of which I was made a servant according to the stewardship of God which was given me toward you to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations. But now it has been revealed to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; for which I also labor, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily.
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Colossians 1:25-29 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly, of which I was made a servant according to the stewardship of God which was given me toward you to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations. But now it has been revealed to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; for which I also labor, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily.
Parallel Translations
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of which I was made a servant according to the stewardship of God which was given me toward you to fulfill the word of God,
the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations. But now it has been revealed to his saints,
to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus;
for which I also labor, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily.
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wherof I am made a minister acordynge to the ordinaunce of god which ordinaunce was geven me vnto you warde to fulfill the worde of god
that mistery hid sence the worlde beganne and sence the begynnynge of generacions: but now is opened to his saynctes
to whom god wolde make knowen the glorious riches of this mistery amonge the gentyls which riches is Christ in you the hope of glory
whom we preach warnynge all men and teachinge all men in all wisdome to make all men parfect in Christ Iesu.
Wherin I also laboure and stryve even as farforth as hys workynge worketh in me myghtely.
Show all 3 translations
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Whereof I am a minister, according to the dispensation of God, which is giuen mee vnto you ward, to fulfill the word of God,
Which is the mysterie hid since the world began, and from all ages, but nowe is made manifest to his Saintes,
To whome God woulde make knowen what is the riches of his glorious mysterie among the Gentiles, which riches is Christ in you, the hope of glory,
Whome we preache, admonishing euery man, and teaching euery man in all wisdome, that we may present euery man perfect in Christ Iesus,
Whereunto I also labour and striue, according to his working which worketh in me mightily.
Cross-references (131)
- John 14:20 (v27) In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
- Romans 8:10 (v27) If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
- Ephesians 3:16-17 (v27) that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner…
- 1 John 4:4 (v27) You are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
- Galatians 2:20 (v27) I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live…
Show all 100 cross-references
- 1 Corinthians 3:16 (v27) Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
- Revelation 3:20 (v27) Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and…
- John 14:17 (v27) the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive; for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you, and…
- Ephesians 1:17-18 (v27) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him,…
- Ephesians 5:27 (v28) that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and…
- Jeremiah 3:15 (v28) I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
- 2 Corinthians 4:6 (v27) seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory…
- Galatians 4:19 (v27) My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you—
- John 14:23 (v27) Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.
- 1 Timothy 1:1 (v27) Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope;
- Colossians 2:3 (v27) in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
- John 17:26 (v27) I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
- 2 Corinthians 6:16 (v27) What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them and…
- John 15:2-5 (v27) Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are…
- Ephesians 4:11-13 (v28) He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints,…
- Colossians 3:11 (v27) where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, or free person; but Christ is all,…
- John 17:22-23 (v27) The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and you in me, that they may…
- Ephesians 2:22 (v27) in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
- Matthew 5:48 (v28) Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
- 1 Peter 1:3-4 (v27) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy caused us to be born again to a living hope…
- John 6:56 (v27) He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him.
- 1 Corinthians 15:10 (v29) But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but…
- Romans 9:23 (v27) and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,
- Ephesians 1:7 (v27) in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
- Philippians 4:19 (v27) My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
- Psalms 16:9-11 (v27) Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither…
- Romans 5:2 (v27) through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
- Romans 8:18-19 (v27) For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us. For…
- Colossians 3:16 (v28) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,…
- 2 Timothy 2:24-25 (v28) The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be gentle toward all, able to teach, patient, in gentleness correcting those who oppose him:…
- Luke 8:10 (v26) He said, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, but to the rest in parables; that ‘seeing they may not see, and…
- Ephesians 3:2 (v25) if it is so that you have heard of the administration of that grace of God which was given me toward you,
- Colossians 1:5 (v27) because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Good News
- Matthew 13:11 (vv26–27) He answered them, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them.
- Luke 17:21 (v27) neither will they say, ‘Look, here!’ or, ‘Look, there!’ for behold, God’s Kingdom is within you.”
- Romans 16:25-26 (v26)
- 1 Corinthians 2:6 (v28) We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to…
- 2 Corinthians 4:17 (v27) For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,
- Galatians 1:15-16 (v27) But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace to reveal his Son in me,…
- Ephesians 3:8-10 (v27) To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men…
- 2 Corinthians 2:14 (v27) Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place.
- Ephesians 1:19 (v29) and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might
- 1 Corinthians 2:12-14 (v27) But we received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us…
- 1 Corinthians 9:25-27 (v29) Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an…
- Ephesians 3:3-10 (v26) how that by revelation the mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before in few words, by which, when you read, you can perceive my…
- Colossians 1:22 (v28) yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without defect and blameless before him,
- Psalms 25:14 (v26) The friendship of Yahweh is with those who fear him. He will show them his covenant.
- Mark 4:11 (v26) He said to them, “To you is given the mystery of God’s Kingdom, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables,
- Acts 20:31 (v28) Therefore watch, remembering that for a period of three years I didn’t cease to admonish everyone night and day with tears.
- 1 Corinthians 2:7 (v26) But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory,
- 2 Corinthians 11:2 (v28) For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
- Ephesians 3:7 (v29) of which I was made a servant according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power.
- 2 Timothy 1:10 (v26) but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light…
- Acts 8:35 (v28) Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture, preached to him about Jesus.
- Romans 11:33 (v27) Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
- 2 Corinthians 4:5 (v28) For we don’t preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake,
- Philippians 2:13 (v29) For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.
- Colossians 1:23 (v25) if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard,…
- Hebrews 13:21 (vv28–29) make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom…
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (v29) He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in…
- Galatians 2:7-8 (v25) but to the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for the uncircumcised, even as Peter with the Good News for…
- Colossians 2:1 (v29) For I desire to have you know how greatly I struggle for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the…
- Luke 21:15 (v28) for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.
- Romans 15:20 (v29) yes, making it my aim to preach the Good News, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another’s foundation.
- 1 Corinthians 12:8 (v28) For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit;
- 1 Corinthians 12:11 (v29) But the one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing to each one separately as he desires.
- Ephesians 3:8 (v28) To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
- Philippians 2:16 (v29) holding up the word of life, that I may have something to boast in the day of Christ, that I didn’t run in vain nor labor in vain.
- Colossians 2:10 (v28) and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power.
- Colossians 4:12 (v29) Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, salutes you, always striving for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and…
- 1 Thessalonians 2:9 (v29) For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the…
- 1 Thessalonians 5:12-14 (v28) But we beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to respect and honor them…
- 2 Thessalonians 3:8 (v29) neither did we eat bread from anyone’s hand without paying for it, but in labor and travail worked night and day, that we might not burden…
- 1 Timothy 3:2 (v28) The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching;
- 2 Timothy 4:2-5 (v25) preach the word; be urgent in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all patience and teaching. For the time will come…
- Hebrews 10:14 (v28) For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
- Proverbs 8:5 (v28) You simple, understand prudence! You fools, be of an understanding heart!
