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¹ Salutation Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and brother Timothy, Literally, “Timothy the brother”—Paul gives recognition to his junior associate.

² to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³ Building rapport Paul had never been in Colosse, so he needed to build rapport with strangers. We always give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you

⁴ (having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love toward all the saints),

⁵ because of the hope ‘Hope’ in the Bible contains an element of certainty; it is not mere wishful thinking. that is being reserved for you in the heavens, of which you have already heard through the Word of the Truth Yes, ‘the’ Truth—the Text has the definite article. The Lord Jesus repeatedly referred to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of ‘the Truth’, so Paul is affirming that the Gospel they heard was God’s Word.

⁶ (the Gospel that has come to you just as also in all the world, where it is producing fruit and growing Although half the Greek manuscripts, followed by the Textus Receptus, and hence AV and NKJV, do not have “and growing”, the other half, including the best line of transmission (with the three most ancient versions), do. just as also among you, from the day in which you heard about and truly understood God’s grace),

⁷ even as you learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave, The Greek word here means precisely ‘slave’; Paul repeatedly referred to himself as Christ’s slave, as did others. who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf,

⁸ who also reported to us your love in the Spirit. The Text has no article with ‘spirit’, so the reference may not be to the Holy Spirit—in that event the rendering would be, ‘love in spirit’. This whole paragraph is a single sentence—if you feel that the syntax is a little convoluted, you’re right.

⁹ Christ preeminent Walk worthily of the Lord For this very reason, since the day we heard of it, we have not stopped praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the real knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,

¹⁰ in order for you to walk worthily of the Lord, pleasing Him in every way, This reminds me of John 5:19 and 12:49-50; the Lord Jesus was filled with this knowledge and understanding (and evidently we are supposed to be as well). being fruitful in every good work and growing into the real knowledge of God; Getting to know God is a process.

¹¹ being enabled with all capability according to the strength that resides in His glory, His glory reflects who He is, and He is all powerful. for all endurance and steadfastness. This is a great prayer to pray for anybody. Note, however, that the emphasis is on enduring and being steadfast—sounds like tough times.

¹² Nor have we stopped giving thanks joyfully to the Father who has qualified us for the share in the inheritance of the saints in the Light; Yes, ‘the’ Light—the Text has the definite article. John 1:7 refers to Jesus as ‘the Light’, and in John 8:12 Jesus calls Himself ‘the Light’ of the world. What sort of person will enjoy basking in the Light?

¹³ who delivered us out of the dominion of the darkness “The darkness” refers to Satan’s kingdom, and since there are only the two spiritual kingdoms in this world, everyone is in either one or the other (Luke 11:23). and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

¹⁴ in whom we have the redemption through His blood, “Through His blood” is omitted in some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, but the 60% include the best line of transmission. Without the shed blood of God’s Lamb, we would have neither redemption nor forgiveness. Praise God for the Blood. the forgiveness of our sins.

¹⁵ The supremacy of Christ described He is the visible representation of the invisible God, ‘Firstborn’ over all creation, In that culture the ‘firstborn’ had the preeminence.

¹⁶ because by Him all things were created Although the Trinity was presumably involved in the Creation, this verse plainly states that the Son was the principal agent (see also Hebrews 1:10 and John 1:10). —those in the heavens and those on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. Most inhabitants of planet Earth don’t understand that God created them for Himself, so they live out their existence here without knowing why they are here.

¹⁷ Yes, He is before all, and in Him all things subsist. ‘Subsist’ could also be rendered ‘hold together’—maybe that is why molecules, with their contrary magnetic charges, don’t fly apart.

¹⁸ Also, He is the Head of the body, the Church. He is Beginning, There is no article with ‘beginning’, so I consider that it functions like a proper name. the firstborn from among the dead, This is an interesting figure of speech; death is viewed as a huge womb, pregnant with all the deceased, and Jesus was literally the first one out, the first one to be ‘born’, the first one to resurrect with a glorified body. so that He may be preeminent in everything,

¹⁹ because in Him all the Fullness was pleased to dwell I take the point to be that while Jehovah the son was confined to a human body the Father and the Holy Spirit were with Him to such an extent that it could be said that the Godhead was dwelling in Him.

²⁰ and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, It is difficult to know whether the pronoun refers to ‘the Fullness’ (the Godhead) or to Christ—either makes sense. having made peace through the blood of His cross This is reminiscent of Isaiah 53:5, “The chastisement for our peace was upon Him.” —through Him, whether things on the earth or things on That’s what the Text says, “on”. Beings and things that are an inherent part of Heaven don’t need ‘reconciling’, so Paul uses this means to indicate the non-inherent ones that do need it. the heavens.

²¹ The truth applied So now He has reconciled you as well (you who once were alienated and hostile in your mind because of your wicked works),

²² by His physical body through His death, so as to present you before Him holy and blameless and above reproach What a marvelous purpose, what a marvelous prospect, but we have to continue in the faith (verse 23). —

²³ if, that is, you continue in the faith established and firm, not drifting away from the hope of the Gospel, that you heard and that was proclaimed in all the creation under the heaven, I wonder how and when this took place. of which I, Paul, became a servant.

