In the farewell to his letter, Paul exhorts the Colossians to devote themselves to prayer and the building up of the body of Christ. Moreover, he lists many of the heroes of the faith who participated with Paul in the furtherance of the gospel.
Stay engaged with new and up-to-date content, including newsletters, articles, podcasts, etc. Download the Teach Me the Bible App from any app store or Apple TV/Roku device.
In the farewell to his letter, Paul exhorts the Colossians to devote themselves to prayer and the building up of the body of Christ. Moreover, he lists many of the heroes of the faith who participated with Paul in the furtherance of the gospel.
Stay engaged with new and up-to-date content, including newsletters, articles, podcasts, etc. Download the Teach Me the Bible App from any app store or Apple TV/Roku device.
You're listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast, where we unpack the meaning of books, passages and themes from Scripture. Join us each week as Dr David Klingler walks us through God's Word and teaches the Bible. Each episode has a study guide available in the show notes. This is Teach Me the Bible podcast.
Tim Webb:Hello everyone. My name is Tim Webb and I'm here with Dr David Klingler for our Teach Me the Bible podcast. And, david, our desire is helping people of God understand the Word of God and we want to remind them. You are more than welcome to download our app from any app store, as well as downloading our Apple TV or Roku app, but with every episode just a way to continue growth we want you have Bible studies available, blog posts, articles, those kind of things to help them gain deeper understanding. Also want to encourage everyone to, if they have questions, to email those questions to you and I know things are just kind of an update before we jump in here because people need to understand that this is God is really blessing this ministry and more people are getting involved and coming apart.
Tim Webb:I know you're excited about that and, before we finish our discussion of Colossians, chapter four, just want to ask everyone to continue to pray for you and the leadership of this podcast, that we continue to stay focused on the mission and for people to understand the Word of God. So I'm very excited about that. Just want to encourage those out there who are listening to stay apart and encourage other people to join in as well, and today we need to finish our conversation. Well, actually it's Paul riding to Colossi and we're in chapter four. I know you don't like to hear the chapter breaks, so, but that's kind of how we've. You know, we've broken it up for today and chapters, but let's join back in with what Paul's doing here.
Dr. David Klingler:Yeah, so so, as we've said, the, the, when you think in Colossians, colossians and Ephesians are really close and in the content that they cover. And so we pick it up in chapter four. Really at the end of chapter three, paul has exhorted the, these Colossians to, to, to put off the old man and put on the new man, and that this new man is Christ. And so how do you live in the body of Christ and how does that affect husbands and wives and children and fathers? And so those are the, the categories that he uses husbands, wives, and three, 18 and 19, and children and fathers in 20 and 21. And then he turns to masters and and servants in end of chapter three, versus 22, all the way down through three, four, one of masters, and these are the three categories, three relationships husbands, wives, fathers, sons, master, servants, and we've said this in other podcasts. But but why those three? Why doesn't he include others?
Dr. David Klingler:Well, in the Old Testament, these are the same three relationships that God has chosen to use to reveal himself to Israel. He was the, the husband, and he had a wife, a bride, and the bride went and played the harlot. And so you can think of Jose, for example. Jose, all of this bride, imagery, language all through the Old Testament, is Israel's unfaithfulness to their, to their master, to their all, their husband to their, their man, and, and you know, the Lord is faithful when they're faithless. And so husbands and wives, and how do husbands love your wives and how should wives respond? The second is fathers and sons. Sons I have reared, but they have rebelled against me, and so God is the father and Israel are the children. And the last is the Lord is the master and Israel was the servant. And in the Old Testament story, the servant, the suffering servant, christ the master, christ becomes the servant, lays down his life to redeem the, the servant. And so these are the three relationships that you find throughout the Old Testament.
Dr. David Klingler:Unfortunately, satan has done a good job of destroying all three of these husband and wife relationships, fathers and son, and masters and and servants. And so you, you know, you'll hear often well, how can you believe in a Bible that advocates slavery? It's, you know this, this concept of slavery. Well, what we do is we bring in the world's in Satan's view or or presentation of slavery, dominate, dominate or injustice. And it's in the same thing with fathers and sons and abusive fathers and and husbands and wives that can't get along. It's all a marred presentation of what God intended. That God is the master and Israel was to serve him faithfully. And the master love the servant to the extent that he would lay down his life, even the life of his own son, to care for and protect, redeem the servant.