- Matthew 28:20 (v28) teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
- Mark 6:34 (v28) Jesus came out, saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to…
- Acts 5:42 (v28) Every day, in the temple and at home, they never stopped teaching and preaching Jesus, the Christ.
- Acts 8:5 (v28) Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ.
- Acts 9:20 (v28) Immediately in the synagogues he proclaimed the Christ, that he is the Son of God.
- Acts 13:38 (v28) Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins,
- Romans 15:30 (v29) Now I beg you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God…
- 1 Corinthians 1:23 (v28) but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks,
- 1 Corinthians 1:30 (v28) Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
- 1 Corinthians 12:6 (v29) There are various kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.
- 1 Corinthians 15:12 (v28) Now if Christ is preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
- 2 Corinthians 5:9 (v29) Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.
- 2 Corinthians 6:5 (v29) in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;
- 2 Corinthians 10:14 (v28) For we don’t stretch ourselves too much, as though we didn’t reach to you. For we came even as far as to you with the Good News of Christ,
- 2 Corinthians 11:23 (v29) Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in…
- 2 Corinthians 13:3 (v29) seeing that you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me; who toward you is not weak, but is powerful in you.
- Ephesians 3:20 (v29) Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
- Philippians 1:15-18 (v28) Some indeed preach Christ even out of envy and strife, and some also out of good will. The former insincerely preach Christ from selfish…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (131 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (24 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv25–29 25. Of which I am made a minister. Mark…
25. Of which I am made a minister. Mark under what character he suffers for the Church — as being a minister, not to give the price of redemption, (as Augustine dexterously and piously expresses himself,) but to proclaim it. He calls himself, however, in this instance, a minister of the Church on a different ground from that on which he called himself elsewhere, (1 Corinthians 4:1,) a minister of God, and a little ago, (Colossians 1:23,) a minister of the gospel. For the Apostles serve God and Christ for the advancement of the glory of both: they serve the Church, and administer the gospel itself, with a view to promote salvation. There is, therefore, a different reason for the ministry in these expressions, but the one cannot subsist without the other. He says, however, towards you, that they may know that his office has a connection also with them.
To fulfill the word. He states the end of his ministry — that the word of God may be effectual, as it is, when it is obediently received. For this is the excellence of the gospel, that it is the
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power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. (Romans 1:16.)
God, therefore, gives efficacy and influence to his word through means of the Apostles. For although preaching itself, whatever may be its issue, is the fulfilling of the word, yet it is the fruit that shews at length that the seed has not been sown in vain.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv25–28 He bringeth another proof of his Apostleship, to wit,…
He bringeth another proof of his Apostleship, to wit, that God is the author of it, by whom also he was appointed peculiarly Apostle of the Gentiles, to the end that by this means, that same might be fulfilled by him, which the Prophets foretold of the calling of the Gentiles.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv25–29 25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to…
25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
Ver. 25. According to the dispensation] What a horrid blasphemy therefore is that of the Jesuits, who stick not to tell the people in their pulpits that St Paul was not secure in his preaching, but by conference with St Peter, nor that he dared publish his Epistles till St Peter had allowed them! (Spec. Europ.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv25–29 Whereof I am made a minister; see under what…
Whereof I am made a minister; see under what title he suffers for the church, because a minister, ( in the more general acceptation of the word), as Col 1:23, not (as one of the ancients saith) to give the price of redemption, but to preach. He looked not on his apostleship as a domination, but ministration, 2Co 5:18; and though in regard of his call he was an extraordinary apostle, yet he, (remembering his Master’s injunction, Mat 20:26), no more than Peter did affect dominion or a lordship over Christ’s heritage 2Co 1:24; 1Pe 5:1-3, according to his singular and eminent call to be a minister and a witness, Act 26:16. As he doth elsewhere make mention of the minister of God, 2Co 6:4; 1Th 3:2; of the New Testament, gospel, word, reconciliation, Act 6:4; 2Co 3:6; 5:18,19; Eph 3:7; of Jesus Christ and of the Lord, Rom 15:8; 1Co 4:1; Eph 6:20; 1Ti 4:6; so he doth here, by reason of the union between the Head and the body, own himself to be constituted a minister of the church, which some, of a lower rank, like not now to be called.
According to the dispensation of God; and that by Divine vouchsafement and commandment, being called from persecution of the church to this ministry, Act 9:15,16; 1Co 4:1; 2Co 5:19; Eph 1:1. Yea, and also for them at Colosse, who, being of the Gentiles, were in his commission, according to the gift of the grace of God given to him, Eph 3:7.
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Which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; fully to preach the word of God amongst them, as well as to the Romans and others, Rom 15:19, and so to fulfil the prophecy, Zec 2:11, for the calling of the Gentiles by the promulgation of the gospel amongst them, Act 22:21; Rom 1:5; 11:13; 1Ti 2:7; and so fulfilling God’s word, by fully expounding the whole doctrine of salvation amongst them, and promoting of it to the end of his life.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv25, 28 Our apostle in these words, seems to assign a…
Our apostle in these words, seems to assign a reason why he underwent the sufferings mentioned in the former verse so cheerfully, as even to rejoice in them; namely, because he was a minister of the church, by the special dispensation of God, to preach the mysteries of the gospel to the Gentile world.
Learn hence, That such as are eminent in the church, and, as ministers of the gospel, do lay out themselves more abundantly in the church’s service, they must expect to meet with a measure, and a full measure of sufferings beyond others. There are no such enemies to the devil’s kingdom, as the zealous and faithful ministers of Jesus Christ; therefore he will be sure to revenge the ruins of his own kingdom.
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Observe farther, What it was that St. Paul was appointed by God to preach to the Gentiles, namely, that great mystery of their vocation and calling; this he calls here a mystery, a rich mystery, a glorious mystery, a mystery bid from ages but now made manifest.
Learn hence, That the doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ, as a Redeemer, was long hid from the knowledge of the Gentiles; and that at last they were brought to the knowledge of Christ, and the participation of gospel privileges was a great mystery awfully to be admired, and a glorious mercy with all thankfulness to be acknowledged, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles-which is Christ, in you, the hope of glory, which gospel, preached amongst you, and received and entertained by you, is an earnest and ground of your hope of glory.
Note here, 1. That Christ is in, and among believers; he is among them by the preaching of the gospel, he is in them by the inhabitation of his holy Spirit.
Note, 2. That all true believers, whilst here on earth, have an hope of glory.
