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Overview Week 1
Week One Colossians 1:1-23
1:1-8: Greeting and Thanksgiving
1:9-13: Opening Prayer
1:15-20: The Christ Hymn
1:21-23: Reconciliation and Response
Week Two
1:24-25: A Personal Statement
1:24-29: Paul and the Gospel
2:1-5: Paul and the Colossians
2:6-4:6: The Letter Theme
2:6-7: Thematic Statement
2:8-23: The Cross and Human Tradition
2:8-15: The Power of the Cross
Week Three
2:16-19: Free from Condemnation
2:20-23: Free in Christ
3:1-4.6: A New Pattern Of Life
3:1-4: Life with Christ
3:5-17: Living the New Life
Week Four
3:18-4:1: Household Rules
4:2-6: Concluding Exhortations
4:7-18: Conclusion
4:7-9: Maintaining Communication
4:10-17: Greetings
4:18: A Personal Greeting
Professor James D. G. Dunn
Greeting and Thanksgiving (1:1-8)
The letter begins in accordance with the
conventions of the time to indicate the
author(s) of the letter – Paul, as usual
strongly affirming his apostleship, and
his ‘brother’ or colleague, Timothy (1:1).
Likewise with the indication of to whom
the letter is addressed in Colossae, warmly
greeted as ‘saints’ and ‘faithful brothers
in Christ’ – ‘in Christ’ being one of Paul’s
distinguishing phrases (1:2). Characteristi-
cally too, Paul replaces the normal greeting,
chairein (‘hail’), with the more distinctive
Christian charis (‘grace’), to which he adds
the usual Jewish greeting, shalom, ‘peace’.
Typically the opening words are followed
by an expression of thanksgiving and
prayer, both elaborated (1:3-11; cf. e.g.
Phil. 1:3-11; Phm. 4-6). The warmth of the
relationship is striking, especially so if Paul
had himself never visited Colossae – Paul,
always praying for them, thrilled by what
he had heard of their faith in Christ and
their love ‘for all the saints’, and by the
hope they all shared (1:3-5a).
PREACHING POINTS
Have we lost something important in
the often very casual greetings in the
letters we send to family or friends?
Paul recalls how the gospel came to them,
using the vigorous imagery of a plant
bearing fruit among them – they being the
fruit of the gospel, as elsewhere, indeed,
‘in all the world’, a remarkable expression
of confidence in a very young movement
(1:5b-6). ‘Gospel’ was almost always used
in the plural (‘good tidings’), particularly
in what we might justly call propaganda
on behalf of Caesar. So in effect, Paul and
the first Christians baptized the word into
Christian vocabulary, and in the singular –
the good news is of Jesus.
Opening Prayer (1:9-14)
The prayer focuses in very Jewish terms
on ‘knowledge of God’s will’, with all the
wisdom and understanding that the Spirit
gives (1:9). Again the imagery used is very
Jewish, the conduct of ‘walking’ (halak,
from the Jewish technical term halakhah,
denoting every day interpretation of the
law). The test of this conduct will be what
it produces. ‘Good works’ are no substitute
for faith, but they should be the product of
faith (1:10).
Such fruitful living is wholly dependent on
divine enabling, a strength which comes
from God’s ‘glorious might’. Which does
not mean that believers will escape suffer-
ing, but it does mean that they will be able
to ‘endure everything with patience’, and
even with joy (1:11). The sentence con-
tinues without a break: such joy, even in
suffering, will express itself in thanks to the
Father, thanks at the amazing fact that God
has ‘qualified’ them to share in the inher-
itance which had previously been thought
to be exclusively Israel’s, often described as
‘children of the light’ (1:12).
PREACHING POINTS
How important is it that we should
pray for one another?
The prayer continues with a strong note of
what is sometimes described as ‘realized
eschatology’, that is the thought that what
had hitherto been understood as the hope
reserved for the end of history is now al-
ready a reality. The Colossian believers had
already been rescued from powers which
had previously controlled them – that
could include negative desires and selfish
habits – and could be counted already as
members of God’s kingdom, here unusually
referred to as ‘the kingdom of his beloved
Son’ (1:13). A final clause reminds readers
that they enjoy the blessing of redemption
and forgiveness ‘in him’ (1:14).
The Christ Hymn (1:15-20)
Whether this powerful poetic description
of Christ should be regarded as a hymn
is open to question. But the assertions it
makes of Christ go well beyond typical de-
scriptions of and assertions about Jesus. It
is amazing to realize that Jesus was already
being spoken about in these ways within
the first Christian generation.
Think about it! The unknown/invisible God
had made Godself known through creation.
‘Made in the image of God’ was a familiar
Jewish thought for humankind generally.
But the hymn applies the thought specifi-
cally to Christ, hailing him as ‘the firstborn
of all creation’ (1:15). All things, without ex-
ception, were created ‘in him’, ‘through him’
and ‘for him’ (1:16). He pre-exists all things
and it is through him that the universe
holds together (1:17).
How to explain such language? The key is
to recognize that the hymn uses imagery
which in Jewish thought related to (divine)
Wisdom and Word. These were ways in
which Jewish thought could speak about
divine activity without speaking of God
as such. Good examples are Proverbs 8
and Ecclesiasticus 24. God’s activity in the
world could be described without speaking
in too human terms of God. The language
of the hymn anticipates the great theolog-
ical breakthrough in the prologue to John’s
Gospel (John 1:1-18).