March 25, 2022: Day 64 – Colossians 1-4

I enjoy reading through an entire book of the Bible from beginning to end in one sitting.  I don’t do that often, but it is so much better to read the Bible that way than single verses or chapters at a time.  Remember this is like an enews that Paul writes to the church in Colossae and he addresses issues and situations that have come up in the church and gives a way forward for this fledgling community.  If there is a controlling purpose for my work at FPC it would be found in Colossians 1:28 which states that we preach the Gospel so that each person may be found mature in Christ.  Striving toward maturity in our faith is the primary, if not singular, reason why we do what we do.  

There is a lot in these chapters, but look also at vs.22 where he states that Jesus has reconciled us to God so that he can present us to the Father.  This image of Jesus presenting us to the Father is stunning.  The glory of the Son will so overwhelm the Father that the Father will not be able to see our sin on account of the perfection of the Son.  That is the kind of advocate that we need.

When we get to the second chapter we find some warnings about being caught up in philosophical theories that may sound good on paper but in practice are useless.  There are a number of general warnings against getting caught up too much in the cultural norms that are present which would distract us from a perfect worship of our God.  Chapter 3 gives us a great verse that I have used often in vs.11 which reminds us that in Christ Jesus we are all equal.  There is no distinction and there is no hierarchy in our Savior, there is no male or female as far as roles within the church, but rather we are all saved equally and for equal service within the life of the church.  This concept is not shared by all people and churches.  

Chapter 4 and the end of chapter 3 gives us the disturbing verses that encourage slaves to be obedient to their masters.  This is an example where we can clearly say that the writing of Scripture to a certain extent are tied up to the time in which they were written.  That may be offensive to some of you, but I am guessing you have never been a slave, or a person of color whose ancestors were slaves in this very land, and so the offensive nature is not personal but rather theoretical.  I’m guessing if the Scripture said something that impacted you directly you would feel very comfortable in viewing that as culturally bound.  We need to be careful when we read Scripture that we don’t read it too much based upon our own cultural understandings which are incredibly limited.