Note, 3. That Christ’s indwelling presence in the souls of believers by his holy Spirit, is an earnest of that glory, and an evident demonstration of their hope of it: Believers have in them a glorious hope, they have before them a glory hoped for; Christ is the ground of both, by him we obtain the end of our hope, even the salvation of our souls.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv25–29 Whereof I am made a minister,.... Not of Christ,…
Whereof I am made a minister,.... Not of Christ, or of the Gospel as before, though both were true; but of the churches for whose sake he endured afflictions; and which carries in it a reason of his suffering for them: he was not a saviour of the body, nor a redeemer of the church, nor Lord of it; but a minister, a servant of it, that ministered to it in holy things, in the word and ordinances; not a deacon, as the word, sometimes signifies, nor an ordinary minister, or a pastor of a particular church; but a minister of the church in general, being an apostle sent to preach the Gospel everywhere: he was made a minister of it, not by men, or anything he received from men; nor by himself, not by usurpation, he did not thrust himself into this office, or take it upon him of himself; but was put into it by Christ, who counted him faithful, he appeared to him, and made him a minister, qualified him for this office, called him to it, and sent him to perform it: and which he executed
according to the dispensation of God: or divine economy, which denotes such an authority and administration as is used in a family. The church is God's family, it is called the house and household of God, and the household of faith, part of which is in heaven and part on earth; God is the householder or master of the family; Christ is the Son over his own house; ministers are stewards in it, and their work is to give to everyone their portion of meat in due season; their authority from God to do so, and the exercise of it, are the economy or dispensation of the Gospel committed to them: this is of God and not man, for none but God can give them a power to dispense it, and which is purely of his grace, called therefore the dispensation of the grace of God, Eph 3:2; and here said to be given,
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which is given to me for you; not according to any merits of his, who was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an injurious person to Christ and his Gospel; but according to the pure grace of God, and that not for himself, but for the good of others, for the Gentiles especially, and so for the Colossians:
to fulfil the word of God; either the promises and prophecies contained in the word of God, respecting the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, and their conversion by it; which had in a great measure their accomplishment through the ministry of the apostle: or to fill all places with the word of God and Gospel of Christ, as the apostle did from Jerusalem, and round about to Illyricum, diffusing the savour of the knowledge of Christ in every place; and sinners being converted, churches were planted and daily filled with such as should be saved; or to preach fully and faithfully the Gospel, keeping back nothing that was profitable, but declaring the whole counsel of God, continuing faithful to it to the end, as he did: to fill up or fulfil words is an Hebraism, and signifies to confirm them, or act according to them; see Kg1 1:14 and the Septuagint there.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv25–28 According to the dispensation of God which is given…
According to the dispensation of God which is given me - Or, the stewardship with which I am intrusted.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv25, 26, 27, 29 Verse 25. Whereof I am made a minister] Having…
Verse 25. Whereof I am made a minister] Having received especial commission from God to preach salvation to the Gentiles.
According to the dispensation] κατα την οικονομιαν. According to the Gospel economy or institution; the scheme or plan of salvation by Christ crucified.
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To fulfil the word of God] The Greek πληρωσαι τον λογον του Θεου may be translated, fully to preach the doctrine of God. See Ro 15:19, and the note there. Were we to take the word in its common meaning, it might signify to accomplish the purpose of God, as predicted by the prophets.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv25–29 According to the dispensation of God - The arrangement…
According to the dispensation of God - The arrangement which God has made. That is, he designed that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles, and, in accordance with that arrangement, he has called me to be a minister. Notes, Eph 3:2.
To fulfil the word of God - Margin, “fully to preach.” The Greek is, “to fill up the word of God;” the meaning is, “fully to teach and promulgate the gospel;” compare the notes at Rom 15:19.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv25–26 According to the dispensation of God; i.e. to the…
According to the dispensation of God; i.e. to the appointment of his divine providence. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv25–29 am--Greek, "I was made a minister": resuming Col 1:23,…
am--Greek, "I was made a minister": resuming Col 1:23, "whereof I Paul was made a minister."
dispensation--the stewardship committed to me to dispense in the house of God, the Church, to the whole family of believers, the goods of my Master (Luk 12:42; Co1 4:1-2; Co1 9:17; Eph 3:2).
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which is given--Greek, "which was given."
for you--with a view to you, Gentiles (Col 1:27; Rom 15:16).
to fulfil--to bring it fully to all: the end of his stewardship: "fully preached" (Rom 15:19). "The fulness of Christ (Col 1:19), and of the times (Eph 1:10) required him so to do" [BENGEL].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv25–29 25. Minister—Servant, of the gospel, in Col_1:23, here of…
25. Minister—Servant, of the gospel, in Col_1:23, here of the Church.
Dispensation—Stewardship, the office of a servant, for the work of preaching; not a priesthood to offer sacrifice or to administer sacraments. His sphere of labour was, by the terms of his commission, among the Gentiles, and his work was to preach to them the unsearchable riches of Christ. Eph_3:5.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv25–29 25. whereof] That is, of the Church; on behalf…
25. whereof] That is, of the Church; on behalf of it, serving its holy interests.
according to] His “ministry” was conditioned and guided by the terms of “the dispensation” just about to be mentioned.
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the dispensation] Better, the stewardship. So Eph_3:2, a close parallel. For the figure see 1Co_4:1-2; 1Co_9:17; 1Pe_4:10. And cp. Mat_13:52.—On Eph_1:10, where the word occurs in a somewhat different phase of meaning, see note in this Series.
It is almost needless to say that the N.T. use of the figure of stewardship has regard to the minister’s duty to provide the household of God with the food of truth, and not to any supposed right or duty to reserve that food.
fulfil the word of God] I.e. in the light of the context, not to “accomplish His promise,” but to “develope, unfold, His message to the full.” Cp. Rom_15:19; “I have fully preached (lit., fulfilled) the Gospel of Christ.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv25–29 (25) Whereof I am made (or, became) a minister.—Above…
(25) Whereof I am made (or, became) a minister.—Above (in Col_1:23) St. Paul describes himself as a “minister of the gospel,” here as a “minister (or, servant) of the Church.” Elsewhere he is always the “minister of God” and “of Christ”; here of the Church, as the Body of Christ, and so indissolubly united with Christ.
The dispensation of God.—See Eph_3:2-9, and Notes there. The reference is to his peculiar “Apostleship of the Gentiles.”
