01 Introduction to Colossians (Colossians 1:1-2)

Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. What the Bible means and how we know. I'm Krisan Marotta. Thanks for listening. This is the first talk in our series on the book of Colossians. And today's talk we'll be looking at Colossians chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, and talking about who the author is, who the recipients were, and why the author wrote the letter. If you'd like to follow along with the lecture notes, you can find them at wednesdayintheword.com slash Colossians 1. That's wednesdayintheword.com slash Colossians 1. Think about all the paper that passes through our lives today. Most of it ends up in the recycling bin. We don't expect letters to hang around or memos or the things we write. They kind of just come and go and get passed by. And if you're on a computer network, you probably get email or letters or communication that never even becomes paper, so it just gets erased and never takes a permanent form at all. And with social media, we become very concerned with how it looks, so everything's got to be visual and have photos and to grab your eye and you know grab your attention for 15 seconds and then you throw it away and it's one more electronic blip on the sea of information. But what we have in Colossians is a letter that was written to have lasting impact on the people that read it. So if you had seen the original letter or a copy of the original letter that Paul had dictated, it would have been just a series of letters run together. Parchment and papyrus were very hard, um, well, time consuming to make, so they tended to try to use it every inch of it they could, so they didn't even leave spaces between the words. So the words would just start and they go right next to each other and every line cramped together as much as they could fit. So they didn't care how it looked, but they cherished these letters. They were saved and read over and over and over again because of what they had to say. Now you may wonder why we picked this book. It's only six pages long in my Bible, which is pretty small. In many ways, it's very similar to Ephesians. The themes are the same, so a lot of people say, well, why do we need both letters? What's the difference? And that's what we're going to talk about today. What are we going to learn from this letter? Who was Paul? Who were the Colossians, and why did he write to them? So that's what we're going to talk about. And the short answer is we picked this letter because it's a letter of hope. So in the fall, we did 1 Peter, which primarily focused on study on suffering. This is more a letter of hope and the hope that we have in the gospel and how that changes us. At the time that Paul wrote this letter, there was a heresy creeping into the Colossian church. We don't know exactly what it was. Scholars just call it the Colossian heresy, because Paul doesn't say, here's the bad things they're teaching or the false things. He just says, here's what you need to know is true. So these false teachings and false ideas were creeping into the church, and people were getting confused about who what should I believe, who should I believe. And the Colossians are on the verge of kind of losing their way, of kind of being sucked into a false gospel. And Paul's writing to set them straight. So he's writing this letter to say, here's what you need to know, here's the true gospel. And I think that makes Colossians one of the most relevant letters for us today, because we're in a situation where it seems like every year some new perspective comes out or new idea or various philosophies, and they all claim to be the truth. And how do we know who is right and who is wrong? Well, that's what Paul's answering, and by not saying, here's the ideas that are wrong, rather, he says, here are the essentials, these are the things, the lines you dare not cross, these are the things that you need to know to get the gospel right. And that's what we're going to learn from him. That's why we study it. Alright, so let's answer our three questions. Who is Paul? Who are the Colossians? And why did he write to them? It's popular today to challenge the fact that Paul wrote this letter, but I believe the Apostle Paul is the author of the letter. I don't put a whole lot of stock in the arguments that say, oh, Paul didn't write it, because their methodology is designed to reach the conclusion they want to reach. So if you pick up a lot of commentaries, you'll see these pages and pages of discussions of did the apostle Paul write this letter or not. And they'll say things like, Well, okay, we know he wrote Galatians, and Galatians is different than Colossians. They use different themes, different words, the subject matter is different, so obviously they couldn't be the same author. And then they'll go to something like Ephesians and say, oh, well, Ephesians and Colossians, they're a lot alike. They have the same themes, there's a lot of common vocabulary. So obviously, somebody copied one from the other and Paul couldn't have written them. So you can't win. If books are too similar, they say, oh, that