Book Report-Colossians

Notes taken from NKJV-The New Spirit Filled Life Bible-Some are direct quotes.



Author: Paul

Date: About A.D. 61

Theme: The Supremacy and Sufficiency of Christ

Key Words: Fullness, Wisdom, Knowledge, Mystery

Although Paul had never been to Colosse, he wrote letters to them while he was imprisoned in Rome. Tychicus took his letters to the Colossians, to Philemon and to the Ephesians.
Epaphras, the probable leader of the Colossian church, asked for Paul's help in dealing with false teaching that was threatening the church. This error taught that Jesus was merely one of the semidivine beings that bridged the gap between God and the world; therefore He did not have the authority or the ability to meet the needs of the Colossians. They falsely taught that enlightened believers could achieve spiritual fullness through vigorous self-discipline and special knowledge.
Paul wrote this epistle to expose and refute the heresy; to instruct the Colossians in truth and warn them of the danger of returning to pagan vices, to express interest in the believers and to inspire them to live in love and harmony.
No other book in the NT defends the Lordship of Jesus more than the book of Colossians.
""Jesus is Lord" is the church's earliest confession. It remains the abiding test of authentic Christianity. Neither the church nor the individual believer can afford to compromise Christ's deity. In His sovereignty lies His sufficiency. He will be Lord of everything or not Lord at all."

I remember my mother taking the different translations of the Bible and re-writing her own version of Colossians on an index card flip chart. She would take this on her walk and memorize as she exercised.

Some of my favorite verses:
1:9-11
"..I do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power,..."

2:6,7
"As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
rooted and built up in HIm and established in the faith as you have been taught,
abounding in it with thanksgiving."

3:12,13
"Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another,
and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another,
even as Christ forgave you,
so you also must do."

4:3,4
"...pray also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak."