The Beginnings of a Corrective

Written by Marv Thiessen

Pastor Marv Thiessen

Calgary First Mennonite Church

January 17, 2010

 

THE BEGINNINGS OF A CORRECTIVE

Colossians 1:3-14

I. Introduction

Recently our worship committee discussed a preaching plan for upcoming worship services. We looked ahead and decided to have our annual prayer week from February 7-14. That left us with three Sundays leading up to our prayer week. Since the prayer week materials draw on the text of Colossians 3:12-17, our worship committee decided that we would focus on the letter to the Colossian church for a total of five Sundays. If you have tried to digest the letter carefully in your biblical studies in the past, you will likely agree that the letter is quite philosophical in tone and that it addresses issues in another time and culture that are hard for us to understand. And then, if you’re like me, you’re not sure how it applies to real life for us now. Philosophical discussion leaves you floundering. It can do that for me, too. I’ve experienced that on several occasions with friends who love to discuss philosophy. Now, we all live life by some standards of belief constructions so we all have developed some kind of a philosophy of life, but when the discussion gets very idea-oriented and not very practical, we struggle with philosophical thinking. That is, if you respond to philosophical discourse something like I do.

Some of us might find Colossians less engaging than other New Testament letters as a result. This letter, however, is part of our Bible and we should study more of it than just chapter 3, which feels quite practical. I want to begin this morning by introducing us to the letter. Then we’ll ask how Paul’s opening to the letter might be applied to our thinking. We need context for the letters that Paul wrote in order to correctly begin to apply their teaching to our lives. I’ve written a brief drama that should help to introduce the letter. The drama has two characters. The first is Onesimus. He is mentioned in chapter 4:9 as the person designated to deliver the letter from Paul to the church at Colossae. The second is Nympha. She is mentioned in 4:15 as the person in whose home the church of Laodicea gathers. This letter was to be delivered to the Colossian church and then also to the Laodicean church. I’ll use some of the information I have gathered in studying Colossians in preparation for this series and some imagination to present the likely context for the letter.

Onesimus approaches the home of Nympha and knocks on the door. Nympha comes to the door and greets Onesimus.

N: Hello. Can I help you?

O: I’m sorry. You don’t know who I am, do you? My name is Onesimus and the apostle Paul sent me to deliver a letter to the church at Colosse as well as to the church that meets here in your house in Laodicea.

N: Well, come in and sit down. Any person bringing news of Paul and bearing a letter from him is welcome in my home although we can never be too careful about who we talk to, given the increasing suspicion of Christians in the empire. With that in mind, tell me something about yourself.

O: I told you that my name is Onesimus. I was a slave of Philemon, who is a member of the church in Colosse. I stole from him and then ran away to Rome, hoping to hide myself there and become a free man. In Rome, I came into contact with Paul who had been placed in prison there while he waited for an audience with the emperor Nero on some matter that had taken place in Jerusalem. Paul told me the good news of Jesus and I became a follower of Jesus. I learned much from Paul during the time I spent with him in Rome. He helped me come to the conclusion that I needed to return to my master, Philemon. He also decided that I should deliver a letter to your church and the Colossian church. He heard about some teaching that was occurring in your two churches that disturbed him greatly and he wanted to provide some correction. So, that is how I have come to you.

N: I believe you are who you say you are. I did hear about a slave of Philemon that had run away.

O: How did you hear about that?

N: Philemon and I have had some business dealings in the past, so he told me about the challenge he was facing after you had run away. You were valuable to his business so he missed you for that and your defection created some grumbling among his other slaves. So, I’ve heard about you and I think it’s good that you are returning to him. I pray that Philemon will come to see that he should give freedom to all of his slaves and your gracious return may help him. But tell me about the letter and how Paul proposes to straighten us out here in the backwoods of Asia Minor.

O: I’m not an educated man, but I understand that Paul is concerned about a system of belief he has heard is making inroads in these churches. It seems that this new system of belief is building on some Jewish traditions and customs but is also trying to synchronize the Christian church with Roman emperor worship. You know that Paul earlier challenged the Jewish Christians who were trying to make all Christians follow Jewish customs. So, naturally Paul is concerned that that idea is making a comeback in the Christian church. He wants you to know that following Jesus is the critical thing for Christians and that the traditional rules of Judaism may get in the way of what is most important. But Paul is even more concerned that Christians might be trying to accommodate their beliefs to the cult of Roman emperor worship. It’s dangerous to talk about that and, since Paul hopes for a sympathetic hearing with Nero when his time comes, he’s careful about how he challenges Roman emperor worship but Paul is convinced that Christians can never declare full allegiance to the Roman empire and participate in emperor worship.

N: I look forward to reading his letter together with the church that gathers in my house. We are struggling with the growing sense that all subjects of the Roman Empire must worship the emperor. There are those among us who are trying to find a way to preserve their success within the system of the Roman empire while saying that they are followers of Jesus Christ. It sounds like this letter will challenge us and we need that. We need to be reminded that, first of all, we must give full allegiance to Jesus. We will be sure to read this letter next Sunday. Now, come have some tea with me and tell me about your work for my old friend, Philemon.

Now that you’ve heard about the situation in which the letter to the Colossians was written, let’s return to the thought that the purpose of the letter is to correct wrong ideas about living as Christians that were present in the churches at Colosse and Laodicea. I suggest that our text this morning, the opening verses of the letter, serves to provide a philosophical foundation for what Paul will say later in the letter about the wrong ideas in Colosse. While we, in 21st century North America, are not thinking exactly the same wrong ideas that the Christians in Colosse were, we may be surprised at some similarities as we continue this study in Colossians. We can also be sure that we need a correct theological foundation as we assess our thinking and that of our society in 21st century North America.

Paul begins laying the foundation for the corrective that is to come by expressing words of gratitude for the Christians in Colosse. He almost always does this in his letters to churches. Interestingly, in this case, he has never even been to Colosse. He expresses his gratitude for the people of that church without having met them. I believe it’s beneficial for us to adopt this attitude of gratitude for other people, even when we’re convinced that they need some correction. Paul moves quickly from his expression of gratitude and affirmation to remembering that he wants the Colossians to be impressed by the good news of Jesus. Here his opening words in the letter. (read vv. 3-6a)

Did you notice how Paul described the good news of Jesus or, in the word he used, the "gospel?" Did you feel challenged in any way by Paul’s description? Likely, most of you didn’t. I’ll tell you what I’m talking about after we read the next sentence as Paul continues to describe the gospel. (read v. 6b) Did you notice how the sentence ended? It spoke of God’s grace in all its truth. Earlier Paul spoke of the gospel as the word of truth. Paul was laying a foundation. For the recipients of the letter who might have been tempted to attempt to fit living as Christians in with worshiping the Roman emperor, he was letting them know that there was one true foundation for life.

I asked you whether you felt challenged by that description of the good news of Jesus because I think that’s a relevant question in our time. Many people in our age would hear those words of Paul and would be jarred by their insistence that there is one knowable true understanding of life. We are told that we live in a post-modern time where many in society no longer believe that we can determine any absolute truths. Science and reason no longer convince people they way they once did. People are much more inclined to dismiss the idea that there is one truth. If they speak of truth, they will speak of what is true for them as separate and distinct from what is true for others. They will say that every human develops his or her own truth and lives by that truth. Then they will say that when people’s individual truths function well for them, that’s good. But truth is only for the one individual. It is his or her own. It cannot be put on another person. People who think in those ways may also well commend the Christian church for developing a community based on an idea that works for them but they will still say that the idea is the church’s own construction of truth and may work well for them but it cannot be put on other people. For people who think like that, the statements that Paul makes about the truth of the gospel are jarring.

We who are Christians may find ourselves in uncomfortable places with those who are not and who think as I’ve outlined. Along with Paul, we believe we can say that there is knowable truth and that it exists in the gospel, the story of God’s reconciliation with humanity through the life and work of Jesus Christ. Others may well find that offensive. Our challenge is to witness to our understanding of the truth with careful and civil discourse. Our challenge is also to resist the impulse to agree that this is only our truth and to begin to doubt whether we can know the truth of the Christian story.

