Colossians

Author: Paul
Date of Writing: 62 AD
Type of Book: Prison Epistle
Theme: The preeminence of Christ

Colossians is another of the Prison Epistles, letters that Paul wrote as he was imprisoned in Rome around AD 62. (The other Prison Epistles are Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon).

Collose was a church that was not formally founded by Paul, as he had never personally been there. It was most likely founded by someone who had been converted in Ephesus while Paul was ministering there. Colosse was approximately 100 miles from Ephesus. It was a great city at one time, but was on the decline at the time of Paul's writing and was destroyed shortly thereafter by an earthquake.

The book was closely related to the book of Philemon, and was probably delivered at the same time as Philemon by Onesimus. It was also related to Ephesians, but whereas Ephesians was written to teach about the church, Colossians was written to teach about Jesus. At this time in Colosse there were several heresies sprouting up concerning the nature of Jesus. It would seem that there was a growing Gnosticism, combined with Jewish legalism.

The Gnostics had a mystical understanding of Jesus, believing Him to be less than God. They saw Him as a step in the progression from God to man, denying His deity as well as His humanity. This mystical philosophy was combined with a legalism which held to the teaching that you could somehow earn status with God by keeping the outward rules of the Law. Paul responded to this heresy by presenting Jesus as the Creator God, "By Him all things were created" (Col. 1:16). He declared Him to be completely God and completely man, as he said, "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col 2:9).

Jesus was God in a body. He wasn't a spirit being nor was He any less than completely God. And because He died to fulfill the requirements of the Law, and He is the reality of which the Law was a mere shadow, we should not allow others to judge us according to the outward rituals of the Law (Col. 2:16-17).

The book then goes on to give practical application of the truth of who Jesus is and forms a beautiful outline of the Christian life centered around the person of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.

-from Pastor Chuck Smith from The Word for Today Bible