Introduction to Colossians

Nigel's Sermon from St Margarets Ockley, 9.30 Morning Service September 7th.

An introduction to a series of talks on Colossians.

Colossians chapter 1 verses 1, 2

Why did he write?
Please turn to p 1182 in the pew bibles. We are starting a new series this Sunday on Paul’s letter to the Colossians and we will use just the first 2 verses to set the scene, which I hope will be helpful.
See 3 things. In the first place see how Paul starts the letter: ‘Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.’ Why was this significant? It is significant because Paul makes clear that his writing has the same authority as that of the other 12 apostles. In other words, his writings are allowed as part of the Canon of Scripture. He was spoken to personally by Jesus (see Acts ch 9 v 3 – 6), just like the other apostles. He was given a special mission by God: a mission to tell the Gentiles about Jesus the Saviour (see Acts ch 9 v 15).
Over the first few centuries the early church tried to think through which of the books and letters written by the early church should be allowed as Scripture. They had hints as to what should be allowed. This came partly from what Jesus had said. In John ch 16 v 13 – 14 He said, The Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance all I declare to you.’ So what Jesus’ apostles wrote would have divine authority. There was also an early acceptance of some other writings as Scripture. In 2 Peter ch 3 v 16 Peter quotes Paul in a way that assumes what he said was ‘Scripture’. In 1 Timothy ch 5 v 17, 18, Paul quotes Luke ch 10 v 7. These writings suggest that what the apostles wrote (eg the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John; as well as John and James’ letters) would be counted as Scripture; and that what first generation Christians wrote would be acceptable, provided it had the same basic theology as the apostles. This allows what Luke (who wrote a Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles), Paul and Jude (Jesus’ brother but not one of the 12 apostles) wrote to be included. It also excluded from the Canon of Scripture what was written by second generation believers (eg the Gospel of Thomas, the Shepherd of Hermes, 1 and 2 Clement) and what might have been written by been first generation, but which had a theology as odd as that of the Life of Brian. So what is now accepted as the Canon of Scripture was agreed by the time of the Letter of Athanasius in AD 367, and was finalised at the Council of Carthage in AD 397.
These give reason to accept what we now know as the New Testament as the supreme authority for the Church )over and above anything said since by the Church), giving us power to decide theological controversies from it, and to ensure that we maintain integrity through a common theology through it.
SECONDLY SEE THE RICHES OF OUR FAITH. In verse 2 Paul says, ‘Grace and peace to you from God our Father’.
We talk of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World. Paul makes clear that the wonder of Christianity is not its architecture, its divines or its history. It is its gospel of God’s grave towards us and the peace with God that we experience as a result.
The story is told of Billy Graham driving through a small southern town in America. He was stopped by a policeman and charged with speeding. Graham admitted his quilt, but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in court. He went and the judge asked, “Guilty, or not guilty?” When Graham pleaded guilty, the judge replied, “That’ll be ten dollars—a dollar for every mile you went over the limit.”Suddenly the judge recognized the famous minister. “You have violated the law,” he said. “The fine must be paid—but I am going to pay it for you.” He took a ten dollar bill from his own wallet, attached it to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought him a steak dinner! “That,” said Billy Graham, “is how God treats repentant sinners when they ask Jesus into their lives!” Grace is everything for nothing to those who don’t deserve anything. God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense: that is what the Gospel is all about.
How easy it is to lose sight of these! In truth, we can understand a virulent strain of ungrace in secular society today, where people are victimised and judged as a matter of course. It also shows up in religions all over the world. One hears of eyewitness accounts of the recently revived Sun Dance ritual, in which young Lakota warriors fasten eagle claws to their nipples and, straining against a rope attached to a sacred pole, fling themselves outward until the claws rip through their flesh. One hears of Hindu peasants offer sacrifices to the gods of smallpox and poisonous snakes in India. One hears of Islamic Shia teenagers in this country being forced to flail themselves with whips, Or Islamic Sunni ‘moral police’ patrolling the pavements with clubs, looking for women whose clothing offends them or who dare to drive a car.
It is deeply sad, however, when one hears of it within our own faith, for instance when one hears of devout Catholic peasants crawl on bloody knees across cobblestone streets in Costa Rica as a sign of penance. It appears that there is pressure on the Christian faith to copy others and not to be faithful to the pure message of grace. In fact such thinking is not too far from home. Christians feel the need not just to believe, not just to live and trust in Christ, but to do something more to show their faith and finding themselves not sticking absolutely to the one, true gospel of grace.