The first part of the foundation for Paul’s corrective, then, is that the gospel is truth. The second part is that the gospel works. Paul began that thought in his words of affirmation for the Colossians. He noted that he had heard of their faith in Jesus and in the love that they demonstrated for other Christians. He was pointing out to them that this gospel they had believed made a difference in their lives. Later, he spoke of how this gospel was bearing fruit all over the world. In other words, people all around the Roman Empire were hearing the story of Jesus and were deciding to follow Jesus in life. People were understanding how God wanted to work with humanity, described by Paul at the end of our text this way, "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." People were understanding that and were responding to this good news. The gospel was working.

There’s an interesting note that I’d like you to understand in its historical context. The emperor cult of the Roman Empire expected the subjects of the empire to worship the emperor as we heard in the drama earlier. The worship of the emperor included the sense that the emperor brought fertility and success to the empire. The Roman symbols included vines and leaves that demonstrated the fertility and success that the empire provided. So, when Paul refers to the gospel as bearing fruit, he may well be intentionally contrasting the gospel of Jesus with the message of the Roman Empire. The Romans said their empire worked. Paul says that it is the gospel of Jesus that works. He may well be planting a subversive seed. God deserves the allegiance of the people and not the Roman Empire. That foundational thought should be held to because the gospel is truth and also because the gospel works.

It seems to me that we can best understand the reason for the prayer that Paul speaks of in verses 9-14 if we think of the prayer that he describes as another reason to hold the gospel as a foundation for life. If I’m right in that, then I would suggest that Paul says that the true gospel should be foundational because it reveals the will of God. We should base our life on the gospel because it shows what God wants. So, what is that? At the end of Paul’s description of his prayer for the Colossians, he says that God qualifies the humans that respond to him for the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. This is what God wants for humans. He wants to rescue them from the darkness of self-directed, sinful lives. He wants to bring them out of that damaging kingdom into the kingdom of Jesus where they will be free to live joyfully in whole relationship with God and others who have responded positively to God. That is the foundation of the will of God.

In addition to that, Paul describes what God wants in this way. Humans should live lives that please God in every way and bear fruit. They should live in ways that demonstrate growth in the knowledge of God. They should demonstrate increasing strength in their understanding of God, enabling them to stand against opposing ideas and powers with endurance and patience. That is what God wants to see happen in the lives of the people who respond to him and who have come from the kingdom of darkness into his kingdom.

Here’s another quick detour from the main point of this sermon. Sometimes we hear Christians speak of God’s will in ways that suggest that God has a specific plan for the lives of his people. That is, God has a plan for people that includes who they should marry, what jobs they should pursue, which specific churches they should attend, and so on. I’m of the opinion that that thinking is not particularly biblically based. It can be demonstrated biblically that God sometimes called people to certain tasks but I find it hard to go from that example to the idea that God has a specific plan for the life of everyone who follows him. I think that generally when the New Testament speaks of the will of God for people, it speaks in language like we just read here. God’s will simply is that people follow Jesus, living lives that are faithful and that show evidence of growth in the ways of God. The story of Jesus reveals God’s will to us; it shows us how to live as God’s people.

Paul, then, sets out three reasons for why the Colossians should carefully adopt the gospel as their foundation for life. The gospel is the truth, it works, and it reveals God’s will for humans. This was important because the Colossians were finding their allegiance to God challenged. The Roman Empire was expecting their allegiance and Christians in the church were looking for ways to be Christians and loyal subjects of the Empire. I believe that we should be able to identify with that statement. The book I read in preparation for this preaching series, Colossians Remixed, suggests that our allegiance is being challenged by the empire as well. In our case, the empire is the myth of technological progress, the myth of the advancement of humanity through globalization, and the myth that Western intervention in the affairs of the world brings improvement to the world. We’ll come back to considering some of those ideas as we continue this series in the next few Sundays. For now, I’ll leave you thinking about ways that the foundation of your life is challenged and whether you can subscribe to the beginnings of Paul’s corrective to the Colossians, the understanding that the gospel of Jesus should be the foundation of our lives because it is the truth, because it works, and because it reveals the will of God.