Colossians 1:1

Colossians 1:1  “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother” (NIV).
   How exciting!  My next season of writing will involve a personal commentary on the book of Colossians and entries will be more frequent.
   In following Jesus for 26 years I have never heard even one sermon on a single passage of Colossians.  Why not?  Yet we will carefully exam this inspired letter.  I add that recently I have had a number of people from other countries going into this blog, and I am honored people from all over the world read my writing.  Thank you.
   This epistle, another word for letter, is introduced with Paul being the author along with Timothy.  Paul is bold in stating he is an apostle of Jesus, and the word apostle means someone who is “sent out.”  It was a special leadership position for a small number of believers there in the first generation of the Church.  They were people who had seen Jesus, being 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, yet Paul defends his apostleship in the beginning of I Corinthians 9.  And his writings are affirmed as Scripture by Peter as recorded in 2 Peter 3:15-16.
   Timothy was a disciple of Jesus who did much.  Not only did he stand by Paul in writing this letter, he 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 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 mom was Jewish, a woman who had become a Christian, and his father was Greek.  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.
   I close with three considerations.  First, once I worked at a place in Virginia and had a boss who at the time was a nominal church attendee with little interest in the Bible.  He later had a life crisis, and afterwards we talked in an underground parking lot and he told me he had committed to the Lord.  But once 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 he is 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 people were believing in Jesus, against all odds, in a phenomenal manner.  We have Paul and Timothy to thank still.
   Second, speaking of Timothy, though he is 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, yet their loving work in the will of God is of equal goodness.
   Thirdly, 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.  Throughout the ensuing 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