The Christian Gospel is unique amongst all world religions because of those words ‘Grace’ and ‘Peace’. They tell us that there is nothing extra we need to do that turn to Christ to experience God’s love and favour, to know peace with God. It is no wonder that in most of his other letters Paul starts by saying this: the letter before this one, to the Philippians, and the one after to the Thessalonians both have the same introduction. This is because if Christians understand God’s grace in Christ and that they have peace with God through Christ, they have understood the gospel. And no wonder. These words describe the core of the gospel. Grace is a specially Christian word.
Verse 2, ‘Grace and peace to you from God our Father’. These are wonderful truths of the Christian faith which are as relevant today as they were then.
THIRDLY SEE THE PERSONAL BENEFITS OF OUR FAITH. Paul continues, verse 2, ‘To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ.’
The incredible fruit of God’s grace is the fact that He sees sinful people as sinless, unholy people as holy, because of what Christ did on the cross.
Paul refers to the Colossians in this way which he does not address any of the other groups of Christians to whom he writes with these words. This is actually for a special reason. There were big pressures on the Colossian Christians to think that they had to do more things than just receive God’s grace, to make them holy. The false teachers were making them think that grace and peace was just the beginning: they had to look further than and outside of Christ to experience fullness of holiness. Grace was the foundation. Then came all the works.
Bishop Stephen Neill, writing from South India, writes:
‘One thing is clear. The false teachers came in with the claim that they would complete and perfect the simple and elementary faith to which the Colossians had been introduced by Paul and his friends. This is what the false teachers always do. ‘What you have is quite all right, and a good foundation for faith. Now let us just finish it off for you, and you really will be Christians.’... In our tragically divided state today, exactly the same thing can happen to younger believers... In many areas where Protestant missions have been at work, Roman Catholic missionaries have later come in, and set themselves to ‘complete’ the imperfect Christianity of the Protestant converts. Where older Churches have been at work, Pentecostal groups have come in, and assured the converts that, unless they speak in tongues, they (are not real Christians). Anglicans have been known to convey the blessings of episcopacy to those who thought that they were getting along quite nicely thank you without them. All this is very sad. But it may help us to realise that we are not really so very far from the New Testament and its problems.’
We can so easily think that grace from God and peace with God are the bases of our faith: but, having grasped that, we think we must move on to maturity in the faith by doing other things. How wrong we are! Rather we must rest deeper in the fruit of grace and peace, realising with astonishment that God sees us as holy despite how we or others see us. And our responsibility as Christians is to be absolutely faithful and true to this gospel, rejoicing in the wonderful way that God sees us.
[SEE THAT YOUNG CHRISTIANS NEED TO BE HELPED ON IN THEIR FAITH
But what can we learn from Paul’s words to the Colossians, and especially from these first 2 verses? First of all see that young Christians need to be helped in their faith, especially because they are so easily led astray (like young children can so naively and trustingly take the hand of any stranger). This is why Paul writes at all. Epaphras appears to have come to Paul for advice, because there are a few strangers around saying strange things, and they need help.
In those days it was very easy for false teachers to go around preaching strange things to the young Christians. Because the churches were young they relied very much on travelling speakers who might have come from other towns where Christians were either being ejected or persecuted – from Jerusalem, for instance. The same happens in many African countries today, and even in country churches across Uk. But how do you tell if they are preaching to true Gospel or something strange, false teachers, changing the very gospel itself?
And is this not a danger facing Christians today? We can recognise false teaching that comes from outside the Church. We steer clear of Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons. They make their converts from lapsed churchgoers and dissatisfied non-believers, seldom from true believers, even who are young in the faith. The greatest danger for us comes from false teaching that arises from inside the Church. That is why so many Christians are completely confused by Lambeth and what is happening in the Episcopal Church in America. Practising gays as Bishops? How can that happen? Teaching which is too influenced by the spirit of the age is a problem today as much as it was for the early church.
So we must guard carefully the teaching we give to young Christians today. John Stott was one of the most influential Christian leaders of his day. In his biography, mention is made of the person who led him to faith, who wrote to him virtually every day for years after his first coming to faith.]
Conclusion
Paul’s answer in this letter is to focus on Christ and all His glory. He writes this famous letter with affectionate warnings, clear teaching, pointed diagnoses and above all sustained loyalty to the truth that had first won the allegiance of the young believers.

