Verses preaching the "Gospel of Jesus"

Part 48 - PAULS LETTER to the COLOSSIANS

GREETINGS, THANKSGIVING AND PRAYER

48.1 GREETINGS; THE GOSPEL IS CHANGING THE WORLD AS IT IS CHANGING YOU

Colossians 1:1-8 - Paul, messenger of Jesus Christ by God's will, and brother Timothy send this greeting to all faithful Christian at Colossae: grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

We thank God for you and pray constantly for you

I want you to know by this letter that we here are constantly praying for you, and whenever we do we thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ because you believe in Christ Jesus and because you are showing true Christian love towards other Christians. We know that you are showing these qualities because you have grasped the hope reserved for you in Heaven - that hope which first became yours when the truth was brought to you. It is, of course, part of the Gospel itself, which has reached you as it spreads all over the world. Wherever that Gospel goes, it produces Christian character, and develops it, as it had done in your own case from the time you first heard and realised the amazing fact of God's grace.

You learned these things, we understand, from Epaphras, who is in the same service as we are. He is a most well-loved minister of Christ, and has your well-being very much at heart. As a matter of fact, it was from him that we heard about your growth in Christian love ....

 

48.2 PAUL'S PRAYER THAT THEY WILL KNOW GOD'S WILL AND STRENGTH, AND LIVE ACCORDINGLY EVEN IN HARD TIMES

Colossians 1:9-14 - ..... so you will understand that since we heard about you we have never missed you in our prayers. We are asking God that you may see things, as it were, from his point of view by being given spiritual insight and understanding. We also pray that your outward lives, which men see, may bring credit to your master's name, and that you may bring joy to his heart by bearing genuine Christian fruit, and that your knowledge of God may grow yet deeper.

We pray for you to have real Christian experience

As you live this new life, we pray that you will be strengthened from God's boundless resources, so that you will find yourselves able to pass through any experience and endure it with courage. You will even be able to thank God in the midst of pain and distress because you are privileged to share the lot of those who are living in the light. For we must never forget that he rescued us from the power of darkness, and re-established us in the kingdom of his beloved Son, that is, in the kingdom of light. For it is by his Son alone that we have been redeemed and have had our sins forgiven.

 

WHAT GOD HAS DONE THROUGH CHRIST

48.3 CHRIST IS THE IMAGE OF GOD, CREATOR OF ALL THINGS, HEAD OF THE CHURCH AND RECONCILES MAN TO GOD

Colossians 1:15-20 - Now Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God. He existed before creation began, for it was through him that every thing was made, whether spiritual or material, seen or unseen. Through him, and for him, also, were created power and dominion, ownership and authority. In fact, every single thing was created through, and for him. He is both the first principle and the upholding principle of the whole scheme of creation. And now he is the head of the body (the Church) which is composed of all Christian people. Life from nothing began through him, and life from the dead began through him, and he is, therefore, justly called the Lord of all. It was in him that the full nature of God chose to live, and through him God planned to reconcile in his own person, as it were, everything on earth and everything in Heaven by virtue of the sacrifice of the cross.

 

48.4 IT IS YOU WHO HAVE BEEN RECONCILED TO GOD THROUGH CHRIST'S DEATH ON THE CROSS

Colossians 1:21-23 - And you yourselves, who were strangers to God, and, in fact, through the evil things you had done, his spiritual enemies, he has now reconciled through the death of his body (as Jesus Christ) on the cross, so that he might welcome you to his presence clean and pure, without blame or reproach. This reconciliation assumes, of course, that you maintain a firm position in the faith, and do not allow yourselves to be shifted away from the hope of the Gospel, which you have heard, and which, indeed, the whole world is now having an opportunity of hearing.

 

PAUL'S MINISTRY AS AN APOSTLE

48.5 PAUL'S PART IN REVEALING THE THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST TO THE GENTILES

Colossians 1:24-27 - I myself have been made a minister of this same Gospel, and though it is true at this moment that I am suffering (in prison) on behalf of you who have heard the Gospel, yet I am far from sorry about it. Indeed, I am glad, because it gives me a chance to complete in my own sufferings something of the untold pains for which Christ suffers on behalf of his body, the Church. For I am a minister of the Church by divine commission, a commission granted to me for your benefit and for a special purpose: that I might fully declare God's word - that sacred mystery which up to now has been hidden in every age and every generation, but which is now as clear as daylight to those who love God. They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendour of his secret plan for the sons of men. And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all glorious things to come.

 

48.6 HE WANTS THEM TO HAVE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF WHO CHRIST IS

Colossians 1:28-2:3 - So, naturally, we proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, so that, if possible, we may bring every man up to his full maturity in Christ. This is what I am working at all the time, with all the strength that God gives me.

