Gal 1:8-9).
(Someone may object to the previous paragraph by saying, “But, Mike, the NT doesn’t claim that the Second Coming is fulfilled, yet you believe that it is.” I believe it because Jesus and His apostles said it was going to happen in their generation. In other words, the NT is the basis for my faith that this promise, too, was fulfilled – so I am once again sticking with the Bible for my support. Since the Second Coming was a spiritual event, there is no physical event like a crucifixion or resurrection to which anyone could bear witness. Besides, most of the eight men who wrote the New Testament were martyred by that time. The Scripture remains in this age and all the ones to come our primary witness to God, and the foundation for every other witness.)
Col 2:20-23 – If there was a commandment we could follow that would protect us from fleshly temptation, then we would have been given that commandment and God could have saved Himself the trouble of the cross. Beware of any religion or secular ideology. Christ is central. That is truth and it is therefore non-negotiable.
Gal 2:21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
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Colossians 3
Col 3:1 – Jesus Christ is still above. It’s just that He’s now seated in the center of the throne and not just at the right hand of it.
Rev 7:17 for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”
Col 3:1-2 – We look above because that’s where we’re going when we’re finished with things down here. Heaven is where Jesus is – looking down on us with love and wisdom, cheering us on. Remember that He even stood up for Stephen!
Acts 7:54 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him.
Acts 7:55 But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;
Acts 7:56 and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
As you stand up to cheer on your son or daughter in a sporting event, so He stands up for you. Do you think you love your child more than He loves you?
Col 3:3 – This is a common thread of Paul’s – that we accept Christ’s death as our own so that we can live a new life, no longer for self but for Him.
Gal 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
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Gal 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
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2 Cor 5:14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died;
2 Cor 5:15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
We have died to self so that we can live to X. To die to self is to die to sin, for sin is selfishness (narcissism) ; to live to X is to live to righteousness, because that’s what He loves to see (Heb 1:9).
Col 3:3-4 – As for Christ being “our life,” see THE LIFE for other verses that speak of Him in this way. ***** Christ was revealed as God and Father in the Second Coming (Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again). This revealed us as well, for if He is God and Father, (Is 9:6) then we are sons of God. This was “the adoption of sons” (Rom 8:15, 23; 9:4; Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5) that occurred when Jesus inherited all things from the Father (Heb 1:1-2; Ps 2:8).
Eph 1:5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
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Heb 1:2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
Thus when Jesus was revealed as God and inherited all that was God’s, we human beings were revealed as His sons.
Luke 17:30 “It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.”
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Rom 8:19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
It’s not that there are two revelations; it’s that one revelation speaks to all of reality. As Paul says here in Colossians, in the revelation of Him, we are revealed. And who is the “we”? Human beings, of course! Or is God the God of Christians only? Is He not the God of everyone else also? Yes, everyone else also!
Rom 3:29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,
True, everyone is not accepting his sonship, many are rebellious. Some will fight Him until the day they die – but not a second after that. (For more explanation, start with the essay Everyone Is Going to Heaven) A rebellious son is a son.
Col 3:5 – As dead as we were to God, that’s how dead we ought to be to sin.
Col 3:6-8 – Just because everyone is a child of God doesn’t mean that they can’t bring God’s wrath on themselves during this life and His eternal judgment on them regarding their placement in heaven. Indeed, great wrath comes upon great sinners. God hates sin. We would still have wrath coming on us if we were still sinning. That’s the point Paul is making here. “There but for the grace of God go I” is the way we ought to view unbelievers. People often make that statement in a fatalistic way as if God picks and chooses who gets the grace. On the contrary, He bestows His grace upon all – for the Bible has gone out to the whole world – and some accept the good news while others do not. Don’t think you’re better than anyone else for having accepted your inheritance of grace – just keep seeking more of that grace day after day (like manna) lest you fall back into the old way of thinking and living.
This letter from Paul has now clearly moved out of the “gospel declaration” phase and into the “gospel application” phase. That is, as I said in the introduction to this letter, the pattern Paul is following is to declare truth from God in the first half and declare how we ought to respond to that truth in the second half.
