Colossians

What Colossians is about

Paul had never visited Colossae; the church there was planted by Epaphras. What reached him was a report of teachers pressing a package of extras on the congregation — dietary restrictions, festival observance, ascetic practice, and some form of angel veneration — with the implication that faith in Christ was a foundation on which more advanced spirituality had to be built.

Paul’s reply is not to argue the details first. He raises the subject instead. Chapter 1 contains one of the highest statements about Christ in the New Testament: he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things were created, in whom all things hold together, and through whom God reconciled all things to himself by the blood of his cross. Only after that does he address the practices, and his argument is essentially that they are shadows of something that has already arrived.

He is blunt about why regulations fail. Rules like do not handle, do not taste, do not touch have an appearance of wisdom and severity, and no value at all against the appetites they are meant to restrain. What changes a person is being raised with Christ and learning to think from there.

The practical section is correspondingly positive. Put off anger, malice, slander, and lying. Put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and above all love. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, and sing. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus — including, the letter goes on to say, ordinary work.

Where it sits in the story

Colossians is one of the prison letters and shares a great deal of material with Ephesians, which was likely written around the same time. It is also linked to Philemon: Onesimus, the runaway slave of that letter, is mentioned here as travelling with Tychicus, which places the two letters in the same delivery.

Why it is worth reading

Because the pressure it addresses is perennial. Christians are still offered supplements — a technique, a discipline, an experience, a secret — presented as the thing that finally completes them. Colossians answers by pointing at Christ and saying: the fullness is there, and you are in him.