Readings
- Exodus 19:1–16
- Colossians 1:1–14
- Matthew 3:7–12
- Psalms: 26, 28; 36, 39
Colossians 1:1–14
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Notes
We begin Colossians today. Paul opens in the usual way—greeting, thanksgiving, prayer report—but even the standard pleasantries carry theological weight. He calls the Colossians "saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ." Faithfulness and holiness, threaded together, will stay with us through the letter. Verse 4 names their "faith in Christ Jesus and love… for all the saints." Faith and love already paired, as they will be throughout the New Testament.
Verse 5 is where we have to slow down. "The hope laid up for you in heaven." Resist the reflex to hear this as "you're going to heaven when you die." Paul's eschatology runs the other way. The hope is stored up in heaven the way a gift is kept in a drawer before it's given. You're not meant to climb into the drawer to receive the gift. It comes to us, eventually to earth. The pattern is New Jerusalem descending in Revelation 21, not souls ascending. This hope is something that will arrive, not somewhere we go.
Which is why verses 5–6 matter: the gospel, the truth, the hope "is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world." Hope is not a waiting room. It's a seed already sprouting everywhere it's been heard. What's coming is also already at work.
Then Paul's prayer itself, which you know I'm a sucker for a stack of verbs.
He asks that they be filled — with what? With knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So that they may walk — how? Worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing, as they bear fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of God.
May they be made strong — with what? With strength that comes from God's glorious power. So that they may have joyful endurance and patience. It's a cascade: filled → walk → bear fruit → grow → be made strong → endure with joy. Formation has a shape, and the shape is not linear acquisition but recursive growth.
Verses 13–14 give us a glimpse of Paul's two-kingdom eschatology: "He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son." Both realms are present simultaneously. We are already being pulled out of one and into the other. This is not a someday event; it is a description of what is happening to us now.
Verse 14 gives us a bit of atonement theology: "in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." No penal substitution. What's here is redemption—buying back—and forgiveness, which in the Greek is aphesis. The first definition of aphesis in the lexicon is "the act of freeing and liberating from something that confines." Release. It's the same word Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61 in Luke 4: aphesis to the captives. It's the Jubilee word.
If our theology of forgiveness is not a theology of liberation, freedom, and release, we haven't yet understood the gospel.
Questions for reflection
Paul's prayer moves like a cascade — filled, walk, bear fruit, grow, be made strong, endure with joy. Which step in that sequence do you find yourself longing for right now?
Where do you need to receive forgiveness as aphesis — not as a forensic verdict, but as being set loose from something that has held you captive?
