Colossians 1:1-2

A Greeting
We often downplay, or simply don’t talk about the way most New Testament authors begin their letters. Listen to how Paul pens out his salutation, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” There are several things of note in these first two verses.

(1) Paul Does Not Qualify Himself: Paul says up front that it is not he, by the strength of his own will, that qualifies himself as a minister of the gospel. He makes it clear who has chosen him to be a minister of the gospel to the gentiles. Paul is, by his own admission, one chosen to be an apostle of Christ solely by the will of God. This is important because it establishes Paul as a servant called to a purpose. It means that he is not selling anything for the sake of his own self-gain. Some might say, “What’s the big deal? Many con-artisits claim to be messengers of God all the time!” Therein lies the rub. How do we sort out the liars? It’s usually obvious. Most “false teachers” have messages that serve the purpose of self. Virtually everyone wants to buy into that message. Paul’s message, the gospel which he and others purveyed all throughout the Bible, is as far removed from self-serving as you can get. The gospel lacks the classics marks of a scam. It seeks only to serve the will of God and it serves only the purpose of God. This is why it is important for Paul to establish himself as one chosen solely by the will of God. It was not by any power of will or exertion by Paul that has put him where he is currently serving. All that Paul does and suffers through is done with a servants heart who is in perfect submission to the will of God. It is God, not Paul, whom has qualified Paul in his role of servantship as a minister of the gospel to the gentiles.

(2) Foreign Language: There is language that we see in the Bible that we might never consider using. If you were writing a letter to someone in another church how might you begin your greeting? Would you use words like Paul uses here or would you feel slightly awkward using such language? What if we were writing a letter to our brothers and sisters at the Middleport Church of Christ? Would it be “un-biblical” for us to say, “To the saints and faithful in Christ at the Middleport Church of Christ?” Absolutely not. It might simply feel weird. What about finishing off that salutation with, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” This is foreign language to most Christians but there is nothing silly about it. This language that we see speaks many things. It speaks of a sense of unity. It speaks of a sense of understanding that we are united in the purpose of the gospel. It speaks of the love that we should have for all our brothers and sisters in Christ. Truly, I’m not a fan of “teachers” such as Joel Osteen, but if I were writing to Joel or to his church would I not give him and those at Lakewood a greeting of love, of grace, of unity? I hope that I would. While we are on opposite sides of the fence from a doctrinal perspective, it does not mean that I cannot love and embrace all those at the Lakewood Church as brothers and sisters united in the cause to glorify God and spread the gospel for the sake of His glory. Yes I might have exhortation for those people but it does not mean that I can’t embrace them in grace and love. Paul always has exhortation for the churches that he writes. But he never fails to embrace them in a sense of grace and peace.
Paul’s opening greeting resonates with something deeper than just a kind address. It speaks of the attitude that he seemed to hold for the churches that were growing all over the place. I get the sense, particularly in reading verses 3 through 14, that Paul had the mentality of “we’re in this together”. To this end he encourages, he affirms, he exhorts, he passionately rebukes…in short he does all that God has called him to do for the sake of the glorification of God and for the sake of the spread of the gospel. Churches do in fact matter. They matter in the sense that churches are communities of believers that God has drawn together for the sake of His purpose. Paul, of course, realized this. So what we see in all of Paul’s letters is his obedience to the understanding that God was growing His purpose all over the ever-expanding world. God was, in one way, accomplishing this through churches.

I say all this because I once had a great contempt for the church as an establishment. I knew that many people shared this contempt. Such people often sought out “better churches” than the ones that they’d previously been involved with. They find such a church but continue to harbor contempt for their “old church”. I finally learned that such thinking was simply unbiblical. We musn’t hold contempt for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We musn’t hold contempt towards other churches. We can be discerning about bad teaching in other churches but that doesn’t mean that we have to hold disdain against that church. We can exhort our own church, even other churches, in matters of spiritual growth, maturity and wisdom, without growing a sense of effrontery within ourselves or towards those other churches.

There are probably a little less than a couple hundred churches in Meigs County. There’s a little over 400 square miles in Meigs County. Our rough population is something like 23,000 or more. That’s anywhere between 100 to 200 churches in 400 square miles among 23,000 or so people. Meigs County is but a small sliver of Ohio. It’s not that highly populated. We only average about 53 people in every square mile. With as many churches as we have here in this small and not overly crowded county, you’d think we’d feel the impact of the gospel more than we do. But the truth is that we don’t. Could it be that churches have set themselves apart from their fellow brothers and sisters? Could it be that churches have made themselves largely self-contained entities? Could it be that the “church” as a whole here in Meigs county is not looking to it’s fellow brothers and sisters to help one another in the spread of the gospel? In reading Colossians we get the sense that the church at Colossae and the church at Laodicea had a relationship. How many churches in Meigs county truly have a relationship? Are we aware of any that truly work together for the sake of the gospel? There might be a few but one of the real questions is why are there not more?

We, as churches, should be united in the same purpose. Paul is going to echo that message out loud and strong in the first half of chapter 1. I know there are many logistical issues to consider in churches of today working together but the fact remains that we should regard one another in grace and love. To this end we can accomplish God’s work in even greater ways. It will help us in understanding how we can work together to do God’s will. In verses 3 through 14, which we will study in our next installment, we will look at the language that Paul uses to speak of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that he had never met. We will see the language of love, grace, and exhortation that Paul uses with a church that he had never even been to visit personally. By studying this language I believe it will broaden our ideas about how we communicate with other churches and how we can work together for the sake of God’s glory and renown. We are a community of believers. If Paul could write a letter to all the churches of Meigs County would he possibly say somewhere, “It’s high time that we all started acting like a community of believers!” This is an interesting gut check question for all the churches here in Meigs County.

What do you think?

(1) Should local churches be working together for the sake of the gospel?
(2) What are some of the logistical issues churches might encounter in working together?
(3) What are some ways that churches could work past their differences in the interest of accomplishing God’s will?

Comments

[Josh Lynch]

Good thoughts on this passage, Chad.