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To fulfil.—The marginal reading and reference to Rom_15:19 give the explanation of the word, “fully to preach the Word of God”—to be a messenger of the perfect revelation, which had now unfolded what was previously a hidden “mystery.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv25–29 Of which I became a minister (2Co_4:5 2Co_6:3-10 2Co_11:28,…
Of which I became a minister (2Co_4:5 2Co_6:3-10 2Co_11:28, 2Co_11:29; 1Th_2:1-12; Act_20:28; 1Pe_5:1-4) His sufferings are, therefore, matter of duty, as well as of joy. As the Church"s minister, he is bound to toil and to suffer in whatever way her welfare requires. Elsewhere he styles himself "minister of the gospel", (Eph_3:7) "of God," "of Christ," "of a new covenant". (2Co_3:6) (On "minister," see note, ver. 7. According to the stewardship of God, that was given me to you-ward (Eph_3:1-13; 1Co_4:1-4 1Co_9:17; 1Ti_1:4, R.V; 3:15; Luk_12:42 Luk_16:2-4; Heb_3:2-6; 1Pe_4:10) Oijkonomia ("economy") is first "house-management," then "administration" generally the oijkonomov ("house-steward") was a confidential upper servant, frequently a slave, who controlled the general arrangements of a large establishment, and was responsible immediately to the master. Such an office the apostle holds, along with others, (1Co_4:1) in the Church, "the house of God". (Eph_2:19; 1Ti_3:15; 2Ti_2:20: this conception, like that of "the body of Christ comp. note on ver. 18 is fully developed only in the later Epistles) In this office he "administers the gospel", (1Co_9:17, 1Co_9:18) "the grace of God" (Eph_3:2; 1Pe_4:10) and here more especially "the mystery" of vers. 26, 27. (comp. Eph_3:9, R.V) In Eph_1:10 and 3:2, the oijkonomia is referred to God himself, the supreme Dispenser in his own house. This office "was given" him, and specifically as "toward the Gentiles" (for "you" points to the Colossians as Gentiles, vers. 24, 27, notes; (Rom_11:13) when he first became a servant of Christ (Act_9:15 Act_22:21 Act_26:16-18; Gal_1:15, Gal_1:16; 1Ti_1:11-15; Rom_15:15, Rom_15:16) Some interpreters connect "to you-ward" with the word "fulfil," but less suitably. (comp. Eph_3:2; (Rom_15:16) To fulfil the word of God. (Rom_15:16-19 Rom_16:25, Rom_16:26) "To fulfil" (see vers. 9, 24, and "fulness," ver. 19; also (Col_2:9, 10 4:12) is either "to complete," to give full development and extension to the gospel message; (vers. 5, 6 2Th_3:1; 2Co_2:14-17; Rom_15:19; Act_20:20, Act_20:21, Act_20:27) or "to accomplish" the prophetic word (Rom_9:24-26 Rom_15:8-12; Act_15:15-17) as inw, (Act_13:27, and frequently in the Gospels. This verb plhro) however, is not used by St. Paul elsewhere in the latter sense, and the former precisely suits the context (compare parallels from Romans). Other interpretations preach abundantly," "to continue Christ"s preaching" (Eph_2:17; Heb_2:3) "to execute the Divine commission miss the sense of the verb. The word which it is the object of the apostle"s ministry to fulfil, and in regard to which he had a special stewardship, is none other than
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv25–29 Whereof I am made a minister.
Col_1:25-27
Whereof I am made a minister.
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The pre-eminent honour and sublime theme of the Christian ministry
I. The Christian ministry is a Divine institution.
1. The Christian minister is divinely commissioned. Dispensation involves the idea of stewardship.
2. The true minister is charged with the most complete proclamation of the Divine Word.
II. The Christian ministry deals with a theme of profound significance and ineffable worth.
1. It is designated a mystery. The gospel is still a mystery to the unconverted.
2. It is a mystery unveiled to those who are morally fitted to understand it. To His saints. God chose His own time for making it known. Like all the Divine procedures, the development was gradual, increasing in clearness and completeness as the fulness of time approached. It is an axiom in optics that the eye only sees what it brings with it the power to see: and in spiritual things the soul comprehends the revelation of God only as it is fitted by she Spirit.
3. The revelation of the mystery was an act of the Divine will. To whom God would make known. There was nothing impelling Him to unfold it but His own good pleasure.
4. The revelation of the mystery endowed humanity with a vast inheritance of moral wealth. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery.
(1) This inheritance enriched the most needy. It was exhibited among the Gentiles.
(2) This inheritance includes the hope inspired by the indwelling Christ. Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Lessons--
1. The Christian ministry involves solemn responsibilities.
2. The transcendent theme of the Christian ministry is divinely revealed.
3. Personal experience of the grace of God endows man with the clearest insight into its mystery and the most satisfying possession of its spiritual riches. (G. Barlow.)
Divine ordination to the ministry
If they say, You have gifts for preaching, and you might have been a tolerable preacher if you had been properly ordained, I reply that I was properly ordained. My father ordained me. Ah! I was better ordained than that: my greater Father ordained me. He ordained me twice: first, when He put his hand on my head before I was born, and said, Be a head; and then, after I had carried it round a few years, when He stretched out His hand and touched my heart rather than my head, and said, Be ordained again. First, He makes the head-piece to think; and then He touches the heart, and says, Go preach My gospel. When a man has had that done to him, he is ordained. A pope could not make him any better; a bishop could not make him any better; a whole presbytery could not make him any better. (H. W. Beecher.)
St. Paul a proof of his gospel
This is not merely an appeal to their affection for him, though that is perfectly legitimate. Holy words may be holier because dear lips have taught them to us, and even the truth of God may allowably have a firmer hold upon our hearts because of our love for some who have ministered it to us. It is a poor commentary on a preachers work if, after long service to a congregation, his words do not come with power given to them by old affection and confidence. The humblest teacher who has done his masters errand will have some to whom he can appeal, as Paul did, and urge them to keep hold of the message he has preached. But there is more than that in the apostles mind. He was accustomed to quote the fact that he, the persecutor, had been made the messenger of Christ, as a living proof of the infinite mercy and power of that ascended Lord, whom His eyes saw on the road to Damascus. So here he puts stress on the fact that he became a minister as being an evidence of Christianity. The history of his conversion is one of the strongest proofs of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. You know, he seems to say, what turned me from being a persecutor into an apostle. It was because I saw the living Christ, and heard the words of His mouth, and, I beseech you, listen to no words which make His dominion less sovereign, and His sole and sufficient work on the Cross less mighty. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v28 Chapter 1 Part 9
Chapter 1 Part 9
THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN ITS THEME, METHODS, AND AIM
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Col_1:28-29 (R.V.)