Dr. David Klingler:And so these relationships that are revealed in the Old Testament, and these are the same ones that are in Ephesians, same ones that Peter is going to use in 1 Peter, these are consistently presented in the New Testament because they were the means by which God revealed himself in the Old Testament. So here's this husband that lays down his life for the wife. Husbands, love your wife, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. That's Ephesians. You know the fathers and sons and the masters and the servants. So when it begins in 4.1, masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness. All of these relationships inside of Israel, inside of the church, were to reflect God's care, love for his people, israel for his people, the church and his people's response to that.
Dr. David Klingler:And so when the world sees how the world does, you know masters and slaves, it ought to be very, very different than how the church, or how, the Israel. You know, you go into Israel and all of a sudden their masters care and love their slaves and treat them as their own family. In fact, the servants so love the master that they could choose to serve him for the rest of their days. Well, this is how it ought to look. We don't negate hierarchy, right.
Dr. David Klingler:And so the hard part to hear here is that when we hear, you know, you know, husbands abusing wives and masters abusing servants and all that, we think, well, how can the Bible even allow such a thing? How can a just God allow such injustice? Well, that injustice is brought in by Satan, it's not brought in by God. And so so the, the, if you keep to the biblical, you know the positive, you know what's supposed, how it's supposed to be. You ought to see Christ in the church. Christ is the Lord, the curious, the master, and the church is to serve him. In Isaiah 49, it's one of the servant songs we call it it's where the, the, the, the master, the Lord, sends his son as a servant to redeem the servant so that the servant would serve him. What master does that?
Dr. David Klingler:right lays down his own son. And so what ought to characterize how we treat one another in God's, in God's family is with justice and fairness. And it's not justice and fairness by how the world would describe it, but in how, how God does right. So so, husbands, wives, fathers, sons, masters, servants, it ought to look like God's care, love, loving, kindness, loyal love for his people. So, masters, grant your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a master in heaven. See there, it is just as your master cares for you, so you care for for your, your, those under your care.
Dr. David Klingler:Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert, with an attitude of thanksgivingness, praying at the same time for us as well, paul, talking about praying for us as well, that God may open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ for which I have been imprisoned, in order that I may make it clear in the way that I ought to. I ought to speak. And so, paul, really, if you had to put a chapter break here, it'd probably be better to put the chapter break after you know four one. I don't know why they put four one in there. Four one kind of goes with the end of chapter, in chapter three, but then in three, four, two, he changes his, his focus to devote all cells to prayer. Be alert, pray for us, conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Well, what would that look like? Well, let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person. How do you respond in a way that builds up models. Christ is a witness sharing the testimony. All of those things go into that.
Dr. David Klingler:Here, paul's going to to say in Philippians that Israel was to be the light of the world. They were the children of God, but now, because of their rejection, the Gospels come to the Gentiles, and now so he calls the Gentiles lights in the world and children of God. And so this is how we get to our theology of how do we live. If this is what we believe chapters one through three at least, down to verse 17,. Then how do we live? Well, this is what I'll look like. This is how I'll play out in husband and wife relationship, father and son relationships, master servant relationships, or those who are in your care. We could talk about those who are bosses or employees, that type of thing. I think that's a relevant discussion. And how do you live, how do you live out your faith in the midst of the world? And so the real practical application, all the way up to verse six, four, six.
Dr. David Klingler:And then he says as to all my affairs, ticacus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond servant, and the Lord will bring you information for I've sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know about our circumstances, that he may encourage y'all's hearts, and with him, onissimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of yours. They will inform you about our whole situation here. Remember this Onissimus this would have been a name familiar to the Colossians Remember Philemon and Onissimus and this whole situation that's taken place in Colossi. And so then Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings, and Barnabas, barnabas' cousin, mark, about whom you've received instruction. If he comes, welcome him.
Dr. David Klingler:And also Jesus, who's called Justice. These are the only fellow workers of the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision. They've proved to be an encouragement to be. A Paphras, who's one of yours, one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greeting, always laboring earnestly for you and his prayers that you may stand perfect or complete, fully assured in all of the will of God, for I bear him witness that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Heropilus. Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greeting, as does Demus. Paul is making a distinction here, apparently, between those who are of yours, so Colossian.
