Colossians 2:3

Paul writes from prison, most likely in Rome around A.D. 60–62. He has just set out the supremacy of Christ over all creation and the church (Colossians 1:15–20) and the peace God made “through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20), by which the Colossians, once enemies, were reconciled (Colossians 1:21–23). Now he turns to his own part in that work, and he begins with joy: “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you.” The pain is real, and the joy rests on knowing what the pain is for. He suffers “for you”, for the good of the Colossians, and “for his body’s sake, which is the church.”

The word for church, ekklēsía, means “a calling out”. It was used for a public assembly and for a Jewish congregation, and here it means the whole community of believers, on earth and in heaven, whom Christ has called to himself. Paul has just called Christ “the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18). In one body the members share each other’s lot, “whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26), and so what an apostle endures strengthens the whole church.

“Whereof I am made a minister” tells how Paul came to this work: God appointed him. The word diákonos comes from a root meaning to run errands, and it was used for an attendant, a waiter at table, a servant. Paul uses it of himself again and again, because it speaks of service and of humility. The Greek includes the pronoun egṓ, “I”, which it usually leaves to the verb, and here it puts weight on Paul’s own calling.

He serves “according to the dispensation of God”. The word oikonomía means the management of a household or estate, a stewardship. A steward in a large household was trusted with authority and resources to run his master’s affairs, and the Colossians would have known the picture well. God has an ordered plan, and he has put a part of it into Paul’s hands. Paul says the same elsewhere, that “a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me” (1 Corinthians 9:17), and he reminds the Ephesians of “the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward” (Ephesians 3:2), in a passage that describes that stewardship at length (Ephesians 3:2–9).

The trust was “given to me for you”. It was given for the Colossians and for the Gentiles generally, since Paul calls himself “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles” (Romans 15:16). Its aim was “to fulfil the word of God”. The verb plēróō means to fill up, to make full, to complete. God’s word was true before Paul ever preached it, and his task was to preach it in full and carry it as far as God intended, including the part long kept secret, “That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body” (Ephesians 3:6). At its heart that word is Christ, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).

The word mystḗrion comes from a word meaning to shut the mouth, and in the Greek world it suggested the silence kept by people initiated into religious rites. Paul uses it for a truth that could be known only because God revealed it, kept back until his appointed time and now told openly. In the New Testament a mystery is a secret that God has now made known.

“Hid” is apokrýptō, to conceal away, to keep fully secret. God withheld this truth on purpose, “from ages and from generations”. The ages, aiṓn, are the long spans of time, and the generations, geneá, are the peoples who lived through them one after another. Together they take in the whole of history before Christ. The prophets did glimpse the Gentiles’ share, as when God tells his servant, “I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 49:6), but the full scope of it, and the way it would come about, waited for the Messiah.

“But now is made manifest to his saints.” The verb phaneróō means to make apparent or visible, to bring into the open, and its passive form shows God as the one revealing. The saints, hágios, are all believers, the people God has set apart for himself. Paul says the same at the close of Romans, where he speaks of “the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest” (Romans 16:25–26), and to the Corinthians, of “the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7–8). He tells the Ephesians that this mystery was made known to him by revelation (Ephesians 3:3–6). Because God has shown it to all his saints, it belongs to every believer, and that answers the claim being made around Colossae that the deepest truths were secret knowledge for a chosen few.

“Whom we preach” names the message, and the message is a person: the “Whom” (hós) is Christ. The verb katangéllō means to proclaim or announce publicly, the work of a herald. As Paul preaches he does two things. Warning, nouthetéō, means “to put in mind”, to caution, admonish or gently reprove, the loving correction that steers someone away from error and harm. Teaching, didáskō, is patient instruction in God’s truth that builds a believer up. Warning guards and corrects, and teaching builds, and Paul joined the two in his own ministry, reminding the Ephesian elders, “I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts 20:31). Both are done “in all wisdom”, en pâs sophía, with the understanding God gives, which is true wisdom set against the false wisdom offered at Colossae.

The phrase “every man” comes three times in the verse, from pâs, “all” or “every”, and ánthrōpos, a human being. Paul’s work is for every person, without partiality. Its goal comes in the words “that we may present”, hína (“that”, marking a purpose) with parístēmi, to set before or present, as a bride is presented to her groom. Paul wants to bring every believer before God “perfect in Christ Jesus”.

