All right, so let's introduce Colossians. The author of Colossians is Paul the Apostle. Once again, his name is on the from line of the letter. The text represents, I think, Pauline concerns and theology.
There are modern scholars, just as with Ephesians, that argue that Colossians is a forgery, but I think there's ample evidence for Pauline authorship. You can read more about that in your textbook and in your notes. Colossians, like Ephesians and the other Parisian epistles, is different. And I think because the different circumstances, these are people that he's never writing to people in a place that he's never been.
He's concerned about them. I think there's a number of reasons, the more established church situation, all these things we've talked about that I think explain why Colossians does feel and sound different from some of the earlier Pauline letters. Date and provenance. Colossians, along with Philippians and Ephesians and Philemon, was written while Paul was in prison.
Maybe in Caesarea, but most likely in Rome. I'm giving it the same date that I've given the other prison epistles, around 60, 59, 60, somewhere in there is fine. And written while Paul was in prison, the first Roman imprisonment in Rome. I'm going through this quickly because it's just a repeat of what I said for Ephesians and what I said for Philippians.
The real issue with the Colossians is the purpose. That's where you want to pay close attention. Now, if you look, you'll notice your textbook has kind of a little cheat sheet for the beginning of each book.
And for the purpose of Colossians, it's very common to hear people say, well, Colossians is written about false teaching. True, but there's more to it than that. And I want you to think through this with me carefully for just a minute. All right, so here's the story behind Colossians. So a church had been planted, churches had been planted in the city of Colossae, which is kind of there in the middle of, on the western side of Turkey, Asia Minor.
Churches had been planted there, but they had been planted there by lay missionaries. So this is a place that Paul has not been. These lay missionaries almost certainly came from Ephesus.
In fact, Paul names one of them, a guy named Epaphras. Now, don't confuse Epaphras with Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus is Philippians, Epaphras, Colossians. And Paul's heard great things about the church, but he's never been there to teach them himself. He's worried about them.
Now, Paul knows. that there are many cultural voices in a place like Colossae that are contrary to the gospel. Greek philosophy, Gnosticism, Jewish mysticism, the mystery cults, asceticism, all of those things are the voices that the Colossians are going to hear every single day trying to persuade them that the gospel is not true, that this other worldview better explains the world. And what Paul is doing is he's writing this letter to them.
to help them be grounded in their faith and sort of filter out and know how to think about all of these other voices so that they can live a life that's worthy of the gospel. Now, let me explain some of these terms that I use. Okay, so first of all, I mentioned Greek philosophy. Platonism is very common.
The Greek sort of from Plato forward understanding of the world, a particular view of the physical world, a particular view of the spiritual world. very important. In fact, a particular brand of Greek philosophy that had rooted its way into the church is Gnosticism. And Gnosticism, that's with a silent G on the beginning, you read about it in your textbook early on, I think. Gnosticism had as its core view this idea that the physical world is bad, but the world of spirit is good.
And so the way you become more spiritual is either by ignoring the physical or by suffering in the physical. And that leads to asceticism, which we'll talk about in just a second. And so, for example, there are early Christian heresies. This is way after Colossians is written, but there are early Christian heresies that believe that Jesus didn't really have a human body.
He only appeared to have a human body. In fact, we call them... the docetics, because the Greek word dokeo means to seem or to appear. And you say, well, that's weird.
Why would they think that? Well, if you believe the physical world is bad, if the physical world is where the locus of sin is, then God cannot become physical without becoming evil. And so these are all the ideas that are floating around.
Jewish mysticism, not just the Jewish cultural practices, but the Jewish mysticism, the worship of angels. the talk about spirits, the mystery cults were all over places like Colossi. These cults that say, you know, you've got your religion and that's good, but we've got the ultimate secret.
And if you'll pay the fee, if you'll learn the secret handshake, get the decoder ring, you know, you can advance in the levels until you know the true, true secret to the universe. Asceticism, also very common in ancient Greek culture. This idea that the way to becoming more spiritual is by making the body suffer.
The way to control the bodily urges is by making the body suffer. And so if you think about those some of those early Christian monks, which again way after Colossians, those early Christian monks that were wearing burlap and eating bugs and living out you know celibacy, no sex, no relationship, you know living outside and some of them even went and lived in hermitages alone. And the idea is if you can cut your body off from anything that it finds pleasurable, you will be more spiritual.