THE false teachers at Colossae had a great deal to say about a higher wisdom reserved for the initiated. They apparently treated the Apostolic teaching as trivial rudiments, which might be good for the vulgar crowd, but were known by the possessors of this higher truth to be only a veil for it. They had their initiated class, to whom their mysteries were entrusted in whispers. Such absurdities excited Pauls special abhorrence. His whole soul rejoiced in a gospel for all men. He had broken with Judaism on the very ground that it sought to enforce a ceremonial exclusiveness, and demanded circumcision and ritual observances along with faith. That was, in Pauls estimate, to destroy the gospel. These Eastern dreamers at Colossae were trying to enforce an intellectual exclusiveness quite as much opposed to the gospel. Paul fights with all his might against that error. Its presence in the Church colours this context, where he uses the very phrases of the false teachers in order to assert the great principles which he opposes to their teaching. "Mystery," "perfect" or initiated, "wisdom,"-these are the keywords of the system which he is combating; and here he presses them into the service of the principle that the gospel is for all men, and the most recondite secrets of its deepest truth the property of every single soul that wills to receive them. Yes, he says in effect, we have mysteries. We have our initiated. We have wisdom. But we have no whispered teachings, confined to a little coterie; we have no inner chamber closed to the many. We are not muttering hierophants, cautiously revealing a little to a few, and fooling the rest with ceremonies and words. Our whole business is to tell out as fully and loudly as we can what we know of Christ, to tell to every man all the wisdom that we have learned. We fling open the inmost sanctuary, and invite all the crowd to enter.
This is the general scope of the words before us which state the object and methods of the Apostles work; partly in order to point the contrast with those other teachers, and partly in order to prepare the way, by this personal reference, for his subsequent exhortations.
I. We have here the Apostles own statement of what he conceived his life work to be.
"Whom we proclaim." All three words are emphatic. "Whom," not what-a person, not a system; we "proclaim," not we argue or dissertate about. "We" preach-the Apostle associates himself with all his brethren, puts himself in line with them, points to the unanimity of their testimony -"whether it were they or I, so we preach." We have all one message, a common type of doctrine.
So then the Christian teachers theme is not to be a theory or a system, but a living Person. One peculiarity of Christianity is that you cannot take its message, and put aside Christ, the speaker of the message, as you may do with all mens teachings. Some people say: "We take the great moral and religious truths which Jesus declared. They are the all-important parts of His work. We can disentangle them from any further connection with Him. It matters comparatively little who first spoke them." But that will not do. His person is inextricably intertwined with His teaching, for a very large part of His teaching is exclusively concerned with, and all of it centres in, Himself. He is not only true, but He is the truth. His message is, not only what He said with His lips about God and man, but also what He said about Himself, and what He did in His life, death, and resurrection. You may take Buddhas sayings, if you can make sure that they are his, and find much that is beautiful and true in them, whatever you may think of him; you may appreciate the teaching of Confucius, though you know nothing about him but that he said so and so; but you cannot do thus with Jesus. Our Christianity takes its whole colour from what we think of Him. If we think of Him as less than this chapter has been setting Him forth as being, we shall scarcely feel that He should be the preachers theme; but if He is to us what He was to this Apostle, the sole Revealer of God, the Centre and Lord of creation, the Fountain of life to all which lives, the Reconciler of men with God by the blood of His cross, then the one message which a man may be thankful to spend his life in proclaiming will be, Behold the Lamb! Let who will preach abstractions, the true Christian minister has to preach the person and the office-Jesus the Christ. To preach Christ is to set forth the person, the facts of His life and death, and to accompany these with that explanation which turns them from being merely a biography into a gospel. So much of "theory" must go with the "facts," or they will be no more a gospel than the story of another life would be. The Apostles own statement of "the gospel which he preached" distinctly lays down what is needed-"how that Jesus Christ died." That is biography, and to say that and stop there is not to preach Christ; but add, "For our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was raised again the third day,"-preach that, the fact and its. meaning and power, and you will preach Christ.
Of course there is a narrower and a wider sense of this expression. There is the initial teaching, which brings to a soul, which has never seen it before, the knowledge of a Saviour, whose Cross is the propitiation for sin; and there is the fuller teaching, which opens out the manifold bearings of that message in every region of moral and religious thought. I do not plead for any narrow construction of the words. They have been sorely abused, by being made the battle cry for bitter bigotry and a hard system of abstract theology, as unlike what Paul means by "Christ" as any cobwebs of Gnostic heresy could be. Legitimate out, growths of the Christian ministry have been checked in their name. They have been used as a cramping iron, as a shibboleth, as a stone to fling at honest and especially at young preachers. They have been made a pillow for laziness. So that the very sound of the words suggests to some ears, because of their use in some mouths, ignorant narrowness.
But for all that, they are a standard of duty for all workers for God, which it is not difficult to apply, if the will to do so be present, and they are a touchstone to try the spirits, whether they be of God. A ministry of which the Christ who lived and died for us is manifestly the centre to which all converges and from which all is viewed, may sweep a wide circumference, and include many themes. The requirement bars out no province of thought or experience, nor does it condemn the preacher to a parrot-like repetition of elementary truths, or a narrow round of commonplace. It does demand that all themes shall lead up to Christ, and all teaching point to Him; that He shall be ever present in all the preachers words, a diffused even when not a directly perceptible presence; and that His name, like some deep tone on an organ, shall be heard sounding on through all the ripple and change of the higher notes. Preaching Christ does not exclude any theme, but prescribes the bearing and purpose of all; and the widest compass and richest variety are not only possible, but obligatory for him who would in any worthy sense take this for the motto of his ministry, "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
But these words give us not only the theme, but something of the manner of the Apostles activity. "We proclaim." The word is emphatic in its form, meaning "to tell out," and representing the proclamation as full, clear, earnest. "We are no muttering mystery mongers. From full lungs and in a voice to make people hear, we shout aloud our message. We do not take a man into a corner, and whisper secrets into his ear; we cry in the streets, and our message is for every man." And the word not only implies the plain, loud earnestness of the speaker, but also that what he speaks is a message, that he is not a speaker of his own words or thoughts, but of what has been told him to tell. His gospel is a good message, and a messengers virtue is to say exactly what he has been told, and to say it in such a way that the people to whom he has to carry it cannot but hear and understand it.
This connection of the Christian ministers office contrasts on the one hand with the priestly theory. Paul had known in Judaism a religion of which the altar was the centre, and the official function of the "minister" was to sacrifice. But now he has come to see that "the one sacrifice for sins forever" leaves no room for a sacrificing priest in that Church of which the centre is the Cross. We sorely need that lesson to be drilled into the minds of men today, when such a strange resurrection of priestism has taken place, and good, earnest men, whose devotion cannot be questioned, are looking on preaching as a very subordinate part of their work. For three centuries there has not been so much need as now to fight against the notion of a priesthood in the Church, and to urge this as the true definition of the ministers office: "we preach," not "we sacrifice," not "we do" anything; "we preach," not "we work miracles at any altar, or impart grace by any rites," but by manifestation of the truth discharge our office and spread the blessings of Christ.
