Identification

The people of Colossae lived in a mixed bag of cultures, philosophical thoughts, and religions. They lived in an area called Asia Minor, specifically the Lycus River valley, where a major crossroad traversed from east to west. The Babylonians, Romans, Jews, and Greeks influenced the lives of the people. To these people in the 1^st century AD, Paul wrote while imprisoned. About the Christians in Colossians, he heard good things and things about which he needed to teach and correct.

As Paul almost always did in his letters, he gives a foreshadowing of his teaching in the opening statements. He opens with by introducing himself (vs 1), giving a greeting (vs 2), then praying over the Colossian brethren (vs 3-8). That prayer of thanksgiving leads directly into the principal topic and teaching of this letter.

The Greeting

Identification with the Sender

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother…” (Colossians 1:1 [NASB])

Paul introduced himself to the believers in Colossae. Though he had spent extended time in Asia Minor on his 2^nd and 3^rd missionary journeys, he had never been to Colossae. It was during one of those journeys, probably the 3^rd journey, that Paul discipled Epaphras, the founder and pastor of the Colossian church. What is important about Paul’s introduction of himself to the Colossians are the credentials he gave? He told them first he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. An apostle of Christ is an ambassador of the Gospel commissioned by Jesus Christ to go preach. Paul was sent out by Christ. The authority for his apostleship came from Christ. Remember his Damascus road experience in Acts 9. Christ called and sent out Paul as an ambassador of the Gospel. As an apostle of Christ, Paul was identified with Christ.

The next part of verse one says he was an apostle of Christ by the will of God. Paul had not decided on his own to be an ambassador, an apostle. God willed it. He chose Saul even while he persecuted the people of the Way, the Jesus-followers. God had a purpose to use Saul, later known as Paul, to reach the Gentile world. When Saul met Jesus on the Damascus road, he became a completely changed man with a new agenda. His life turned around 180 degrees from persecuting Christians to proclaiming the Gospel, from taking the lives of believers to leading them to the Source of Life, and from enforcing every jot and tittle of the Law to reinforcing believers by teaching the Gospel as given to Him by God. Paul repented, he turned 180 degrees from facing away from Jesus to facing and following Him.

Paul never went alone to where Jesus led him to proclaim the “mystery of God.” Another believer traveled with him, whether that person was a believer before Paul met him or her or that believer became a Christian because of Paul’s proclamation. Paul dedicated his life to learning and mentoring other believers. On a journey in which men arrested him, Paul identified with the person who resided with him. On this journey, Timothy was with him. Paul called Timothy “our brother by God’s will.” The people of Asia Minor either knew Timothy or knew of him. Timothy’s family raised him in Lystra about 360 miles east of Colossae. His grandmother and mother, who were Jewish and later became Christians (2 Timothy 1:5), and his Greek father raised him with the knowledge of Jewish Scriptures. Paul took Timothy with him on his journeys and mentored him. Timothy was a companion, mentee, and co-worker of Paul.

Why was it important for Paul to tell the Colossian believers about himself and Timothy? Paul wanted these believers to understand that he identified with Christ. Christ appointed him as His ambassador. Paul wanted the Colossian believers to realize who Timothy was, too. Timothy identified with Christ, as one saved by Him and called to service for Him. 

Identification with the Recipients

“To the saints and faithful brethren who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” (Colossians 1:2 [NASB])

Paul wanted the believers in Colossae to realize he and Timothy identified with them, as well as with Christ. How do we know Paul wanted the believers in Colossae to identify with him and Timothy?  He wrote to the “saints and faithful brethren in Christ.” Paul made known to whom he was writing. He wrote to the saints. Saints are people set apart by God, those whom He made holy by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus’ death. Paul and Timothy were saints, too, as he explained in verse one. Paul added the Colossian Christians were faithful brethren in Christ. “Faithful” comes from the Greek word pistos meaning one who is persuaded and who has the fullness of faith about Jesus. Paul wrote to the ones who received faith from God and believed it to the full, without doubt. He called them brethren, too. A person of the brethren is a person who is a member of the same religious community of others who believe similarly, in this case people who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. With these titles for the believers at Colossae, Paul said they identified with Christ as saints set apart by God’s redeeming grace. The Colossian believers identified as faithful because the faith they received they had in full and lived based on it. They identified as brethren who were actively part of the community of Christ in Colossae. The Colossian Christians, Paul, and Timothy identified with each other as followers of Christ. Saints identify upwards with God, and brethren identify horizontally with other Christians.