Col 3:9-11 – Your “old self” is the self who lived for self; your “new self” is the self that lives for Christ. Don’t try to live a double life – it will never work. You can’t serve two masters. You can serve yourself or you can serve Christ, but you can’t do both. You can be the old you or you can be the new you, but you can’t be both. An old dog cannot learn new tricks; you must become a new dog.
Col 3:12-13 – This is the new self’s lifestyle.
Col 3:14 – This is a summation of all commandments.
Col 3:15 – You can’t oversee a family of peace if you don’t first have peace in your own heart. You have to be rich enough in peace to extend peace to your wife and children. If your soul is starved for peace, how are you going to have any to give your family? You find your peace in the word of God; if you lack peace, go to His word.
Ps 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul…
See the next verse because it makes precisely this point.
Col 3:16 – Make sure the words of Jesus are regularly exchanged between all members of your family – from you to them most of all. This will make sure that peace is regularly exchanged between all of you. ***** Re: “the word of Christ” see #TGTC.
Col 3:17 – This is how the new self lives. For to do something in the name of the Lord is to do something for Him instead of for yourself.
Col 3:18-4:1 – The practical instructions in this passage (9 verses) reads like a condensation of Eph 5:22-6:9 (21 verses), touching on all the same basic points. It’s obvious that this was a sequence of instructions that Paul was used to giving off the top of his head – sort of like a stump speech on the basics of righteous family living. As you read the Ephesian version and the BSN notes on it, consider this Colossians passage as shedding further light on those basics.
Col 3:22-25 – In the Greek, the pronouns in verses 22-24 are plural because they apply to slaves being addressed, but in verse 25 they are singular because its statement refers not just to slaves but to everyone.
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Colossians 4
Col 4:1 – See notes on Col 3:18-4:1 above. (Chapter and Verse Divisions)
Col 4:2 – That Paul gives us a way to stay alert in prayer is an indication that our dullness and sleepiness in prayer is not a problem that is unique to us.
1 Cor 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
Paul is instructing us that “an attitude of thanksgiving” is a “way of escape” from the “temptation” to drowse in prayer. A person who has never struggled with drowsiness in prayer has never spent much time in sincere prayer.
Matt 6:5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
Matt 6:6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
Col 4:2-4 – Paul began this letter talking about his prayers for these believers; now he asks them to return the favor. As preachers pray for believers, so believers should pray for preachers.
Matt 9:36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.
Matt 9:37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Matt 9:38 “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”
I pray this prayer regularly, not just because it ought to be prayed regularly, but because I see so few preachers of Christ today. It’s hard for me to identify any. Pastors are either preaching church or, worse, they preach self-help bromides using a biblical vocabulary to make it sound Christian. Worse yet, some preach the ideologies and politics of the age. Where are those who preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified for our sins as Paul and the other apostles did?
2 Cor 4:5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.
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1 Cor 2:2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
We human beings have a sin problem. We need help with it! And Jesus Christ is the only reasonable and effective source of help for the sin problem that has ever been announced to the public at large. There are many ways that I know that Jesus Christ is true, but probably the main one is because when I read His words I can see He understands my sin problem. I know I am a sinner and that I have a sin problem and He demonstrates awareness of the disease and of the cure!
Luke 5:31 And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.
Luke 5:32 “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
That is, I go to Jesus because He’s obviously a doctor who knows how to cure the disease I have. Americans today agree on few things, but one thing that the majority of them agree on is that there is a sin problem – but they think everyone else has it but them. The preaching we need is the preaching that opens our eyes to 1) our sin and 2) His righteousness. Only the Lord can send this kind of preacher. We cannot send them, and we cannot send ourselves. He must call a man, and only then can that man have the conviction it takes to stand up to the braying mobs that have gathered against Christ the Lord to defy His authority over all of us.