Intro/Outro:Gentiles, these are of your number.
Dr. David Klingler:And then you've got a few here who are of the circumcision. They're the only ones who proved to be of the party of the circumcision. This is it's not crystal clear, but this is why many would think that Luke the physician was a Gentile, because he was not included in the list. But when we read, for example, luke's gospel, luke acts. Really, what you're reading is Paul's ministry, the presentation of the gospel up until Paul's point, and then Paul's ministry as well, greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also in Nipah, the church that's in her house, and also Nipah and the church that's in her house. One point here that needs to be when we go back to Paul's letter to Philemon, which is probably the church of Colossi. So we tend to think the church of Colossi is like Colossi, first Baptist church this giant thing on the corner.
Dr. David Klingler:Remember what's happening to these Gentiles. They believe the gospel, but they're not being circumcised and keeping the law. They don't have access to the synagogue. The Jews are being kicked out of the synagogue as well. And so where do they go to? What do they do? Yeah, and so these churches were not mega churches, they weren't church buildings with when we think church, we think, you know, vbs and church building in a place that sits there on Sunday, with playgrounds and after school programs. That's not what was going on here.
Dr. David Klingler:So where are we gonna start a church? Well, we're gonna start it here, basically, who has enough room to gather some people? And if not, we'll gather outside, whatever it took. And so you've got Philemon, the church that's meeting in his house in Colossi, and here Nipah, apparently, is this one, and the church is meeting in her house. And so whenever we're reading the scriptures, it's very easy to read our present situation back into these, into these Well, we're almost conditioned to yeah. Yeah, we just think that it's always been this way, and even in our, you know, we've lived long enough to see quite a lot of change. I remember sitting and talking with my grandmother years ago, and she was in her mid 90s and you know she had lived through she can tell when she saw her the first car, when she saw her first airplane, when electric came into houses, when plumbing came into houses.
Tim Webb:Right.
Dr. David Klingler:And today, kids don't know about what it means to dial a phone or to roll up a window in a car. Party lines, yeah, party lines, and some of you are probably out there thinking, yeah, what does it mean to roll up a window? Well, you had a crank, cranked it up, cranked it up, and they didn't always roll up well, and so so many of how we understand things is conditioned by our present situation, and so-.
Tim Webb:We even have the whole scripture.
Dr. David Klingler:Having the whole scripture, just having a copy of the scriptures Having several copies of the scriptures in your own language. None of this stuff happens until much later in church history. So where did you go to learn the scriptures? And so it's literally the words of the apostles and prophets, and so the reality back then is very different than our reality today. So keep that in mind, as you're, and we try to remind you that as well. And so verse 16, chapter four, verse 16, and when this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans. And you, for your part, read my letter, which is coming from Laodicea, and we've talked about this before when we introduced this book.
Dr. David Klingler:We don't have a Paul's letter to Laodicea. You know, paul, we don't have all of Paul's letters, unless the letter to the Laodiceans is the book of Ephesians, and so we don't know if we have everything that Paul ever wrote. Probably not, but apparently there was a letter that was written to the Laodiceans. Either it was the book of Ephesians, which was a letter that went from place to place and was preserved in Ephesus, because that's where Paul had a pretty big ministry, or we don't have it. But anyway, and say to Archipas take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. Very similar exhortation that Paul gives to Archipas, as he does to Timothy and Second Timothy Fulfill your ministry.
Dr. David Klingler:Paul was here today and what would he say to each of us? He'd say you know, know your place, not in a bad way, but in a good way. Know how you fit into the body of Christ and fulfill your ministry. Do it well. You have a role in the ministry that no one else has. You are a distinct member in the body of Christ, with very distinct gifts and abilities and to use for the building up of the body of Christ. So do it. Fulfill your ministry. Don't feel like you gotta do someone else's ministry. Your job's not their job, their job's not your job, and we all work together for the building up of the body of Christ. So take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. One more point just before we close this up, and I would say that some of us have this view that we don't have a ministry. Or you hear people say well, I'm going into full-time ministry. Well, I got news for you If you're a believer you're supposed to be in full-time ministry.
Dr. David Klingler:You're supposed to be Right. And this goes back to conduct yourself in wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, that you may know how you should respond to each person. There's a ministry. That's right, and so we all have a ministry in Christ. We have, you have things to benefit and provide to the body of Christ.
