Colossians 1:1-2<\/p>\n
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.<\/p>\n
In the days when the NT was written, it was customary to begin a letter with the name of the writer.<\/p>\n
Paul introduces himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.<\/p>\n
An apostle was one who had been especially sent forth by the Lord Jesus as a messenger. The work of those with the distinctive gift of apostles and prophets had to do chiefly with the founding of the church.<\/p>\n
Paul traces his apostleship to the will of God. He could never forget his Damascus experience.<\/p>\n
It was not an occupation which he had chosen for himself or for which he had been trained by men. Neither was the office given to him by human ordination. It was not \u201cfrom men\u201d, neither \u201cthrough men.\u201d Rather, his entire ministry was carried out under the solemn realization that God Himself had chosen him to be an apostle.<\/p>\n
With Paul at the time this letter was written was \u201cTimothy our brother.\u201d It is good to notice here a complete lack of the idea of hierarchy in Paul\u2019s attitude toward Timothy. Both were members of a common brotherhood and there was no thought to titles for the sake of implying more importance of one over the other. In the end, they were brothers loved by the same Heavenly Father.<\/p>\n
The letter is addressed \u201cto the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae.\u201d Here are two of the lovely names that are given in the NT to all Christians.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaints\u201d means that they are separated to God from the world and that as a result they should lead holy lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cFaithful brothers\u201d indicates that they are children of a common Father through faith in the Lord Jesus; they are believing brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n
The expression \u201cin Christ\u201d conveys more of intimacy, acceptance, and security than any human mind can understand.<\/p>\n
The geographical location of these believers is indicated by the expression \u201cat Colossae.\u201d<\/p>\n
We are reminded that Paul was all about ministering to local churches. And in this case, had it not been for Epaphras being discipled by Paul, we probably would have never heard of this small little town.<\/p>\n
Paul now greets the saints with the lovely salutation: \u201cGrace to you and peace from God our Father.\u201d No two words could better embrace the blessings of Christianity than \u201cgrace\u201d and \u201cpeace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrace\u201d was a common Greek expression, while \u201cpeace\u201d was the common Jewish greeting; and the words were used at meeting or parting. Paul united them, and elevated their meaning and use.<\/p>\n
Grace pictures God stooping down to sinful, lost humanity in loving and tender compassion.<\/p>\n
Peace summarizes all that results in the life of a person when he accepts God\u2019s grace as a free gift.<\/p>\n
The order of the words is significant: grace first, then peace. If God had not first acted in love and mercy toward us, we would still be in our sins. But because He took the initiative and sent His Son to die for us, we now can have peace with God, peace with man, and the peace of God in our souls. Even having said all this, no words adequately define such tremendous words as these.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colossians 1:1-2 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. In the days when the NT was written, it was customary to begin a letter with the name […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4358"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4360,"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358\/revisions\/4360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}