And so all of these ideas are floating around in Colossae. And Paul is writing to the Colossians because he wants them to be able to navigate those waters well and to be able to, because Paul couldn't be there to teach them himself, he wants them to be self-theologizing, if that makes sense. Now, this is going to become important for two reasons. All right, the first reason why this structure is important is because what Paul does is he shows us a model for how to do this for ourselves.
If you just look at Colossians and you think to yourself, well, this letter is not for me, right? When I walk out of my door, I am not bombarded by Greek philosophy, by asceticism, by Gnosticism, by Jewish mysticism, by mystery cults. Those things don't exist.
But you are bombarded by secularism and by materialism and by... the sort of the sensualism of our culture and the sexual, you're about to buy all of those things instead. That does not mean that Colossians is of no value to you because what Paul does in Colossians is he creates a model for how Christians ought to think Christianly about their culture.
And so what we're going to see in Colossians is that model played out for us. And I'll explain that model in just a minute, but the short version is he tells us everything we need. He reminds us everything we need to know about Christ, everything that the gospel tells us about Jesus. and then shows us how to apply that to whatever the idea is that's clamoring for our attention. Now, this is important for a second reason, because it gives explanation to the idea that Colossians is written about false teaching.
You've read Galatians, and so you know what it looks like when Paul is hammering away at false teaching in the church. Colossians does not look like that. And that is because Colossians is not about false teachers. It's about bad ideas.
And so, for example, there's no indication that the false teachers were in the church in Colossae, that people were being deceived, that they departed the gospel, and Paul's trying to corral them in and hammer some sense into them, like he is in Galatians. No, what's going on in Colossians is he's writing to people that he's never been able to teach himself because he wants them to be able to think Christianly about all these non-Christian voices that are in their culture that are clamoring for their attention. And that also makes it especially...
useful to us because that's our experience. When we walk out of our doors, when we turn on our televisions, when we double click on the internet browser, we are constantly bombarded by voices that are telling us something contrary to the gospel. And Paul says, it's a dangerous world if you're stupid. It's a dangerous world theologically if you're stupid. And so he wants to tell you how to not to be stupid, how to think theologically about all the ideas in the world that are around us.
So what Paul does then in Colossians is he focuses on teaching. Again, he could not be with them to respond to every question, every problem, every challenge. The churches there would need to learn to do that for themselves.
In Colossians, Paul teaches them very deep theological truths about Christ and then shows them how to apply those truths to the questions of their day. Excuse me. Colossians roughly follows that same model. Doctrine first, then practical application. And we'll see some of those things.
But mostly for us, Colossians stands as a model for how to apply the truth of the gospel to the questions and ideas of our day, even though the ideas of their day are not the ideas of our day. And it is very much a doctrine first. By the way, those of you who are interested in ministry or in doing ministry, there's something very key you should pay attention to here.
We as ministers wish we want to be able to. It would be nice. If all the people in my Sunday school class and all the people I go to church with, it would be nice if I could sit with them on the couch every time they turn the television on. And whenever an idea came on the television that was contrary to the gospel, I would say, don't believe that. Don't believe that.
You can believe that. That's true. Don't believe that.
But I can't do that. I can't be in all of those places in the same way that Paul, because he was in jail, couldn't be in Colossae. And so my job then becomes, I can't be the filter for them.
I can't sit on the couch and say, listen to that. Don't listen to that. What I have to do is I have to teach them.
I have to teach them the truth of the gospel. I have to teach them the truth about Jesus. And I have to model for them. how to filter all of the ideas that are coming at them through the gospel.
And that's what Paul does in Colossians. Now, I'm going to give you a very simple outline. It's just four chapters in Colossians. I'm going to give you a bullet for each chapter. In chapter one, you get the introduction in Paul's history with the Colossians and then an extended discourse on the supremacy of Christ.
This is where Paul lays out the doctrine of Jesus for them. In chapter two, Paul deals with several examples of issues facing the Colossians. voices in their culture that are yelling for their attention.
Greek philosophy, Jewish practices, mysticism, asceticism, and so on. That's the doctrinal portion. Then in chapter three, the practical portion.
He talks about Christian living in light of the gospel. If Jesus really is who he said he is in chapter one, how do you live? How do you live that out?
And then in chapter four, he wraps up that discussion. You get his conclusion, his parting admonition. We'll see some of those. And then his final greeting.
And that's Colossians.