means they didn't write them. If books are too different, they say it means he didn't write them, and it's just a flawed methodology. So I think there's very good evidence to believe that the Apostle Paul is in fact the author of this letter. So you might want to look. There's a chart on page four. We're going to kind of fly through that to give us an overview of who is Paul, when did he write this, and how did he know the Colossians? And that chart will give you a set of dates. The dates are approximate. There are a couple of different dating schemes. And this is the one I this is pretty popular. They're all fairly close together. But they, if you see someone else who says, oh, it's a few years different, it's just because they're different dating schemes. So what do we know about Paul? He was born a Jew around 5 A.D. in the city of Tarsus. He was a Roman citizen by birth, and he studied at the very prestigious school, and I'm not sure how to pronounce this, Gamelile in Jerusalem. But he was like, if you were going to study somewhere, that was the Harvard of the other day, that's where you wanted to go study. Before his conversion, he was a Pharisee. He was a persecutor of the Christian church, and he was present at the stoning of Stephen. He was converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus. You may be familiar with that story. And then he spent some time in Arabia before settling into Tarsus. Galatians 1.18 tells us he stayed in Arabia for three years, and most scholars speculate that it was during those three years that he spent time learning and studying from the resurrected Jesus, the way the other apostles had three years studying with Jesus during his earthly ministry. And Paul indicates that in some in Galatians. So he had three years in Arabia, then he returned to Damascus and began to preach and teach. And as large numbers of Gentiles were converted, the church in Antioch began to grow very rapidly, and it quickly surpassed the Jerusalem church in its size and influence. So in Acts 11, we read that Barnabas is serving there. The church is going rapidly, growing really rapidly. He decides he needs help, and he goes to Tarsus to look for Paul, also known as Saul, and to ask him to come and help him in Antioch in Antioch. So Paul and Barnabas stay in Antioch for about a year teaching. And then, as recorded in Acts 13 and 14, they go on what we call their first missionary journey. And when he returns, the controversy is brewing over do Gentiles who convert to the faith need to become Jewish? So that was a big controversy growing in the church. And in response to that, Paul writes the letter to Galatians. And eventually he travels to Jerusalem for what we call the Council of Jerusalem to settle that issue, where they make a definitive answer. No, the Gentiles do not need to become Jewish. After the council, he returns to Antioch and then he goes on his second missionary journey. This time he takes Silas with him. And during that journey, he visits Ephesus, but as far as we know, he never made it to Colossian or Colossae. He has a vision calling him to Macedonia, and he goes to Corinth and he stays there about one and a half years teaching, and from there he writes Thessalonians. Then he goes on his third journey. He returns to Ephesus, and while he's there, he writes the Corinthian letters and Romans. He goes back to Jerusalem, but he never makes it to Antioch, which apparently was his intent. Instead, he's arrested and he's taken to Rome. And he's in prison. And while he's in prison in Rome waiting his trial, he writes Colossians, Philemons, Ephesians, and then a little bit later Philippians. When he's freed, he returns to the Macedonian area where he writes Titus and 1 Timothy. He's arrested again, taken back to Rome, and there he writes his last letter, which is 2 Timothy. So that's kind of a brief flyover. You just studied the book of Acts and you don't know it. But that was kind of a brief flyover of Paul's life. But what we see is that he wrote this letter from a Roman prison cell, probably around 60 to 62 AD. So what do we know about Colossius? There's a Colossae, I keep using the Roman pronunciation. There's a map on page two if you want to look at that. I actually didn't look to see how well it copied. Hopefully you can tell where it's located. Colossae was about 120 miles east of Ephesus. It's in the Lycus River Valley and it was in the Roman territory of Asia Minor. That's modern Turkey today. It was one of a triad of cities, the other two being Laodicea and Heropolis, that were kind of a like the Raleigh Durham area. They were kind of a triangle of cities. At one time, Colossus was the chief of those cities because it was on a trade route and it produced this really fine wool that we think was purple or had a purple hue. They call the color of the wool Colossus Colonicus or something like that, based on the city's name. So we think it was purpose. And that was their claim to fame. That was their big industry. The city perished in an earthquake before, we're not sure exactly, but shortly after the date of this letter, sometime around in the 70s and ADs. So there's