“Whereunto I also labour” ties Paul’s effort to that goal. The verb kopiáō, from a word for toil, means to feel fatigue, to work to the point of weariness. Paul uses it elsewhere: “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). “Striving” is agōnízomai, from agṓn, a contest, the word behind our “agonize”. It means to compete for a prize like an athlete or to contend with an opponent, and it pictures Paul’s ministry as a hard and earnest fight.

He strives “according to his working, which worketh in me mightily”. The noun enérgeia, the root of our word “energy”, means active, effective power, and in the New Testament it is used almost always of supernatural power. The verb “worketh”, energéō, comes from the same root, and “mightily” is en dýnamei, “in power”, from dýnamis. The power at work in Paul is Christ’s, the same Christ who dwells in his people and who is “the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:10).

The chapter break carries the thought straight on: “For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you.” The “For”, gár, gives the reason behind what he has just said. “I would”, thélō, is a strong and deliberate wish, and “knew”, eídō, is a verb of seeing that in this form means to know or to be aware. Paul wants them to grasp how much he carries for them.

“What great conflict” is hēlíkos agṓn, “how great a struggle”. The agṓn is the contest behind the “striving” of the verse before, an intense struggle like a wrestling match, and it gives us the word “agony”. Paul fights it in prayer, in teaching and in steady endurance, against the false teaching that threatened these churches, and he fights it “for”, perí, on behalf of, the Colossians. He asks others to share it, begging the Romans to “strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30), and he tells the Philippians they have “the same conflict which ye saw in me” (Philippians 1:30). The battle is spiritual, for “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers” (Ephesians 6:12).

The struggle is also “for them at Laodicea”, Laodíkeia. Colossae lay in the Lycus Valley of Phrygia in Asia Minor, one of three cities there with Laodicea and Hierapolis, and their churches faced the same dangers. The church at Colossae was founded through Epaphras (Colossians 1:7), and Paul’s care reaches all “as many as have not seen my face in the flesh”. His heart for the churches was a longing heart, as when he tells the Thessalonians he “endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire” (1 Thessalonians 2:17).

Paul’s agony for the church reflects, in a small way, the far greater conflict Christ endured in Gethsemane and on the cross. Christ prayed for “them also which shall believe on me through their word” (John 17:20–23), people who would come to faith in him long after his face was seen on earth, and “he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Paul wrestles so that believers stand firm, kept from being “carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14).

Paul’s struggle has an aim: “That their hearts might be comforted.” The verb parakaléō means to call near, to invite or plead, to exhort or console, so the comfort Paul seeks includes strength and encouragement for the heart, kardía, the centre of a person’s thought, feeling and will. Such comfort comes from “the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4).

“Being knit together in love” uses symbibázō, to drive together, to unite in fellowship or affection, a word that can also mean to infer, show or teach. It pictures a close and purposeful joining, like the fibres of woven cloth or the parts of a body, held together in agápē love. Christ is the head, “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth” grows up in love (Ephesians 4:15–16), and later in this chapter Paul speaks of the body “knit together” under him (Colossians 2:19). Love is the mark of his disciples, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35), and Jesus prayed “That they all may be one” (John 17:21). Paul urges the same, “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1–3). A church held together in love stands firm together when error comes.

The next phrase is “unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding”. The word plērophoría means entire confidence, a full and settled conviction, like the “full assurance of faith” in Hebrews (Hebrews 10:22). Its riches are an understanding of God’s truth held with the whole heart as well as the mind, and it steadies the soul against deceit.

All of this leads “to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ”. The word epígnōsis means full knowledge and recognition. The mystery of God is Christ himself, the one in whom God’s saving purpose is embodied and revealed, and the words move from God to the Father and then to Christ, in whom God is fully known. Jesus said, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). Paul counted all things loss “for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8), and he speaks of preaching “the wisdom of God in a mystery” (1 Corinthians 2:7).

“In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” The “whom” is Christ, and this one sentence holds the heart of the letter’s answer to Colossae. Christ is more than a teacher who passes on wisdom. He is its source and its embodiment, and every true treasure of understanding is found in him.

The word for “hid”, apókryphos, means hidden away, kept in store. The word for treasures, thēsaurós, comes from tithēmi, to place, and means a deposit, wealth, a storehouse, so the treasures are laid up in Christ in rich and endless supply. Wisdom, sophía, is practical insight, moral discernment and an understanding of God’s purposes, the ability to use knowledge rightly and to tell truth from error. Knowledge, gnōsis, is the knowing of truth itself. The false teachers boasted of a superior knowledge, and Paul places all knowledge worth having in Christ.