This conception contrasts on the other hand with the false teachers style of speech, which finds its parallel in much modern talk. Their business was to argue and refine and speculate, to spin inferences and cobwebby conclusions. They sat in a lecturers chair; we stand in a preachers pulpit. The Christian minister has not to deal in such wares; he has a message to proclaim, and if he allows the "philosopher" in him to overpower the "herald," and substitutes his thoughts about the message, or his arguments in favour of the message, for the message itself, he abdicates his highest office and neglects his most important function.
We hear many demands today for a "higher type of preaching," which I would heartily echo, if only it be preaching; that is, the proclamation in loud and plain utterance of the great facts of Christs work. But many who ask for this really want, not preaching, but something quite different; and many, as I think, mistaken Christian teachers are trying to play up to the requirements of the age by turning their sermons into dissertations, philosophical or moral or aesthetic. We need to fall back on this "we preach," and to urge that the Christian minister is neither priest nor lecturer, but a herald, whose business is to tell out his message, and to take good care that he tells it faithfully. If, instead of blowing his trumpet and calling aloud his commission, he were to deliver a discourse on acoustios and the laws of the vibration of sonorous metal, or to prove that he has a message, and to dilate on its evident truth or on the beauty of its phrases, he would scarcely be doing his work. No more is the Christian minister, unless he keeps clear before himself as the guiding star of his work this conception of his theme and his task- Whom we preach-and opposes that to the demands of an age, one half of which "require a sign," and would again degrade him into a priest, and the other calls for "wisdom," and would turn him into a professor.
II. We have here the varying methods by which this one great end is pursued.
"Admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom."
There are then two main methods-"admonishing" and "teaching." The former means "admonishing with blame," and points, as many commentators remark, to that side of the Christian ministry which corresponds to repentance, while the latter points to that side which corresponds to faith. In other words, the former rebukes and warns, has to do with conduct and the moral side of Christian truth; the latter has chiefly to do with doctrine, and the intellectual side. In the one Christ is proclaimed as the pattern of conduct, the "new commandment"; in the other, as the creed of creeds, the new and perfect knowledge.
The preaching of Christ then is to be unfolded into all "warning," or admonishing. The teaching of morality and the admonishing of the evil and the end of sin are essential parts of preaching Christ. We claim for the pulpit the right and the duty of applying the principles and pattern of Christs life to all human conduct. It is difficult to do, and is made more so by some of the necessary conditions of our modern ministry, for the pulpit is not the place for details; and yet moral teaching which is confined to general principles is woefully like repeating platitudes and firing blank cartridges. Everybody admits the general principles, and thinks they do not apply to his specific wrong action; and if the preacher goes beyond these toothless generalities, he is met with the cry of "personalities." If a man preaches a sermon in which he speaks plainly about tricks of trade or follies of fashion, somebody is sure to say, going down the chapel steps, "Oh, ministers know nothing of business!" and somebody else to add, "It is a pity he was so personal," and the chorus is completed by many other voices, "He should preach Christ, and leave secular things alone."
Well! whether a sermon of that sort be preaching Christ or not depends on the way in which it is done. But sure I am that there is no "preaching Christ" completely, which does not include plain speaking about plain duties. Everything that a man can either do rightly or wrongly belongs to the sphere of morals, and everything within the sphere of morals belongs to Christianity and to "preaching Christ."
Nor is such preaching complete without plain warning of the end of sin, as death here and hereafter. This is difficult, for many people like to have the smooth side of truth always put uppermost. But the gospel has a rough side, and is by no means a "soothing syrup" merely. There are no rougher words about what wrongdoers come to than some of Christs words; and he has only given half his Masters message who hides or softens down the grim saying, "The wages of sin is death."
But all this moral teaching must be closely connected with and built upon Christ. Christian morality has Jesus for its perfect exemplar, His love for its motive, and His grace for its power. Nothing is more impotent than mere moral teaching. What is the use of perpetually saying to people, Be good, be good? You may keep on at that forever, and not a soul will listen, any more than the crowds on our streets are drawn to church by the bells monotonous call. But if, instead of a cold ideal of duty, as beautiful and as dead as a marble statue, we preach the Son of man, whose life is our law incarnate; and instead of urging to purity by motives which our own evil makes feeble, we reecho His heart-touching appeal, "If ye love Me, keep My commandments"; and if, instead of mocking lame men with exhortations to walk, we point those who despairingly cry, "Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?" to Him who breathes His living spirit into us to set us free from sin and death, then our preaching of morality will be "preaching the gospel" and be "preaching Christ."
This gospel is also to be unfolded into "teaching." In the facts of Christs life and death, as we ponder them and grow up to understand them, we get to see more and more the key to all things. For thought, as for life, He is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending. All that we can or need know about God or man, about present duty or future destiny, about life, death, and the beyond, -all is in Jesus Christ, and to be drawn from Him by patient thought and by abiding in Him. The Christian ministers business is to be ever learning and ever teaching more and more of the "manifold wisdom" of God. He has to draw for himself from the deep, inexhaustible fountains; he has to bear the water, which must be fresh drawn to be pleasant or refreshing, to thirsty lips. He must seek to present all sides of the truth, teaching all wisdom, and so escaping from his own limited mannerisms. How many ministers Bibles are all dog-eared and thumbed at certain texts, at which they almost open of themselves, and are as clean in most of their pages as on the day when they were bought!
The Christian ministry, then, in the Apostles view, is distinctly educational in its design. Preachers and hearers equally need to be reminded of this. We preachers are poor scholars ourselves, and in our work are tempted, like other people, to do most frequently what we can do with least trouble. Besides which, we many of us know, and all suspect, that our congregations prefer to hear what they have heard often before, and what gives them the least trouble. We often hear the cry for "simple preaching," by which one school intends "simple instruction in plain, practical matters, avoiding mere dogma," and another intends "the simple gospel," by which is meant the repetition over and over again of the great truth, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." God forbid that I should say a word which might even seem to underestimate the need for that proclamation being made in its simple form, as the staple of the Christian ministry, to all who have not welcomed it into their hearts, or to forget that, however dimly understood, it will bring light and hope and new loves and strengths into a soul! But the New Testament draws a distinction between evangelists and teachers, and common sense insists that Christian people need more than the reiteration of that message from him whom. they call their "teacher." If he is a teacher, he should teach; and he cannot do that, if the people who listen to him suspect everything that they do not know already, and are impatient of anything that gives them the trouble of attending and thinking in order to learn. I fear there is much unreality in the name, and that nothing would be more distasteful to many of our congregations than the preachers attempt to make it truly descriptive of his work. Sermons should not be "quiet resting places." Nor is it quite the ideal of Christian teaching that busy men should come to church or chapel on a Sunday, and not be fatigued by being made to think, but perhaps should be able to sleep for a minute or two and pick up the thread when they wake, quite sure that they have missed nothing of any consequence. We are meant to be teachers, as well as evangelists, though we fulfil the function so poorly; but our hearers often make that task more difficult by illconcealed impatience with sermons which try to discharge it.
