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Colossians

Colossianschapter 1

29 verses · BSBColossians book hub →

Speaks with:Ephesians 1×10Ephesians 4×4John 1×3Ephesians 3×3Ephesians 5×32 Corinthians 1×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Paul and Timothy greet the saints at Colosse, giving thanks for their faith and love, and praying that they may be filled with the knowledge of his will. God hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature; by him were all things created; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. He is the head of the body, the church; in him all fulness should dwell. Calvin reads the hymn as the Christ-supremacy charter.

Context

Epistle · Paul — Colossians overview

  • A. 1–8 The Gospel Bearing Fruit in All the World
  • B. 9–14 Rescued From Darkness, Moved Into His Kingdom
  • C. 15–23 Image of the Invisible God: First in Everything
  • D. 24–29 The Mystery Made Known: Christ in You, the Hope of Glory

The outline

  1. A.The Gospel Bearing Fruit in All the Worldvv. 1 to 8

    Read vv. 1 to 8 →

  2. B.Rescued From Darkness, Moved Into His Kingdomvv. 9 to 14

    Read vv. 9 to 14 →

  3. C.Image of the Invisible God: First in Everythingvv. 15 to 23

    Read vv. 15 to 23 →

  4. D.The Mystery Made Known: Christ in You, the Hope of Gloryvv. 24 to 29

    Read vv. 24 to 29 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Faith, hope, and love as one triad

Pattern

Paul binds the three graces into one triad across three letters: now abideth faith, hope, charity; faith in Christ Jesus, love to all the saints, and the hope laid up in heaven; the work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope; and the triad worn as armor.

The triad is Paul's shorthand for the whole Christian life, and the greatest of these is charity. At 1 Thessalonians 5:8 the three become armor, the breastplate of faith and love and the hope of salvation for an helmet.

  1. 1 Corinthians 13:13

    Now abideth faith, hope, charity

    These three abide when prophecies, tongues, and knowledge have served their season; the greatest is charity.

  2. Colossians 1:4-5 you are here

    Faith, love, and the hope laid up

    The Colossian thanksgiving runs the same triad: faith in Christ Jesus, love to all the saints, the hope laid up in heaven.

  3. 1 Thessalonians 1:3

    Work of faith, labour of love, patience of hope

    The letter opens by remembering each grace at work in a church a few weeks old.

  4. 1 Thessalonians 5:8

    The triad worn as armor

    The breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

The mystery made known

Pattern

In Ephesians and Colossians the mystery is a secret now published, not a puzzle: made known by revelation, the Gentiles fellowheirs of the same body, Christ and the church, hid from ages but now manifest, and Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Musterion in these letters means what God has now revealed, and Paul names its content plainly. Reading the word as Paul uses it guards the reader from hunting hidden knowledge where the apostle is announcing open good news.

  1. Ephesians 1:9

    The mystery of his will

    Made known unto us according to his good pleasure, purposed in himself.

  2. Ephesians 3:3-6

    The Gentiles fellowheirs

    By revelation he made known the mystery, and its content is stated: the Gentiles fellowheirs, of the same body, partakers of the promise in Christ.

  3. Ephesians 5:32

    Christ and the church

    This is a great mystery: Genesis 2:24 read onto Christ and the church by Paul himself.

  4. Colossians 1:26-27 you are here

    Hid from ages, now made manifest

    The mystery among the Gentiles is named: Christ in you, the hope of glory.

  5. Colossians 2:2

    The acknowledgement of the mystery

    All riches of the full assurance of understanding rest in the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.

The world behind this chapter

Colossians 1
When
Paul in Roman custody · c. AD 60–62, traditionally from Rome
Where
A small town in the Lycus valley of Asia Minor, in a church Paul had never visited.
Who first heard it
Believers at Colossae, converted through Epaphras rather than through Paul himself.

The history

Colossae sat in the Lycus river valley about a hundred miles inland from Ephesus, alongside Laodicea and Hierapolis. It had once been a significant town on the main road east but had been overtaken by its neighbours, and by the first century it was the least important of the three. The region was known for wool and dyeing.

Paul says plainly that he had not seen their faces. The church was founded by Epaphras, one of their own, who had evidently been converted during Paul's long stay at Ephesus and carried the message home — which is how the whole province heard the word in those years.

The passage about Christ as the image of the invisible God, in whom all things were created, visible and invisible, thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities, reads like a hymn and is generally taken as one. Its listing of unseen powers is not decorative: it is the answer to a local teaching that treated such beings as forces to be managed.

The region was also earthquake country. Ancient sources record a severe earthquake that struck the Lycus valley around AD 60 or 61, and Colossae never fully recovered its standing afterwards.

What it meant to them

For a congregation in a declining town, being told that the Christ they believed in holds all things together, and is head of the body, the church, placed them at the centre of something far larger than their address.

And Paul's prayer for them is worth noticing for what it does not ask. Not relief or prosperity, but knowledge of God's will, a life worthy of the Lord, endurance and patience with joy — for people he had never met.

Sources cited

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Colossians 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians; J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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