Col 4:5-6 – As I say many times throughout these notes: Take Paul’s instructions to families as instruction to your own family, but also take his instructions to churches as instructions to your own family as well. With reference to Paul’s mention of “outsiders,” teach your children, in age-appropriate ways, that the world is full of deceived and deceiving people and that children cannot trust anyone like they trust their parents. When I entered adolescence I thought I could trust other people as much or more than I could trust my parents. Yet I now realize that on my father’s worst day he was looking out for my best interests more than anyone else I knew. No, you don’t want to raise your children to be cynical, but neither do you want to raise them to be naive. Teach them what Jesus has taught you:
Matt 10:16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.”
To sum up, understand that God has placed boundaries around the nuclear family and those outside it are “outsiders.” Now there degrees of “outsider.” For example, extended family are less outside than mere friends, and mere friends are less outside than acquaintances, and acquaintances are less outside than total strangers. Still, the nuclear family – not the individual – is the atom. An atom is comprised of a nucleus in the center (which is the union of proton and neutron) around which electrons revolve. Thus a father, mother, and children are rightly called a nuclear family. Satan always seeks to split the atom because its leads to atomic explosions. The family landscape in America today looks Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Jesus Christ can restore families – even with a landscape like this – and He does so by focusing not so much on the family per se but by focusing on the man who then focuses on the family. In other words, the leverage to fixing the family is found in focusing on fatherlessness.
When men are right, families will be right.
When families are right, nations will be right.
When nations are right, the world will be right.
It all starts with the man.
And without Jesus Christ, a man cannot be right.
For more, see the essay Family Is Sacred and/or the book The Honor of Marriage.
Col 4:7-9 – Tychicus is mentioned briefly elsewhere (Acts 20:4; Eph 6:21; 2 Tim 4:12; Tit 3:12). Onesimus gets only one other mention, but it’s a very special one in Philemon.
Col 4:10-11 – Aristarchus is mentioned briefly elsewhere (Acts 19:29; 20:4; 27:2; Phile 1:24). Barnabas’ cousin Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark from Peter’s teaching; and Peter mentions him fondly in 1 Pet 5:13. Luke called him both John and Mark in multiple mentions. This “Jesus who is called Justus” is mentioned nowhere else; his name is a reminder to us that Jesus is a name more commonly given a boy in some other cultures than it is where English is the primary language (such as Spanish in our time).
Col 4:12-13 – Epaphras is the man who first preached Christ to the Colossians. Paul mentioned this fact in Col 1:3-8. Epaphras is also mentioned in Phile 1:23.
Col 4:14 – Luke wrote the Gospel that bears his name as well as the Acts of the Apostles; Paul also makes mention of him in 2 Tim 4:10-11 and Phile 1:24. Demas is briefly mentioned in those two letters (2 Tim 4:10; Phile 1:24).
Col 4:15-16 – Laodicea (one of the seven cities to whom John’s book of Revelation was addressed) was only about 10 miles northwest of Colossae. As for Paul’s “letter that is coming from Laodicea,” some scholars think that this was a letter that was lost while other scholars think that Ephesians was written as a circular letter intended for a string of churches that included Laodicea. (I’m inclined toward the latter; it doesn’t seem plausible to me that a letter of Paul’s would be lost.) Although Colossians says many of the same things that Ephesians does, it also presents many additional and wonderful facets of the same truths. I would hate to be without it! I can easily picture Paul writing Ephesians with the hope that it would circulate eastward across Asia Minor, and then writing Colossians to have it circulate eastward back toward Ephesus which was near the coast of the Aegean Sea. Paul didn’t mind writing the same things again, and actually thought it was helpful to the readers.
Phil 3:1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
And this would be all the more helpful if he weren’t repeating himself word for word, but rather inserting paraphrases and digressions with each writing – which is what we see when we compare Colossians with Ephesians.
Col 4:17 – Archippus is mentioned also in Phile 1:2.
Col 4:18 – As in the case of Gal 6:11, Paul’s reference to “my own hand” probably indicates that he has been dictating the letter to a scribe up to this point. (By the way, we also see dictation to a scribe in the OT – see Jeremiah using Baruch in Jer 36:4.) By adding a few words in his own writing, Paul was assuring readers that the letters were indeed his 2 Thess 3:17).
The Duty of a Man 