this little city. At the time Paul's writing, it's no longer important because the trade routes have shifted. Paul's never been there. Why would he write to them? Well, we know he didn't found the church. Most likely Epaphras was the one who founded the church, and we learn this from Colossians 1 7. This is Colossians 1 7 and 8. Just as he's speaking of the gospel, and he says, just as you learn from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. So he's saying, when you first heard the gospel, just as you learned it from Epaphras, we think that that means Epaphras founded the church in Colossae. And then in 2.1, Paul implies he hasn't been there in person. He says in Colossians 2.1, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all those who have not seen me face to face. So remember, he's in he's in Rome, he's riding from this city. Epaphras is probably with him in Rome because in 4.12 he says, Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. So the picture we get is that Epaphras founded this church, this heresy is creeping in, and he doesn't know what to do, so he journeys to Rome to find Paul and says, Help me deal with this. How do I what do I do with this? And he's Paul in return writes this letter and he sends it back to Colossus with a man by a man named Ticchus, and this we read about him in 4 7 through 9. Ticicus will tell you about my activities. He is a beloved brother and a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts, and with him anesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that has taken place here. In 2 Timothy 4 12, Paul writes that he has sent Tychicus to Ephesus. So we get this picture that Paul wrote, Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesus, and the letter to the Ephesians at the same time. He's sending them to those churches along with Anesimus through this man named Tychicus. So Anesimus, you'll may recall, is the uh runaway slave who's mentioned in the letter to Philemon. So we have this picture of their being carried at the same time by this man on behalf of Paul. A bit later he writes uh Philippians and in Philippians he says that he is expects to be released from prison, and in fact he was. And then in 2 Timothy, his last letter, he says he expects to be condemned, and in fact he was condemned. Okay, so that's the picture we have. Paul has never visited this church. Epaphras has come to him and said, We have a problem, I don't know how to solve it, help me out. And in response, Paul writes this letter to set them straight. He sends the letter back to the region with Tychicus, and you know, he's traveling, it's a pretty long journey, but Ephesus is not that far from Colossians or Colossi, you know, at least in comparison to Rome. So he probably made a circuit where he dropped the letters off and they were copied and sent on. So let's look at the first two verses. It's a pretty standard introduction to a New Testament letter. This is Colossians 1, 1 and 2. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. So New Testament letters have this kind of formula, like just like we have today. So our formula when we write a letter, we say, Dear recipient, then we have the body of the letter, and then we say sincerely the author. Well, in the New Testament, they started with the author or authors, if there were more than one, the recipients, and then some kind of greetings, and then they go into the body of the letter. And Paul typically, this is not just him saying hi, he uses this structure to uh to his advantage. It means something to him. So typically in his letters, he identifies something about himself that's important for the people to know because of what he's going to go on to talk about. So if you read like in Romans, his greetings of who he is takes the first 16 verses because he's got a lot to say to them. So he usually identifies this is who I am and what you should know about me. And then he identifies his readers, and he often does the same thing where he says something that's important to know about them for what he's gonna go on to say in the letter. And then his greeting is not just hi and how are you, but something that he wishes for them. And we're gonna talk about why he would wish for these two things. So let's look at what he says about himself. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. So, what's an apostle of Christ Jesus? You've probably heard that apostle means one who is sent out. It's derived from the concept of a representative of the king. So the king would send someone out to do business for him, to act on it with his authority, and to represent him when he is not there. And the New Testament authors borrowed that secular concept with this exact same idea that Jesus is the king, he's the one that has the authority, and the apostles have been charged and given the responsibility to speak for him. So right off the bat, Paul is claiming, I have been given authority to represent Jesus when he is not here. And that's a pretty big thing. He further emphasizes that he's an apostle by the will of God. So he didn't get elected, he didn't lobby for it, he didn't earn it or pass a test