Tim Webb:It'll be your outreach ministry right there. Yeah, that's right. He's conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders.
Dr. David Klingler:And the waitress that waits on you at the restaurant. The people standing in line.
Dr. David Klingler:Every day of service, the parking lot. How do you treat people in the parking lot when some idiot cuts off and takes your parking spot? Okay, how do you respond to that? That's part of your ministry and that's part of how we live this out, and so be encouraged Paul would say to you complete your ministry. I remember years ago I was teaching a Bible study and the guys would get there early, early to make sure that the coffee and the kalachis were there and they'd say oh, you're doing such a great job as a teacher. Whatever I'm saying, let me tell you something my teaching's not near as good if people don't have coffee to be awake. In fact, I think that a lot of the average teaching looks a whole lot better when you're eating coffee than donuts. That's right.
Tim Webb:You're happy, right? There's something to be said there, so there's something.
Dr. David Klingler:So every member of the body has a role in a part, and one's not more important than the other. They're all necessary for the building up of the body. Some have a, you know, the role of an apostle certainly is. The ministry of the word is important, because that tells everyone else how they're to fit into it. But every part of the body is vitally important. And so then, in Paul, I, paul, write this greeting to you with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment.
Dr. David Klingler:Such a great way to finish it right. Remember my imprisonment. Paul is always. How bold is Paul to say follow my example, follow me as I follow Christ. He does this a lot. Well, what do we take from Paul saying remember my imprisonment. How much has Paul given up to follow Christ? You know, in Philippians he's given up everything. Is he upset about it? Not at all. In fact, he writes to the Philippians he's imprisoned and this is one of the prison epistles. So you have lumped these four books into, kind of into the same category Ephesians, philippians, colossians and then Philemon. And we learn in Philemon, or in Philippians, that he's imprisoned. And at the end of the letter, at the beginning of the letter, he says I'll have you know that my imprisonment has turned out for the furtherment of the gospel. The furtherance of the gospel because people outside have far more confidence to speak of Christ. At the end of the letter he says greet all the saints. All the saints here greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.
Intro/Outro:He's led them to Christ. Yeah, he's leading them to.
Dr. David Klingler:Christ in prison. So wherever you are, there's your ministry. One of the best things I ever heard in seminary was Dr Jeff Bingham. We were in a class and a student was asking some question about should they go into this ministry and are they waiting to feel led to do this thing or the other thing? And of course his answer was if you wanna do it, go do it. Right, as long as there's not a prohibition against it, go do it. And the student didn't find that very spiritual, which I was agreeing with at the time. I'm thinking, wait a second, that doesn't sound very spiritual. We mean, just go do it.
Dr. David Klingler:And he said the most profound words, some of the most profound words I heard in seminary. He said if you wanna know where your ministry is, look down. Wherever your feet are. That's where your ministry is, and if that's true, you're in full-time ministry. We all are. Maybe we don't do full-time ministry well, but you're in it whether you realize it or not. And so I think Paul's exhortation here remember my imprisonment as a servant, a bond-server and a prisoner of Christ. He used that language as a prisoner of Christ, or is it a prisoner for Christ's sake? It's all the same imprisoned by Christ. What else can he do but serve the Lord? Is he imprisoned for the sake of Christ? Yes, all of it, and we should be as well. And so just wise words from the old apostle yes absolutely.
Tim Webb:It's not the circumstance, it's our response, always, always so.
Dr. David Klingler:And that's easier said than done, yes, but we need to be reminded of it constantly, and Paul does certainly, here at the end of his letter to the people, and it's very humbling.
Tim Webb:It is. It's just a reminder.
Dr. David Klingler:It is.
Tim Webb:So, David, thank you so much for walking us through Colossians, and I want to remind everyone, just as you are walking through God's story and learning the understanding, going deeper in your faith, we want to encourage you to stay connected with the body of believers. We are the body. This is never to pull people out of serving in the body and or away from their local pastor. So I know your desire has been to grow this, to encourage all people in the body. So thank you for having that motivation, and so thank you everyone and continue to walk with us through.
Intro/Outro:God's Word. Thanks for listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast. Our desire is to use the power of God's Word to change lives. For more information, download our app. Join us next week for another episode of Teach Me the Bible.