²⁴ What Paul does and why he does it Present everyone perfect in Christ Now I rejoice in my sufferings I confess that I have not yet arrived at this spiritual level, to rejoice in suffering. on your behalf and supplement in my flesh Evidently the ongoing well-being of the Church requires suffering on our part, the enduring of affliction. the things lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the Church,

²⁵ of which I became a servant according to the stewardship from God that was given to me towards you, to complete the Word of God, I take it that Paul was aware that he was writing new Scripture, expounding Truth that had been withheld from Old Testament saints.

²⁶ the mystery that has been hidden from past ages and generations, but now has been revealed to His saints;

²⁷ to whom God resolved to make known who is the wealth of the glory of this mystery among the nations, namely Christ in you, the hope of glory; Christ is ‘the wealth of the glory’, but He must be in us for us to have any hope of sharing in that glory.

²⁸ whom we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ. In the Great Commission (Mt. 28:19) Christ commanded His followers to ‘make disciples’, and Paul declares that to be his objective.

²⁹ It is to this end that I labor, striving according to His working that works through me with power. If we want to see God manifesting His power through us, we must subordinate ourselves to His working.

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¹ A wealth of confident understanding I want you to know how great is my concern for you and those in Laodicea, even all who have not met me personally,

² that their hearts may be encouraged, being united in love and into a great wealth of confident understanding, To have a confident understanding of God’s Truth is indeed a great treasure. into a real knowledge of the mystery of the God and Father and of the Christ,

³ in whom all the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge are hidden. As the primary agent in the creation of our world, the Son is the Source of all true wisdom and knowledge relative to life on this planet.

⁴ Now I say this so that no one may deceive you with specious arguments.

⁵ For although in fact I am physically absent, yet my spirit is with you, rejoicing as I observe The basic meaning of the verb rendered ‘observe’ is to observe with the physical eye, which implies being within range and with no obstacles. But Paul obviously was not there as he wrote, in fact had never been there. He affirms that it is his spirit that is doing the seeing and rejoicing. The Protestant Reformation was a result, in part, of the Renaissance, with its emphasis on reason, so Protestants in general have had trouble understanding the spirit world. So the tendency of commentators has been to ‘spiritualize’ Paul’s statement, rather than take it literally. Of course they have done the same with 2 Kings 5:26 (where Elisha says his spirit went with Gehazi) and 6:12 (where Elisha listens in on the king of Syria), not to mention John 1:48 (where the Lord Himself saw Nathanael when not physically present). Here in Brazil we have many former Spiritists and Satanists who have been converted and they affirm that they used to project their spirits outside their bodies and go all over the place—several of my former students, now genuinely converted, have told me they used to do it—but they could do so only with the assistance of a fallen angel (demon). Satan’s ‘thing’ is to be like the Most High, so he is always trying to imitate Him; perhaps God’s servants used to know how to do this, only without such assistance [I have heard of a few in our day who still do]. your orderliness and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

⁶ Christian responsibility So then, keep on walking in the Christ, Jesus the Lord, just as you received Him,

⁷ having been rooted and being built up in Him and being established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

⁸ Christ VS ‘the world’ Be careful that no one captures you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ.

⁹ Because all the Fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him in bodily form,

¹⁰ and you are complete in Him who is the head over all rule and authority. Wow!

¹¹ In Him you were also circumcised by the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, not with a circumcision done by hands but with the circumcision of the Christ,

¹² having been buried with Him in the baptism. In Him you were also raised together through your faith in the productive power of the God who raised Him from among the dead.

¹³ Yes you, though being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh—He has made you alive together with Him; having forgiven us all our trespasses; This paragraph is made up of a series of participial phrases wherein Paul switches from the 2nd person, in the independent clause, to the 1st person, making inclusive statements.

¹⁴ having wiped out the written record about us that was against us (based on the ordinances), The ‘written record’ has generally been understood to refer to the Law in some way, but I believe it makes better sense to take it as the record of what each of us has done, which of course is negative. Having been forgiven, the record is nailed to the cross, and that is very good news. indeed He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross;

¹⁵ having stripped the principalities and the authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, having triumphed over them by it [the cross]. This verse gives an important aspect of Christ’s victory by the cross and resurrection. Jehovah the Son took on human form in order to destroy Satan (Hebrews 2:14), and He succeeded. A victorious Roman general would bring back a certain number of the conquered soldiers and parade them, naked and in chains, before the Roman populace—total humiliation. Colossians 2:15 says that Christ did something similar to Satan and the high ranking angels that fell with him.

¹⁶ Don’t be disqualified! So don’t let anyone judge you about food or drink, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or Sabbaths,

¹⁷ which things are but a shadow of those to come, while the body is Christ’s.