to get it. The other apostles didn't appoint him as an apostle. He didn't like, oh, I know what am I gonna do when I grow up? Oh, I know I'll be an apostle. God came and put his finger on him and said, I've got a job for you. So he didn't ask for it, he was given it. So he's saying, I have the authority to speak for Jesus when he is not here, and God himself gave me this role, gave me this authority. When he says Timothy is with him, I think uh Timothy is not uh the author, the ideas are not his, but Paul we think had trouble with his eyes. It's likely that his eyes never fully recovered from being blinded on the road to Damascus, and he would often dictate his letters and have a scribe write them down. And so Timothy is probably that scribe. Paul is dictating and he is writing, but the ideas are Paul's, not Timothy's. Then he says in verse 2 to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. So who are the saints and faithful brothers? Well, saints you probably know means holy ones. It's those who are set apart by God. So it's not the way we think of it today as a saint as someone who's like a super Christian or super spiritual or really got their act together or just amazingly faithful. The saint was just anyone, every believer was a saint, someone who was marked by God. So the the emphasis was between the sacred and the profane or the common and the sacred. So for instance, you might have the temple was sacred, pasture land was not sacred. Why? Because the temple was set about to be used for the things of God, and pasture land was not. So you might have a cup, two cups. One is sacred, one is not, because one is set apart and dedicated to be used for God, and the other is not. It's set apart, it's reserved for common usage. That's the idea of a saint. A saint is someone who has been set apart and marked as God's and is dedicated to God. So the saints and faithful brothers in Christ are those who belong to God as opposed to the rest of the world, those on whom God has put his hand and said, You are mine, I've adopted you into my family. Now it is true that those who are adopted by God will have a moral quality about them, of course, goodness or holiness, because once God marks us as his, he gives us his spirit, and we have the possibility of being good in a way non-believers don't. But I don't think that goodness is what's in view here. It's not that they are they are holy and that's what he's praising them for, but that they are set apart as belonging to God. Now, over time, of course, the longer you belong to God, the more your character changes, the more you start to look like him, and the more you see that goodness. But I think what he's emphasizing is you belong to God. And then faithful brothers in Christ, those who have listened to the gospel, responded to it, embraced it, and believed it. And remember, this is a church who's on the verge of losing their way. So he's writing to those who have not lost their way yet. He's encouraging them, stay true to this gospel, remain faithful to the gospel that you've heard. And as we go through the letter, you're going to see that's a really big theme of remaining faithful. Then he says, Grace and peace to you. That's what he wishes for them. So my desire for you is grace and peace, that God would be gracious to you and show you mercy. So think about that. Why not say, you know, I hope you get everything you want in life. I hope you have a great marriage and perfect kids and above average children and grandchildren and all the wealth you need, you know, the picture, perfect health, popularity, fame. Those are all wonderful gifts from God. And yet, what Paul says, what I want for you is grace and peace. And that's going to be another theme throughout the letter. The most important thing we can seek in this life is grace and peace with God, from God. So grace, of course, is forgiveness, mercy, God turning away his wrath and forgiving us for our sins. And then peace could either mean peace as opposed to war, so we have now been reconciled to God as opposed to being at odds with him, where we are now adopted into his family as opposed to being rebels, or it could mean that profound sense of blessing and fullness and well-being you get from being like Shalom, the tragedy is over, we've arrived at rest and contentment. And if you read commentators, they'll pick different ones. I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of difference because one leads to the other. You have to have peace with God as in reconciliation before you can have that sense of blessing and contentment. Alright, so let me I would just paraphrase what he said here. This is a letter from Paul, whom God Himself appointed as an authorized representative of Jesus Christ the Messiah. Timothy is with me as well. I'm writing to the believers who live in Colossi, those whom God has called out of this world to be forgiven, to belong to him and mark as his own. Those who have shown that they belong among the brotherhood of believers by their faithful adherence to the gospel. My wish for you is that you would arrive at grace and blessing through the mercy of God. So it's a