Paul added a blessing to his salutation. He said, “Grace to you and peace from God.” This blessing from Paul meant “May God’s undeserved favor be on you.” This quietness and rest of heart, soul, mind, and body is the peace that comes knowing, fully trusting, God will take care of you. This trust requires full faith as saints. It requires being identified with Christ through His life, death, and resurrection.

The Colossae church comprised Jews and Gentiles. Paul was a Jew from Tarsus in Asia Minor called by Christ to preach to the Gentiles and Jews. Timothy was a man raised as a Jew by his family and was a Greek because of his father. Yet, more than these, Paul and Timothy were Christians. They identified with Christ and with the Colossian Christians. The Colossian believers could identify with Paul and Timothy as saints and faithful brethren in Christ and as Jews and Greeks of Asia Minor.  Their identification was heavenly and earthly. Paul and Timothy’s identification with Christ and the people of Colossae gave them the right and privilege to preach, teach, and correct the heresies flowing around the Colossian believers. The Colossian believers would trust what Paul taught them as from God and out of love for God and them.

Thoughts to Consider

Paul gave the Colossian Christians his credentials. He showed them how he was like them in several ways, as a saint and part of the brethren. Paul included Timothy as part of his greeting to tell of his credentials, that he, too, is a Christian called by God and from Asia Minor. His blessing of this church in Colossae reminded them of who God is and for them. It served as a springboard for Paul’s purpose in writing this letter.

• Does God still call people to teach and correct the beliefs of others, especially Christians who have become lost in the whirlpool of cultures, philosophical thoughts, and faiths?
• Would people consider your credentials as highly as Paul’s, as saint and brother, because of your faith, and your actions and words that came from your faith?
• Are you like the Colossian Christians who heard the Gospel, but allowed other cultures, philosophies, and faiths to enter your reasoning and potentially water-down your faith?
• How do you think the Colossian believers will react to what Paul will teach them in this letter?
• How would you react since you have read this letter from Paul?
• Why do you think Paul put a heavy emphasis on brethren, faithful, saints, apostle, and brother?

Paul knew why God had him write to a people to whom he never physically preached or taught. His relationship with God prepared him to be His instrument even from prison to teach, correct, and proclaim the Gospel of Christ. With Colossians 1:3-8, we will learn of the Christian triad of faith, love, and hope. Were the Colossian Christians in danger of losing one side of this triad because of other cultures, philosophies, and faith systems? Paul prepared them for his correction of their confusion. What must we do so as not to be confused and or water-down the faith that we originally received and believed?

For next week, re-read Colossian 1:1-8. Be prepared to answer these questions again after re-reading those verses.

“May you give thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” (Colossians 1:9, 12 [NASB])

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Our Identification

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

            What does this verse mean? So often teachers and preachers speak of the action of laying down one’s life and they speak of what it means. They use the example of Christ and use it as the motivation for us to do the same for Him. I want to look at the actors in this verse. There are three: Jesus, His disciples, and others.

            We each go through life as the child of our parents, the partner of our spouse, and the employee of someone else. Jesus came to give us life abundantly. That gift has given us a new relationship title. We become the children of God who serve the High King like the Levites served God in the temple. This allows us the title of co-heir with Christ. As we grow, we become disciples of Christ. Farther in this relationship, we become friends: to Jesus and to others.