One commentator, Dick Lucas, writes, ‘It was not that these new Christians were so fickle and volatile that they were tempted so soon to give a fresh hearing to Jewish or pagan teachers. It was that the whole syncretistic religious atmosphere in which their churches existed threatened the purity of the one, true faith. Surely this must always be the case. The church of Christ can never be immune from the intellectual and spiritual pressures and fashions of their time. It is harder for us to recognise what these pressures are and how they work subtly to diminish the gospel in our own time. And it is especially so when these elements of false teaching come from within the Christian communities themselves. ‘
(There are hints in the letter that the false teachings might have been from 4 areas.
In the first place it appears that the false teachers offered a spiritual fullness not previously experienced. So in 2. 10 Paul has to emphasize that ‘you have been given fullness of life in Christ’.
Secondly the visitors spoke of a new spiritual ‘freedom’ which those who followed them could enjoy. They appeared to offer a special ‘deliverance ministry’. So Paul repeatedly reminds the Colossians of the deliverance that is already theirs in Christ, for instance in 1. 13 and 2. 15. And Paul talks of these preachers trying to capture believers for what would turn out to be a new slavery in 2. 8, 18 and 20 onwards. One thinks back to the Middle Ages of Christians flaggelating themselves until they drew blood in the hope that this delivered them from their sense of guilt from sin.
Thirdly the visitors appear to have claimed particular insight into the powers of evil and to be able to offer the new believers special protection from them. So in 2. 10, 15, Paul has to emphasize that Christ is the only one with full authority over such powers, a triumph in which all who are in Christ share. There can be no spiritual elite apart from walking closer to Christ. One thinks of Christian sects – and, dare one say it, many religions since Christ, whose leaders insist that they have new insights into how to get to God. The visitors offered a further initiation into a deeper ‘knowledge’ of God and experience of His power, but in 2. 16 and 17, their offers of spectacular advance were, to Paul, merely divisive of Christian unity, took away basic Christian assurance, and caused young believers to step backwards into the shadows of the faith, stopping them from walking on the glorious light of faith.
Fourthly the visitors were known for their impressive asceticism. Fasting seems to have been especially commended. Like all perfectionist theories ever since, this teaching had a poor record in combating self-indulgence. Rather in 2. 18, it simply seemed to cause religious vanity and pride. The only way, as Paul makes clear in 3. 5 – 11, is to live out the resurrection life, to clothe ourselves with Christ, to be filled with His Spirit.
In ch 1 v 2 Paul writes ‘to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae. Grace and peace to you from God our Father.’ I realise that this has been a bit of a study this morning. I hope it has not been too painful and difficult to follow. If it has, perhaps the easiest thing I could ask of you is that you notice the relevance and significance of each of these words used by Paul as he introduces his letter.)