These treasures are hidden in him the way riches are kept in a storehouse. They lie open to those who seek them in Christ, by faith and by the light of the Holy Spirit, and they stay out of sight for anyone who looks for wisdom apart from him. The true secret is Christ himself, and growing in wisdom means digging deeper into him through Scripture, prayer and fellowship for the whole of life.

Scripture speaks with one voice here. “For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). Paul cries, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33), and he says that Christ Jesus “of God is made unto us wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Christ is the Word who was with God and was God and became flesh (John 1:1–14), the Son by whom God “hath in these last days spoken unto us” (Hebrews 1:1–3), and “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). Paul prays that God would give believers “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17–19).

“And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.” The “And”, dé, links the warning to all he has just said about Christ. Paul has shown them the treasure, and now he tells them why: so that they can recognise a counterfeit.

The verb paralogízomai joins para, “alongside” or “amiss”, with logízomai, “to reckon”, and means to misreckon, to reason falsely. It describes deceit carried out through clever but faulty argument that leads people to wrong conclusions, often to trap them. The “enticing words”, pithanología, join peithō, “to persuade”, with logos, “word”, and mean persuasive speech, plausible talk. Such words sound reasonable and even profound, and they are hollow at the core.

From what Paul writes in this chapter, the teaching that threatened Colossae mixed several things: Jewish rules about circumcision, food and festivals (Colossians 2:16–17), harsh treatment of the body (Colossians 2:21–23), the worship of angels (Colossians 2:18), and claims to a secret, higher knowledge, an early form of what was later called Gnostic teaching, perhaps mixed with local pagan beliefs. Its teachers offered a deeper spirituality or a fuller salvation than the plain gospel, and they appealed to curiosity and to the wish to rise above other believers. Every one of their additions implied that Christ was insufficient.

Paul answers with Christ. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith” (Colossians 2:6–7). “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit”, for in Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, “And ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2:8–10). Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), the Word who was in the beginning with God (John 1:1–3). The apostles give the same warning elsewhere: “Let no man deceive you with vain words” (Ephesians 5:6), they “by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple” (Romans 16:18), and “with feigned words make merchandise of you” (2 Peter 2:3). Our safeguard is to know Christ well and rest in him, so that any teaching which shrinks his glory or adds to what he has done is seen for what it is.

Paul closes this part of the letter with joy, as he opened it. “For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit.” The word ápeimi means to be away. Prison keeps Paul from them, and many of them have yet to see him at all. Yet his mind, his love and his prayers are with them. He uses almost the same words to the Corinthians, “as absent in body, but present in spirit” (1 Corinthians 5:3). The bond between believers runs deeper than distance, because “There is one body, and one Spirit” (Ephesians 4:4–6), and believers keep “the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3).

He is “joying and beholding”. The joy is chairō, and “beholding”, blepō, means seeing clearly. What he sees is their “order”, táxis, from tassō, “to arrange”. It means a regular arrangement, a fixed succession, proper conduct, and it was used of soldiers drawn up in formation. The church at Colossae was well ordered and living in harmony by Christ’s ways, as Paul elsewhere asks, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40), “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). That order comes from Christ the head, from whom the whole body is knit together and grows (Colossians 2:19).

He also sees “the stedfastness of your faith in Christ”. The word steréōma, from stereoō, “to make firm”, means firmness, solidity, something established, like a solid foundation or a secure fortress. Their faith stood firm, and Christ was both what they trusted and what held them up. It is the faith that stands “fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27), that resists the devil “stedfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9), and that is built like the wise man’s house, which stood because “it was founded upon a rock” (Matthew 7:24–25). Paul’s joy over them is joy in what Christ has done among them, and it prepares them for his call to stay “Rooted and built up in him” (Colossians 2:7).

Christ lives in everyone who belongs to him, and that is our hope of glory. Whatever we bear for his name, he counts as his own, and he uses it to build up his church. The glory ahead is shared with him, so the hardships of the way are worth bearing.

Every believer has a part in the work Paul describes. We warn and teach one another, we pray for believers we have never met as Paul did, and we aim at maturity in Christ for ourselves and for each other. We can work hard at it and still rest, because the power that works in us is his.

When polished voices offer something more than Christ, we already have the treasure. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in him, and the way to stand firm is to keep walking in him, knit together in love with his people, until he presents us complete.