(Chapter 2 ....) I wish you could understand how deep is my anxiety for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have never met me. How I long that you may be encouraged, and find out more and more how strong are the bonds of Christian love. How I long for you to grow more certain in your knowledge and more sure in your grasp of God himself. May your spiritual experience become richer as you see more and more fully God's great secret, Christ himself! For it is in him, and in him alone, that men will find all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

 

PAUL DENOUNCES FALSE TEACHING; HE PROCLAIMS GOSPEL TRUTHS

48.7 AVOID ANY ATTEMPTS TO DECEIVE YOU; LIVE ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL OF JESUS YOU WERE TAUGHT

Colossians 2:4-8 - I write this to prevent you from being led astray by someone or other's attractive arguments. For though I am a long way away from you in body, in spirit I am by your side, watching like a proud father the solid steadfastness of your faith in Christ. Just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so go on living in him - in simple faith. Grow out of him as a plant grows out of the soil it is planted in, becoming more and more sure of the faith as you were taught it, and your lives will overflow with joy and thankfulness.

Be careful that nobody spoils your faith through intellectualism or high-sounding nonsense. Such stuff is at best founded on men's ideas of the nature of the world and disregards Christ!

 

48.8 YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN; BECAUSE CHRIST DIED AND ROSE AGAIN GOD HAS GIVEN YOU TOTAL FREEDOM

Colossians 2:9-15 - Yet it is in him (Jesus) that God gives a full and complete expression of himself (within the physical limits that he set himself in Christ). Moreover, your own completeness is only realised in him, who is the authority over all authorities, and the supreme power over all powers.

The old Law can't condemn you now

In Christ, you were circumcised, not by any physical act, but by being set free from the sins of the flesh by virtue of Christ's circumcision. You, so to speak, shared in that, just as in baptism you shared in his death, and in him are sharing the miracle of rising again to new life - and all this because you have faith in the tremendous power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. You, who were spiritually dead because of your sins and your uncircumcision (i.e. the fact that you were outside the Law), God has now made to share in the very life of Christ! He has forgiven you all your sins: Christ has utterly wiped out the damning evidence of broken laws and commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it over his own head on the cross. And then having drawn the sting of all the powers ranged against us, he exposed them, shattered, empty and defeated, in his final glorious triumphant act!

 

48.9 SO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH MAN-MADE RELIGIOUS RITUALSND SPIRITUAL IDEAS; YOU HAVE CHRIST

Colossians 2:16-23 - In view of these tremendous facts, don't let anyone worry you by criticising what you eat or drink, or what holy days you ought to observe, or bothering you over new moons or sabbaths. All these things have at most only a symbolical value: the solid fact is Christ. Nor let any man cheat you of your joy in Christ by persuading you to make yourselves "humble" and fall down and worship angels. Such a man, inflated by an unspiritual imagination, is pushing his way into matters he knows nothing about, and in his cleverness forgetting his head. It is from the head alone that the body, by natural channels, is nourished and built up and grows according to God's laws of growth.

So if, through your faith in Christ, you are dead to the principles of this world's life, why, as if you were still part and parcel of this world-wide system, do you take the slightest notice of these purely human prohibitions - "Don't touch this," "Don't taste that" and "Don't handle the other"? "This", "that" and "the other" will all pass away after use! I know that these regulations look wise with their self-inspired efforts at worship, their policy of self-humbling, and their studied neglect of the body. But in actual practice they do honour, not to God, but to man's own pride.

 

48.10 CONCENTRATE ON HEAVENLY NOT EARTHLY THINGS

Colossians 3:1-4 - If you are then "risen" with Christ, reach out for the highest gifts of Heaven, where your master reigns in power. Give your heart to the heavenly things, not to the passing things of earth. For, as far as this world is concerned, you are already dead, and your true life is a hidden one in Christ. One day, Christ, the secret centre of our lives, will show himself openly, and you will all share in that magnificent dénouement.

 

48.11 STOP BEHAVING IN THE WICKED WAYS THAT ARE SO NATURAL ON EARTH

Colossians 3:5-11 - In so far, then, as you have to live upon this earth, consider yourselves dead to worldly contacts: have nothing to do with sexual immorality, dirty-mindedness, uncontrolled passion, evil desire, and the lust for other people's goods, which last, remember, is as serious a sin as idolatry. It is because of these very things that the holy anger of God falls upon those who refuse to obey him. And never forget that you had your part in those dreadful things when you lived that old life.

But now, put all these things behind you. No more evil temper or furious rage: no more evil thoughts or words about others, no more evil thoughts or words about God, and no more filthy conversation. Don't tell each other lies any more, for you have finished with the old man and all he did and have begun life as the new man, who is out to learn what he ought to be, according to the plan of God. In this new man of God's design there is no distinction between Greek and Hebrew, Jew or Gentile, foreigner or savage, slave or free man. Christ is all that matters for Christ lives in them all.

 

LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

48.12 AS GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE, LEARN TO FORGIVE AND ABOVE ALL TO LOVE

Colossians 3:12-14 - As, therefore, God's picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues.

 

48.13 ENJOY CHRIST'S PEACE, WORSHIP TOGETHER, DO EVERYTHING IN THE NAME OF JESUS

Colossians 3:15-17 - Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, remembering that as members of the same body you are called to live in harmony, and never forget to be thankful for what God has done for you.

Let Christ's teaching live in your hearts, making you rich in the true wisdom. Teach and help one another along the right road with your psalms and hymns and Christian songs, singing God's praises with joyful hearts. And whatever you may have to do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through him.

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continuing preaching the "Gospel of Jesus", on to Part 49, Ephesians OR back to Harmony of Jesus & Early Church