Observe too the emphatic repetition of "every man" both in these two clauses and in the following. It is Pauls protest against the exclusiveness of the heretics, who shut out the. mob from their mysteries. An intellectual aristocracy is the proudest and most exclusive of all. A Church built upon intellectual qualifications would be as hard and cruel a coterie as could be imagined. So there is almost vehemence and scorn in the persistent repetition in each clause of the obnoxious word, as if he would thrust down his antagonists throats the truth that his gospel has nothing to do with cliques and sections, but belongs to the world. To it philosopher and fool are equally welcome. Its message is to all. Brushing aside surface diversities, it goes straight to deep-lying wants, which are the same in all men. Below kings robe and professors gown, and workmans jacket and prodigals rags, beats the same heart with the same wants, wild longings, and weariness. Christianity knows no hopeless classes. But its highest wisdom can be spoken to the little child and the barbarian, and it is ready to deal with the most forlorn and foolish, knowing its own power to "warn every man and to teach every man in all wisdom."
III. We have here the ultimate aim of these diverse methods.
"That we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus."
We found this same word "present" in Col_1:22. The remarks made there will apply here. There the Divine purpose of Christs great work, and here Pauls purpose in his, are expressed alike. Gods aim is Pauls aim too. The Apostles thoughts travel on to the great coming day, when we shall all be manifested at the judgment seat of Christ, and preacher and hearer, Apostle and convert, shall be gathered there. That solemn period will test the teachers work, and should ever be in his view as he works. There is a real and indissoluble connection between the teacher and his hearers, so that in some sense he is to blame if they do not stand perfect then, and he in some sense has to present them as in his work-the gold, silver, and precious stones which he has built on the foundation. So each preacher should work with that end clear in view, as Paul did. He is always toiling in the light of that great vision. One sees him, in all his letters, looking away yonder to the horizon, where he expects the breaking of its morning low down in the eastern sky. Ah! how many a formal pulpit and how many a languid pew would be galvanised into intense action if only their occupants once saw burning in on them, in their decorous deadness, the light of that great white throne! How differently we should preach if we always felt "the terror of the Lord," and under its solemn influence sought to "persuade men"! How differently we should hear if we felt we must appear before the Judge, and give account to Him of our profitings by His word!
And the purpose which the true minister of Christ has in view is to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." "Perfect" may be used here with the technical signification of "initiated," but it means absolute moral completeness. Negatively, it implies the entire removal of all defects; positively, the complete possession of all that belongs to human nature as God meant it to be. The Christian aim, for which the preaching of Christ supplies ample power, is to make the whole race possess, in fullest development, the whole circle of possible human excellences. There is to be no one-sided growth, but men are to grow like a tree in the open, which has no barrier to hinder its symmetry, but rises and spreads equally on all sides, with no branch broken or twisted, no leaf worm eaten or wind torn, no fruit blighted or fallen, no gap in the clouds of foliage, no bend in the straight stem, -a green and growing completeness. This absolute completeness is attainable "in Christ," by union with Him of that vital sort brought about by faith, which will pour His Spirit into our spirits. The preaching of Christ is therefore plainly the direct way to bring about this perfecting. That is the Christian theory of the way to make perfect men.
And this absolute perfection of character is, in Pauls belief, possible for every man, no matter what his training or natural disposition may have been. The gospel is confident that it can change the Ethiopians skin, because it can change his heart, and the leopards spots will be altered when it "eats straw like the ox." There are no hopeless classes in the glad, confident view of the man who has learned Christs power.
What a vision of the future to animate work! What an aim! What dignity, what consecration, what enthusiasm, it would give, making the trivial great and the monotonous interesting, stirring up those who share it to intense effort, overcoming low temptations, and giving precision to the selection of means and use of instruments! The pressure of a great, steady purpose consolidates and strengthens powers, which, without it, become flaccid and feeble. We can make a piece of calico as stiff as a board by putting it under a hydraulic press. Men with a fixed purpose are terrible men. They crash through conventionalities like a cannon ball. They, and they only, can persuade and arouse and impress their own enthusiasm on the inert mass. "Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" No Christian minister will work up to the limits of his power, nor do much for Christ or man, unless his whole soul is mastered by this high conception of the possibilities of his office, and unless he is possessed width the ambition to present every man "perfect in Christ Jesus."
IV. Note the struggle and the strength with which the Apostle reaches toward this aim.
"Whereunto I labour also, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily." As to the object, theme, and method of the Christian ministry, Paul can speak, as he does in the previous verses, in the name of all his fellow workers: "We preach, admonishing and teaching, that we may present." There was substantial unity among them. But he adds a sentence about his own toil and conflict in doing his work. He will only speak for himself now. The others may say what their experience has been. He has found that he cannot do his work easily. Some people may be able to get through it with little toil of body or agony of mind, but for himself it has been laborious work. He has not learned to "take it easy." That great purpose has been ever before him, and made a slave of him. "I labour also"; I do not only preach, but I toil-as the word literally implies-like a man tugging at an oar, and putting all his weight into each stroke. No great work for God will be done without physical and mental strain and effort. Perhaps there were people in Colossae who thought that a man who had nothing to do but to preach had a very easy life, and so the Apostle had to insist that most exhausting work is brain work and heart work. Perhaps there were preachers and teachers there who worked in a leisurely, dignified fashion, and took great care always to stop a long way on the safe side of weariness; and so he had to insist that Gods work cannot be done at all in that fashion, but has to be done "with both hands, earnestly." The "immortal garland" is to be run for, "not without dust and heat." The racer who takes care to slack his speed whenever he is in danger of breaking into a perspiration will not win the prize. The Christian minister who is afraid of putting all his strength into his work, up to the point of weariness, will never do much good.
There must be not only toil, but conflict. He labours, "striving"-that is to say, contending-with hindrances, both without and within, which sought to mar his work. There is the struggle with oneself, with the temptations to do high work from low motives, or to neglect it, and to substitute routine for inspiration and mechanism for fervour. Ones own evil, ones weaknesses and fears and falsities, and laziness and torpor and faithlessness, have all to be fought, besides the difficulties and enemies without. In short, all good work is a battle.
