Colossians 1 explained: Christ Above All Things

Greeting and thanks (vv. 1-8)

Paul and his coworker Timothy write to believers in Colossae, a small town in what is now western Turkey that Paul had apparently never visited. He thanks God for the faith, love and secure hope they learned from Epaphras, who seems to have started their church, and he appears to be vouching for him as a teacher they can trust.

Paul's prayer for them (vv. 9-14)

Paul asks that they would understand what God wants in a way that shapes how they actually live, with strength to keep going patiently and gladly. He reminds them that God has rescued them from darkness into the Son's kingdom, and 'redemption' (being set free, like a captive released) is here explained as forgiveness.

Christ over all creation (vv. 15-17)

Many scholars think these lines are an early Christian hymn: the Son makes the unseen God visible, and most Christians read 'firstborn' as a title of top rank and heir rather than as meaning he was created first. Even the unseen 'thrones' and 'powers', probably spiritual forces people of the time feared, were made through him and for him, and he holds everything together.

Head of the church, maker of peace (vv. 18-20)

As a head leads a body, Christ leads his people, and as the first to rise from death for good he is the start of something new. All of God's fullness lives in him, and through his death on the cross God makes peace with everything, on earth and in heaven.

From enemies to friends (vv. 21-23)

The readers were once far from God in both their thinking and their actions, but through Christ's death they now stand before God clean and blameless. Paul adds that this depends on their holding steady to the hope they first heard, which he says has gone out far and wide.

Paul's suffering and work (vv. 24-29)

His line about 'filling up' what is lacking in Christ's afflictions is puzzling, and most read it as sharing the hardships that come to Christ's people, not as adding anything to Christ's death. The 'mystery' kept hidden for ages is now open: Christ lives even among non-Jewish people as their hope of a glorious future, and Paul works hard to help everyone grow into that.

Key verse: Colossians 1:15

Where Christians differ

Most churches read 'firstborn over all creation' as a title of rank that fits the Son being fully God, while some groups take it to mean he was the first being God created.

Something to think about

Paul claims that everything 'holds together' in one person; what, if anything, do you find holds your own life together?