Colossians

The epistle to the Colossians.

1. Thanksgiving and Prayer for Faith

Compare with Proverbs 8.

6: in the whole world the gospel extends and bears fruit in people's hearts. It grows and grows. It's a new tree stretching out over the land.

9: The kind of knowledge we're seeking to grow in isn't doctrinal, necessarily, but about understanding Christ's mind and will as to our behavior. The deeds we will do, good works, missions of love.

10: the knowledge of God is not abstraction but something that unfolds in time. Sacred history.

11: God gives us the power that we need to attain certain spiritual characteristics of joy and patience.

12-14: It's not just that our sins are forgiven but we become fellow heirs with Christ of God's kingdom, and all light and glory will belong to us.

15-17: Compare with Philippians 2:7.

The reality of all things is cosmically bound in the being of Jesus. His word is what orders all things and all powers.

Our very existence as material beings is dependent on him. All our life force and our strength.

18: What does it mean that he is firstborn from the dead if others were brought back to life before him? Presumably, Lazarus still grew old and passed away again. Jesus is the firstborn from the dead in having a new kind of glorified human body that no one had ever seen before the apostles before him. His resurrection is a promise that we too will receive resurrection from the dead.

19-20: What does it mean for all things to be reconciled? Everything in the cosmos depends upon God, but not all things in the cosmos were equally obedient to his will. Many broken and cursed things. So through Christ's deliverance we have redemption and everything is being restored.

What does it mean for the fullness of God to be pleased to dwell within him?

We do not fully realize what it means to be a man: man was made in the image of God. We are supposed to be godlike, if we were not so cursed and limited. But as Jesus is the perfect man, he is unified to God fully. And by becoming his body on earth we can be unified to God.

21-23: What does it mean to be reconciled in his body of flesh? We become part of Christ's body through faith that we will be invisibly knit together, through loving the saints, partaking of communion together, and indeed for thousands of years biologically generating new Christians. This is one body with Christ, connected to the same body that was brought out of a tomb glorified.

But we will not be able to become holy and blameless parts of Christ unless we continue in faith and hope.

24: Does Christ lack any afflictions? The pain that we endure in our bodies out of love for one another becomes a part of Christ's suffering. (John 14:12; Romans 8:17)

26: The mystery of mankind's union with Christ was hidden for thousands of years. It is now revealed. Everyone must know.

27: All the nations may participate. Everyone may have hope in glory.

28: The gospel is good news but it is also a warning.

29: God gives us the energy we need to mature ourselves and everyone else.

Seriously consider this - can you make yourself more mature than you are? Difficult, but possible, especially over years. Maturity is a precious resource and something worth striving for over your life. Now, even if that is accomplished, do you know how to make other people more mature? That is a mind boggling task. I get tired just thinking about it. We have to seek maturity not just for ourselves but in order to make others more mature.

The happy news is that God gives us the opportunities to do this and the power to overcome the challenges. We need to seize upon these opportunities while we're young -- the more holy, wise, and mature we become, the more maturity we can bring others into.

2. Rooted in Christ

3: All the treasures of knowledge hidden in Christ -- so how do we access it? Scripture, other Christians, contemplating the unfolding of providence and how Christ and believers are at work in it...

6-8: Walking with Christ with faith and thankfulness is to be contrasted with philosophy and human traditions. Philosophy and traditions are always pushed this way and that, manipulated by the powers and tensions of the world. Whoever is smartest at a given time and how exciting they are to people. Whoever has government approval and who is suppressed. And so forth. So they can't be fully relied upon.

9-10: God dwells perfectly in Christ, and so the more we are connected to Christ, the more we are filled with God's power.

11-12: Circumcision isn't as important as the spiritual circumcision of being dedicated to God that baptism represents. Baptism represents Christ descending into death and rising again. Passing through waters.

13-14:

15: Who are the rulers and authorities? The priests and scribes. And ultimately the empire, and spiritual powers, and life and death, and every idea and fear and desire that holds control over men. Christ has triumphed over all.

The law, mediated by angels, was yet one more ruler and authority. (See also Galatians 3:19, Hebrews 2:5)

16-19:

Feasts and fasts and religious practices are shadows of things to come--images of eternity. But don't use your search for the perfect ritual as a means of ruining fellowship. That doesn't, however, invalidate the idea of good religion to begin with. There are better ways to image Christ than others. But it is not an excuse for hatred. All of those promises are ultimately fulfilled in Christ, and there's nothing we can add. Love your brother. You will have to give an account for how much you have loved--pursuing better practices and images can be a tool for better love or you can just use it to hate people.

But don't let anyone obligate you to their specific regimen on how to be holy, regardless of whatever visions they had or what angels told them or whatever religious tradition they have.

20-23: All such angelic systems are subordinate now to Christ. You are nourished by him and by loving his people, not by this or that regulation about fasting on certain days.

People love religion. Every other generation, people get a religious urge and begin signing up to all the ancient traditions in droves. That's going on right now.

Those traditions are only valuable if they involve loving Christ and his people more. Lent, Ramadan, or calendars do not make you any holier, and the goal we have is being more mature and holy.

3. Set Your Hearts on Heaven

1-4: Religious regimens are concerned with earthly things. On social media, or fasting from social media - still just concerned with earthly things. We must set our mind on heaven and seeing with spiritual sight.

5: Sexual misbehavior comes from coveting what does not belong to us. This is idolatry because it means we are serving some other image in our head rather than the plan that God is unfolding. Our heart is going after things that are perishable and will fall apart some day, rather than seeking after the eternal.

6-7: God has to limit and punish this sort of behavior or it would go on forever. We've all been that way, but we need to set it aside and pursue his ways.

8-10: All of this bad fruit is not worthy of someone made in God's image. It's a false image, so it must be cast off before it becomes essential to who we are and we become destroyed. The new self, instead, lives in renewal and repentance, and grows to be perfect like Christ. Holy and mature.

11: On the path to sanctification, national barriers fall away. In our sin, and the religious traditions we've inherited of trying to control sin, we have to deal with the specific sins and temptations of our families as it attempts to live on in us and replicate itself. In holiness we are set apart from all that.

12-13: This is the basic template of Christian behavior. The good fruit that God wants are these simple things. Kindness and patience and forgiveness.

14: Love binds everything together in perfect harmony - look around and wonder that everything doesn't just dissolve in constant bloodshed and chaos at an atomic level, everywhere and on every day. None of us could orchestrate the peace and unity that God is weaving.

Love is how you involve yourself in the plan. Of how it's all coming together.

The cosmic order is being restructured by the love of Christ.

16: This is what good religious practice looks like - meditating on what Christ has said, becoming more wise and maturing others through teaching, singing, and being thankful.

Don't let anyone shame you and try to exclude you on the basis of all the other stuff that religious people get hung up on.

17: You can't be bitter, sinful, and ungrateful in the name of Christ. Doing everything in the name of Christ means you're dedicating all the work to doing it in his spirit and his way of doing things: humble, pure, thankful.

18-25: See also the latter part of Ephesians 5.

4. Conduct and Final Greetings

3: A prayer worth continuing to pray two thousand years later: that God may continue opening doors for the word of life.

It's a strange thing to declare a mystery but it is what is needed.

4-6: Don't be nasty to anyone but don't be buttery either. Be wise with them.