Colossians 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother…” (NIV)
How exciting for me to be writing a personal commentary on the book of Colossians! May it be a blessing to you!!
Zero is the number of sermons I have heard on any passage from the book of Colossians in my 26 years of following Jesus. Yet we will carefully exam this inspired letter.
An epistle is a word for a letter written to a group of people, not just a single individual. This epistle is introduced by Paul, who announces authorship, along with Timothy. And Paul is bold in stating he is an apostle of Jesus.
Starting with the issue of Paul’s identification as an apostle, I note the word apostle means “sent out.” It was embraced as the title for a special leadership position for a small number of believers there in the first generation of the Church.
Twelve followers of Jesus were the original apostles. Sometimes they are even identified simply as “the Twelve.” For me it is natural to think of them as the sole apostles. Yet as special as they were, there were a few other folks who were privileged to gain that title in that first generation of Christians. Note they needed to be people who had seen Jesus, in order to testify as eyewitnesses of the risen Christ.
Now Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ was quite unique, and there is no record of Paul having seen Jesus when He was incarnate, in the flesh. Now Paul defends his apostleship in the beginning of I Corinthians 9, yet what is also needed is affirmation from one of “the Twelve.” Sure enough, Peter affirmed the epistles of Paul as Scripture, as recorded in 2 Peter 3:15-16. That supports the apostleship of Paul because all Scripture of the New Testament needed to be written by either an apostle, or a disciple with an apostolic connection. Thus that single statement by Peter is a key affirmation of the authority of Paul. I add that Scripture means sacred writings.
Secondly, Timothy is stated to be a second author of this epistle.
Timothy was a disciple of Jesus who did much. In addition to his contribution to this letter, Timothy assisted in the writing of Philippians, I Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon. And Paul wrote both I Timothy and 2 Timothy to him to encourage Timothy’s fruitful ministry work.
Timothy accompanied Paul on Paul’s second missionary journey, as is shown in Acts 16. We clearly know of Paul’s admiration for Timothy: “For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord…” (I Corinthians 4:17 NIV). Now Timothy was not a physical son of Paul, as we know from Acts 16 where it states Timothy’s father was Greek. (Timothy’s mom was Jewish, a woman who had become a Christian.) Yet Paul cared so much for Timothy he viewed Timothy as a son-in-Christ. Ultimately Timothy was a brother-in-Christ to Paul and all believers.
This letter was written from Rome about 60 A.D. when Paul was imprisoned there.
Having discussed the apostleship of Paul and the co-authorship of Timothy, I now address two questions.
First, some people think Paul went overboard. Was Paul a little crazy?
Many years ago I worked at a place in Virginia. My special boss was a man who, at the time, was a nominal church attendee with little interest in the Bible. He later had a life crisis. Afterwards we talked in an underground parking lot and he told me he had committed to the Lord. Going back to a time before his commitment, in the midst of a workday we were talking about the Bible, and my boss made the statement: “Paul was a nut.” I got riled up about that. The fact is Paul was not a nut, rather Paul was a disciple of Jesus who was willing to preach the Gospel at all cost.
We students of the Bible need to carefully interpret what Paul was saying, yet Paul has been honored by Christians in each century since the birth of Christ for his devotion to Jesus. Paul was willing to get beat up for the sake of the Gospel, and he even died for Christ, being murdered under the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero. Paul was a preacher for Jesus at the beginning era of the New Covenant when many people were putting their faith in Jesus, even though they were totally going against religious and cultural norms. We have Paul and Timothy to thank still for being witnesses during that turning point time in history.
Second, speaking of Timothy, in my past Christian years, Paul had a ton of attention, yet I hardly ever heard anyone talk about Timothy. Did Timothy really accomplishment much at all?
Though a disciple often in the shadow of Paul in our modern churches, may we realize his ministry work had an eternal consequence. Some disciples of Jesus do their work out of the spotlight! Different disciples of Jesus have different personalities and different gifts. Yet their loving work in the will of God is of equal goodness.
Paul and Timothy were loving friends who served Jesus in the historic apostolic age, and they are loving buddies now in heaven. May we be mindful there are only two things believers will carry over from this world into heaven and that is our own soul bonded with Jesus and our loving friends-in-Christ. Since the time when this letter was written, throughout many generations, there have been countless loving brothers and sisters-in-Christ. The true love of God shared by friends is meant to be cherished. Cherish your loving friends.
Hunter Irvine
Scripture Love Blog
