1I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. 2My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
Dig Deeper
As I write this, I have already had a rather interesting morning. I got my youngest son all ready to go to school. My wife had already left for work, so we went about getting his things together so that I could take him. As we were ready to walk out the door, I went to where I always keep my keys and realized that they were not there. We had a few extra minutes, so I calmly began to look for them. After a few minutes, however, I began to get a little more hurried and intense in my search. I began to look in and under everything for those keys. Then, I had a thought, so I called my wife, who was still driving to her work which is about 70 minutes away. I asked her if she knew where the keys were, she looked in her coat pocket and, to her horror, realized that she had them with her. Knowing that she had the keys, though, I could stop looking. The location of the keys had been revealed so it would not make any sense to continue looking any further.
Nearly all people are on a journey in life. We all seem to have this sense that there is something to life out there greater than ourselves. Most people understand that this "something" is spiritual in nature. So, we set about to find it, some more frantically than others. What Paul wants to make quite clear to his readers is that, In Christ, they have found the thing that all humans are looking for. Paul has given them the map to the treasure and they have now found it. That means that they can stop looking for anything beyond the full gospel message that Paul had already given them. Continuing to look for something beyond Christ would make as much sense as continuing to look for my keys after I discovered that my wife already had them.
Paul continues to describe for them the struggling that he has done on their behalf, for them, those at Laodicea, and even all those who had not personally met him. Paul is not trying to boast about himself to put the Colossians in his debt. His point, among the others he has already stated, is to draw another distinction between himself and the false teachers that he is about to discuss in more depth. False teachers don’t tend to struggle or go through persecutions for what they are teaching. Quite the opposite. Usually false teachers find a way for their message to bring more comfort to themselves. That is not the case with Paul. He has struggled and been persecuted for their sake, something only a worker of the true gospel would normally do.
His purpose in all of that was that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love. Paul wants them to be encouraged by what he has gone through for them rather than feeling ashamed or saddened by his sufferings, nor does he want them to ever have to feel like Paul has somehow unduly benefited from them. Their encouragement should come not only from the fact of his struggles, but also because they are united in love. The NIV leaves the impression that the encouragement and the unity in love are separate outcomes from Paul’s struggles, but the ESV gives a more literal understanding of what Paul wrote: "that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love." Love is the principle that that unites them together as the people of God and encourages them to stand up to the false teachers.
The knitting together in love is how the revelation (mystery) of God in Christ is made known to those who have entered into his life. Many people in our society today have come under the impression that Christianity is primarily an individual spiritual experience and that "going to church" is an important, but ultimately optional aspect of that spirituality. This is completely wrong when measured against the Scriptures though. In John 13:34-35, Jesus promised that the world at-large would know his disciples, not by how spiritual they were or how much they loved God (neither of which can truly be seen or demonstrated to others), but by how they loved one another. There is simply no other plan to be the people of God than to be the people of God.
The Colossians had, apparently, been tempted by false teachings and lured to go beyond the simple message of the gospel and the life of Christ that had been preached to them. That would be not only dangerous but unnecessary. In Christ (Paul means the life of Christ which both refers to Christ himself, but also to the corporate life of Christ) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Paul has already demonstrated in vv. 15-20 of chapter 1 that Christ is the complete revelation of God in human form, so it should be of little surprise that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge of God can be found in the life of Christ. There is no religious system, no community organization, no career, nor circle of friends, no family, no other community that contains the full treasures of God. It can only be found in the life and community of Christ, so why bother looking beyond that. Once you have the real treasure, it would be a worthless waste of time to continue looking.
Paul wants them to understand the fullness of the life they have in the body of Christ because these false teachers, as they usually are, were particularly convincing. They have the ability to deceive (a word that could also mean "seductively charm") and to use persuasive language, translated here as fine-sounding arguments. False teaching is always dangerous because it sounds so reasonable. This is why Paul wanted the Christians in Colosse to be so firmly rooted in their understanding of the true gospel and to know that they already contained the true treasure found in Christ.
Paul is delighted to see that, in fact, they are firm in their faith in Christ. Paul is so firmly connected to them in their common faith and in the Spirit that he can actually speak in terms of being able to see them. When he looks, he sees that there is reason to rejoice because they have not given into the false teaching. His prayers have not been in vain, because they are standing firm in their faith in the life of Christ.
Devotional Thought
Do you view your life in Christ and the body of Christ as the full treasure that God has in store for His people or do you tend to live as though there might be more out there? Have you given yourself fully to God’s people as though this really were the full treasure? How might you behave or think differently if you did?
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