¹⁸ Nor let anyone disqualify you, If you release your hold on ‘the Head’ to get involved in the sorts of things mentioned, you will be disqualified. An athlete who is disqualified doesn’t win. taking pleasure in a subservience and devotion to the angels, ‘taking possession’ of things that he has not seen, being puffed up by his carnal mind to no useful purpose,

¹⁹ and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, supported and held together by its joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

²⁰ Now then, since you died with Christ away from the basic principles of the world, why, as though still living in it, are you subjecting yourselves to regulations

²¹ —Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!—

²² (all of which result in corruption through overuse) Actually, there are things that it is better not to taste or handle, but the overuse of such restrictions will give negative results. according to the commands and teachings of men?

²³ Such things do indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and subservience and asceticism, but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh. ‘The flesh’ is used to refer to our ‘old man’ or sin nature, not the meat on our bones. Asceticism and legalism tend to make people feel self-righteous, which the ‘old man’ loves.

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¹ Things above VS things below Furthermore, since you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right;

² set your mind on the things above, not on those upon the earth,

³ because you died and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.

⁴ Whenever Christ, our life, is revealed then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

⁵ Therefore put to death your members that are on the earth: A curious turn of phrase, ‘members on the earth’; perhaps the point is that the things listed belong to this earth and cannot leave it. There will be nothing of the sort in Heaven. fornication, filthiness, passion, evil desire, and the greediness that is idolatry. That’s what the Text says, ‘the greediness that is idolatry’, which leads me to suppose that there may be a greediness that isn’t, but I don’t know which it might be.

⁶ Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,

⁷ in which things you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

⁸ But now you must also rid yourselves of all these—anger, rage, malice, slander, obscene speech—out of your mouth.

⁹ Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off the old man with his practices

¹⁰ and have put on the new one, who is being renewed into real knowledge according to the image of his creator,

¹¹ where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.

¹² Relationships among believers Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, put on hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience;

¹³ bearing with one another and forgiving each other, if anyone should have a complaint against another—just as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

¹⁴ And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

¹⁵ Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, into which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing with grace in your heart to the Lord, with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

¹⁷ Whatever you may do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

¹⁸ Household relationships Wives, subordinate yourselves to your own husbands, In these verses we have a series of verbs in the imperative mood; they are commands. A woman who subordinates herself to her husband will be doing herself a favor (it makes it easier for him to love her). as is fitting in the Lord.

¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Right on! That is just how men tend to react, being frustrated by women’s wiles and quite different way of thinking. But a man who has the good sense to give value to that different way of thinking will come out ahead.

²⁰ Children, obey your parents in everything, because this is well pleasing in the Lord.

²¹ Fathers, do not provoke your children so that they lose heart. Unreasonable demands, harsh treatment, lack of clear guidelines—there are various ways to frustrate children and cause them to lose heart, and even give up. In today’s world they will probably cop out by going to drugs.

²² Slaves, obey your masters (according to the flesh) in all things, not just when they are looking, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.

²³ And whatever you do, give it all you’ve got, as to the Lord and not to men,

²⁴ knowing that it is from the Lord that you will receive the inheritance as a reward; because you serve the Lord Christ.

²⁵ (But he who does wrong will be repaid for this wrong, and there is no favoritism.) Being saved does not mean we get a free ride.

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¹ Masters, provide your slaves with what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in the heavens. This is a good thing for all of us to remember.

² Redeem the time Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving,

³ at the same time praying for us, that God may open to us a door for the Word, to speak the mystery of Christ (for which I am also in chains),

⁴ that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.

⁵ Behave wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

⁶ Let your word always be with grace, seasoned with salt, I wonder what ‘seasoned with salt’ means. to know how you ought to answer each one.

⁷ Concluding remarks Tichicus will tell you all the news about me; he is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow slave in the Lord.

⁸ I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that he may know your circumstances and encourage your hearts,

⁹ with Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you; they will tell you everything that is happening here.

¹⁰ Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him), Evidently Barnabas succeeded in ‘recovering’ Mark, which Paul here recognizes.

¹¹ and Jesus who is called Justus. These are my only fellow workers for the Kingdom of God who are of the circumcision; they have been a comfort to me.

¹² Epaphras, who is one of you, a slave of Christ, greets you; he is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. We need more people like Epaphras.

¹³ I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you, and for those in Laodicea and those in Hierapolis.

¹⁴ Luke the beloved physician greets you, also Demas.

¹⁵ Greet the brothers who are in Laodicea, and Nymphas and the congregation at his Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of dubious quality, have ‘her’ (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). house.

¹⁶ Now when this letter has been read among you, see that it is also read in the Laodicean congregation, Paul expected his letters to have a wide circulation. and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.

¹⁷ And say to Archippus, “See to it that you complete the work that you received in the Lord.” This personal word is unusual in a letter to the church. Since Paul had never been to Colosse, he must have known Archippus from somewhere else, but happened to know that he was in Colosse at that time.

¹⁸ Sign-off This greeting is in my own hand—Paul. The letter was dictated to a scribe or secretary, but Paul wrote the last line himself; this was his signature, authenticating the letter. Remember my chains. The Grace be with you. Amen.