pretty packed introduction, and he is setting us up for the themes we're going to see. And just to kind Wrap it up. I want to give you a couple of applications. Now I know it's just an introduction, so hopefully I'm not stretching the rubber band too much. But yeah, I always like to, anyway. So Paul confronts them with the issue of his authority. So why do we bother to go through this ancient letter? It was written thousands of years ago. The people that originally got it have long been dead. Why would we why would we take a time out of our weeks and come here on Wednesday mornings to study this? And it's because Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. He appointed people to represent him when he is not around physically, and Paul is one of those people. So he's been chosen by God to represent the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to us. Now, a lot of modern scholars will reject Paul's authority. I myself believe him. But either way, you have to confront the choice. Is this a person worth listening to? And I know I can understand the scholars that say, oh, Paul was a fraud, we don't have to pay any attention to what he says. And I can see the ones, which is of course where I am, that Paul was not a fraud and we should pay attention to everything he says. But there are commentators you're rude will say who will say, Paul was not a fraud, and we can just pick and choose what he has to say. So when we don't like it, we'll ignore it. That is not an option. Paul seems to be saying, I have a unique role to play in the body of Christ. I've been given this authority, and this is where I'm coming from. And he sets this tone because the Colossians are on the verge of believing a false gospel. So what if you read the commentaries, you'll see scholars talking about the Colossian heresy. And as I mentioned, we don't know exactly what the problem was, but we have clues, and as we go through the letter, we're going to look at the clues to say what was probably the false teaching. So, yes, Ephesians and Colossians are very similar, but the primary difference is the Colossians had a problem that the Ephesians didn't have. They have a heresy spreading in their church, and they're on the verge of losing their understanding of the gospel, and Paul is writing to set them straight, to say, this is truth and that is not. This is the gospel Jesus taught and that is not. So they're not brand new believers, they aren't rebelling like the Corinthian church, they aren't walking away to the Judaizers like the Galatian church. We're going to see as we go into his prayer next week that by and large they're pretty faithful, they're doing well, but they need something. They need a clear sense of what the gospel is and what it was not. So maybe they haven't fallen yet, or but maybe they're confused. They're in the midst of this. So as we see, as we go through this, we're going to see Paul saying, these are the essentials. These are the things you must believe to believe the gospel Jesus taught. And that I think is very important for us today. Because I would say we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with things, the ideas, and philosophies that challenge our understanding of who Christ is and what he said and what he represented. And there are a lot of false versions out there of the gospel. For example, I'm going to give you one. There's a very popular movement today called emergent theology. You may have heard about it, you might not have heard it by that name, but I'll bet you've run into the ideas. There are some churches that identify themselves as emergent churches. And it's becoming more widespread. If you've read, you might have heard of Rob Bell. He's probably the most well-known of emergent theologians. He wrote a book called Love Wins, which I would think Paul would have a lot of problems with. We're going to talk about why in just a second. But it's creeping into mainstream denominations. Like all movements, it's got positives, it's got negatives. But the big deal breaker for me is that they emergents say we cannot know anything for certain. So they say for certain that we can't know anything for certain. And that doctrine is an idol that we have to repent of. So I'm going to give you a quote from an article, and I'll put a link to this on put lecture notes up on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. And if you go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Colossians 1, you'll find a link to this article. You can read the whole thing. It's called an unconditionally conditional faith. The author is Rutledge Rutledge Ethridge, and he's writing about Rob Bell. And here's his quote. Rob Bell, perhaps the most famous name associated with emergent theology, gives some illustrative imagery. He thinks of biblical doctrines as springs on a trampoline as opposed to bricks on a wall. Springs are sturdy but flexible. They can be adjusted as necessary, allowing users to jump and to feel the joy of flight. Bell sees such movements as analogous to a healthy relationship to God, a faith not grounded in the dead weight of inflexible brick-like doctrine. Practitioners