Day 7 Paul’s Struggle with the Church

Paul’s Struggle with the Church

I want you to know how hard I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. 2 My 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   Colossians 2:1,2

I want you to know how hard I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally’ (2:1). Paul wants the church in Colosse and Laodicea to know how hard he has been working for them, even though they have not yet met him. The word ‘struggling’ continues the athletic metaphor of 1:29 and emphasises that it hasn’t been an easy task. The toil and spiritual conflict on behalf of the Christians embraced not only those Paul had met personally, but those who, like the Colossian Christians, had been converted through the ministry of his colleagues.

This spiritual conflict involved constant prayer that these young Christians might be strengthened in heart and firmly bound together in Christian love. ‘My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding’ (2:2). Grammatically ‘united’ governs not only ‘in love’ but also ‘so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding’ (literally: and unto all the wealth of conviction of understanding). Put another way, while the process of knitting together the church into a united body clearly includes the growth of love, it also includes the growth (on the part of the whole community) of that proper understanding of the gospel which leads to the rich blessings of a settled conviction and assurance. Living in a loving and forgiving community will assist growth in understanding. Equally, as truth is confirmed in practice, that ‘practice’ enables truth to be seen in action and so to be fully grasped (cf. 1:9-11). All of this promotes the encouragement, comfort and strengthening of the heart (which is itself the mainspring of action in anyone).

Over against all those who tried to intellectualise the Christian faith, speaking of knowledge as if it was an end in itself, Paul emphasises that the revelation of God cannot be properly known apart from the cultivation of brotherly love within the community. The Corinthian church, which had special need to learn this lesson, was reminded that ‘knowledge puffs up but love builds up’ (1 Corinthians 8:1). Paul later made clear in Ephesians 3:17,18 that only as Christians are ‘rooted and established in love’ that they can ‘with all the saints … grasp’ the fullness of the divine revelation.

‘In order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ’ (2:2). This revelation is personal. Christ Himself is the mystery of God revealed – Christ with whom they have now become one.

Do you play an active part in a local church? Are you planted there? There is a corporate element to God’s truth. Growth in God is closely linked to growth in love and growth in love is meaningless without the fellowship of other Christians. The coal that falls away from the fire is the first to grow cold.

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