In the first phase, we become as the Israelites were when God first chose them to be His people. He wanted a relationship with the people He created. He wanted to be their God. He required their reverence and worship. As His children, they also had to remember they were subservient to Him. They, as His worshippers, had to realize who they were in relation to Him – small and humble compared to His majesty and power. There was such awe that they feared being in God’s presence. Our relationship with God, when we are first re-born is like this. We see how small and insignificant we are in relation to how infinite and mighty He is. We come before Him in humility and adoration knowing who we are and what He has made us to be by His love. We feel as if we should serve our heavenly King through our subservience since we can never be as great and mighty as He is. The humility we feel is correct. God is mighty, powerful, and majestic. He should be worshipped for who He is and for what He has done: Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Lord. We must go beyond this point though if we are to be in a growing relationship with God, though. We must never lose our awe and reverence for Him nor our perspective of Him and His might and majesty.

            In the second phase, when we grow beyond our initial gratefulness, subservience, and awe, we become aware that Jesus saved us for more than this. He left us with eyewitnesses who wrote His teachings down. We begin to see who the disciples are and become disciples ourselves. We walk with them through their three years with Jesus. We learn about the Son of God as foretold in the prophets of the Old Testament and as fulfilled by the coming of Jesus, God incarnate. We learn He has power over demons, illness, life, and death. We learn Jesus will be our judge on the last day. We also learn how to be His followers and what that means. Jesus is our Rabbi now, our teacher. We sit at His feet. We eat at His table. We walk in His footprints down the road with Him. In living with Him and learning to do these things, we learn to be like Jesus. As Jesus said, “He is able to do only what He sees the Father doing.” (John 5:19 [AMP]) As Jesus learned from His Father, so we learn from Jesus our Lord. We are His disciples. This growth phase includes the first phase of awe and subservience, but it includes discipleship now. It includes a commitment of our lives.

            The third phase of our growth in relation to God Jesus states in John 15:15, “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” [NASB] It is this phase of growth where our joy is made complete. This phase is when the Son and the Father are pleased with us and count us worthy to be called friend. What does this new status in regard to Jesus mean? He states it Himself like this: a friend lays down his life for his friend. (vs.13) Just as Jesus could not act without having seen the Father, we cannot act unless we see our teacher, Jesus, do it. So many of us read verse 13 as God telling us how great love regards one’s self - as nothing in compared to the value of another friend’s life. What I am saying is this verse tells us how to act and gives us value because of who we are - friends of Jesus. According to Jesus, His friends abide in Him; they live in Him just as He abides in the Father. Jesus states that we know we are abiding in Him if we keep His commandments. He says twice in the chapter what a friend is: friends have love for one another (the brethren) just as Jesus loves us. He states this in verses 12 and 17.

            This is the point we are growing toward – to be like Jesus, to love as Jesus loves. When we see beyond ourselves and how an act will affect us, we are no longer just disciples, but are identified with Christ. Prior to this we counted the cost when we were young converts and learning at the feet of Jesus. We are now walking in the shadow of Jesus and becoming the cost without thinking and without hesitation because we are so identified with Christ. This phase does not mean we have stopped growing in Christ, but is a phase where the growth is unconscious because the life of Christ through His Holy Spirit within us guides us in the way of Christ so we are unconsciously doing as He did, being as He is, and speaking as He spoke. When we reach the phase of our growth when we are unconscious of our own selves and no longer desire anything for ourselves is when Jesus is most consciously visible to others in our words and actions. That is when Jesus calls us friends.

            Jesus calls us His children, His disciples, and His friends. There is nothing we can do to earn any of these privileged titles. The gift of faith, which God gives us, enables us to believe Jesus is the Son of God. The gift of salvation enables us to have eternal life with Him. The gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to follow Jesus and grow more like Him. The only thing Jesus says we can do is this, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:10 [NASB]) Our part of all this is to keep Jesus’ commandments, His teachings. In doing this, we grow out of ourselves and into more unconscious Christlikeness. We do nothing to earn Jesus’ friendship other than lay down our lives for His. Be filled with His Spirit. Become a believer in Jesus as the Son of God. Become children of the Most High God. Be identified with the Messiah.