of brickyanity, which is what Bell calls the rest of us, however, are doomed to a frustrating faith vulnerable to collapse. Their indubitable, inerrant doctrines are stacked upon one another such that if one brick falls, the whole fortress comes crashing down. So that's a way of saying we can't know anything for certain. So they emergent theologians say truth is out there, but it's constantly changing, being redefined, reformulated, re-evaluated. You know, what was true in first century Palestine may not quite be true today, and we're for kind of free to adjust as we see fit. And they say theological certainty is, quote, an idol that we must repent of and cast down. So one of their famous quotes is truth is out there, but who are we to say we can know it? Well, let's answer that question. Who are we to say we can know it? Me, I'm nobody. I am nobody from nowhere. And if I make up my own theology, you should just ignore it. In fact, throw any letters away, I write you. But the apostle Paul is not nobody. He's saying, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. I have been given the right and the authority to say, this is what Jesus was about, and this is what Jesus was not about. This is the gospel he taught, and this is not the gospel he taught. And he is claiming, God told me this is true, and he authorized me to tell it to you. So I would say Paul is in a very good position to say, truth is out there, this is it, and that is not. And that's why we study the Bible, and that's why we would study this letter. Because it's very important that we get the gospel right. We want to know what the real deal is so when new philosophies, new ideas spring up, we can tell them from counterfeits. And that's part of the main thing I hope we're gonna learn this poem. And let me give you one more bit of application. So when Paul's writing to saints, he divides the world in two groups: those on whom God has put his hand and those who he has not. Now, from my perspective, I may not be able to tell who's in what group. Um, we don't always know that. But the key deciding line is will I embrace the message of Jesus Christ and live my life as if it's true and live my life in light of that truth or not? So those are that's the dividing line. Now think about the differences we draw. All I mean, all the different groups and dividing lines that are out there right now, and there are probably hundreds of advertisers out there right now hoping to collect all your data from Facebook and social media and Twitter, and they want to categorize you in terms of age and gender and wealth and nationality and education and hobbies and geographic area and how much time you spend online, and they're all this sorting and categorizing and dividing going on. And Paul says there's really only one division that matters: those who belong to God and those who don't, those who embrace the gospel and those who don't. Now we might be really interested in who's rich, who's poor, who's popular, who's not, whether you're male or female, or educated at the right schools or the wrong schools, or what skin color you have. I mean, those are all realities we have to deal with. But I think Paul would say you can be in every category that the world says you don't want to be in. So whatever they are, and they change, you know, you can be poor and educated, the wrong skin color, the wrong gender, from the wrong region, with the wrong education, whatever. But if you belong to God, you have everything. You are blessed, you are a winner. And that's the important distinction. That all those other ways we divide ourselves, ultimately those are not important. What's important is do we understand the gospel? And if we have that, then we have everything worth having. All right. So next week we're gonna get into the body of the letter itself. We're gonna start looking at his prayer for the Colossians. And uh let me pray for us. And then I think we have do we have any more announcements? No? Okay. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you that you are a God who calls us and and claims us as yours, and that you did for us what we could never hope to do for ourselves. That is, you sent your son to die in our place, to reconcile us to you, and to bring about our forgiveness and grace and mercy. And I just pray that as we embark on this study, that it would all be to your glory and that you would be teaching us through our small groups, through our study times, through this lecture, that you would be writing these words on our hearts so that we are the true gospel from the false gospel, and we could never be led astray or distracted by new ideas or philosophy. And that would be studying praying, you would be getting that together as a particular piece of the body of Christ, building relationships and fellowships, so that we can encourage each other on the board and the journey of faith. And that you would be taking these words and that they wouldn't just be words on a page of thoughts or philosophies, but they would be life-changing because that we could square to hold on to when a good time to come and when a bad times come, so on the thing.