The hard strain and stress of this life of effort and conflict made this man "Paul the aged" while he was not old in years. Such souls agony and travail are indispensable for all high service of Christ. How can any true, noble Christian life be lived without continuous effort and continual strife? Up to the last particle of our power, it is our duty to work. As for the sleepy, languid, selfindulgent service of modern Christians, who seem to be chiefly anxious not to overstrain themselves, and to manage to win the race set before them without turning a hair, I am afraid that a large deduction will have to be made from it in the day that shall "try every mans work, of what sort it is."
So much for the struggle; now for the strength. The toil and the conflict are to be carried on "according to His working, which worketh in me mightily." The measure of our power then is Christs power in us. He whose presence makes the struggle necessary, by His presence strengthens us for it. He will dwell in us and work in us, and even our weakness will be lifted into joyful strength by Him. We shall be mighty because that mighty Worker is in our spirits. We have not only His presence beside us as an ally, but His grace within us. We may not only have the vision of our Captain standing at our side as we front the foe-an unseen presence to them, but inspiration and victory to us-but we may have the consciousness of His power welling up in our spirits and flowing, as immortal strength, into our arms. It is much to know that Christ fights for us; it is more to know that He fights in us.
Let us take courage then for all work and conflict; and remember that if we have not "striven according to the power"-that is, if we have not utilised all our Christ-given strength in His service-we have not striven enough. There may be a double defect in us. We may not have taken all the power that he Has given, and we may not have used all the power that we have taken. Alas, for us! we have to confess both faults. How weak we have been when Omnipotence waited to give Itself to us! How little we have made our own of the grace that flows so abundantly past us, catching such a small part of the broad river in our hands, and spilling so much even of that before it reached our lips! And how little of the power given, whether natural or spiritual, we have used for our Lord! How many weapons have hung rusty and unused in the fight! He has sowed much in our hearts, and reaped little. Like some unkindly soils, we have "drunk in the rain which cometh oft upon it," and have "not brought forth herbs fit for Him by whom it is dressed." Talents hid, the Masters goods squandered, power allowed to run to waste, languid service and half-hearted conflict, we have all to acknowledge. Let us go to Him and confess that, "we have most unthankful been," and are/,x zEfitable servants indeed, coming far short of duty. Let us yield our spirits to His influence, that He may work in us that which is pleasing in His sight, and may encircle us with ever-growing completeness of beauty and strength, until He "present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv25–29 25. According to the dispensation. God made him a…
25. According to the dispensation. God made him a minister of the church. That ministry was a “stewardship” (dispensation) committed to him. He refers to the great responsibility of the apostolic office. He as a “steward of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2). To fulfil the word of God. Not only to do what the word required, but to preach the word everywhere.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv25, 28 Col_1:25-27. See notes on Eph_3:7 ff.
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Col_1:25-27. See notes on Eph_3:7 ff.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Col_1:25-27
The Pre-eminent Honour and Sublime Theme of the Christian Ministry.
The highest dignity and most solemn responsibility are conferred on man when he is entrusted with the ministration of God’s word. It is the infinite condescension of God that we have this treasure in earthen vessels. He who, in the exercise of His unchallengeable wisdom, calls man to this work, can alone inspire and endow him with the necessary intellectual and moral fitness for the awful charge. In these verses we learn that the apostle was appointed a minister of the Church—a steward in God’s household—charged to preach without reserve the whole gospel of God, to dispense to the Gentiles the stores which His bountiful grace provided. Note:—
I. The Christian ministry is a divine institution.—
1. The true minister is divinely commissioned. “Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you” (Col_1:25). The word “dispensation” involves the idea of stewardship. God governs His Church, not as a tyrant, who rules what is not his own, not as a monarch, who knows not a thousandth part of his subjects; but as a father, who knows, loves, and provides for his own children. The apostle was entrusted with a stewardship in God’s household; he was “a steward of the mysteries of God.” He received the office from God. This invested it with the highest dignity; yet he was the minister of the Church, and it was his joy to serve it, whatever might be the labour, sacrifice, or suffering entailed. The Christian ministry is not a lordship, but a stewardship; the minister is solemnly commissioned of God to maintain, defend, and dispense the truth that saves and edifies. There are moments when the minister can derive stimulus and courage for his work only by falling back upon the irrefutable fact of his divine call.
2. The true minister is charged with the most complete proclamation of the divine word.—“To fulfil the word of God” (Col_1:25)—to preach fully, to give its most complete development to. The apostle had declared the gospel in all its depth and breadth of meaning, its wealth of blessing, and amplitude of revelation. He had proclaimed it in every direction, in harmony with his insight into its universal fitness and sufficiency. Fulfil implies the figure of a measure to be filled. The true minister is empowered to preach the word of God in all the fulness of its internal import, and in accord with the universality of its outward purpose. Whether palatable or unpalatable, he must not shun to declare everywhere the whole counsel of God. The fulness there is in Christ and the urgent needs of humanity alike demand this.
II. The Christian ministry deals with a theme of profound significance and ineffable worth.—
1. It is designated a mystery. “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations” (Col_1:26). Mystery in the Scripture sense does not mean something actually incomprehensible, but something concealed or unknown until it please God to reveal it; something beyond the human mind to discover for itself, and which can only be attained by divine aid. The mystery comprehended two leading features—the divine purpose in saving man through a suffering and crucified Saviour, and the free admission of the Gentiles on equal terms with the Jews to the privileges of the covenant. Unlike the heathen mysteries, which were confined to a narrow circle, the Christian mystery is freely communicated to all. The mystery was concealed from the ages, which may be referred to the angels; and from the generations, which may be referred to men. Though faintly shadowed in types and figures, the truth would never have been discovered by man. In the revelation of the mystery the apostle applauded the lavish wealth of the divine goodness. The gospel is still a mystery to the unconverted.
2. It is a mystery unveiled to those who are morally fitted to understand it.—“But now is made manifest to His saints” (Col_1:26). God chose His own time for making known the mystery of the gospel. Like all the divine procedures, the development was gradual, increasing in clearness and completeness as the fulness of time approached; that time embraced the advent of the incarnate Son of God, His ascension and enthronement in heaven, and the descent of the revealing Spirit. It is an axiom in optics that the eye only sees what it brings with it the power to see; and it is equally true in spiritual things that the soul comprehends the revelation of God only as it is prepared and fitted by the good Spirit. The holier the organ of divine revelation, the clearer the vision. It was not to the dignitaries of imperial Rome or the ruling powers of Judea, but to humble shepherds that the tidings of the Saviour’s advent were first announced; not to the aristocracy of Pharisaic or Sadducean intellect, but to the plain, unlettered, believing fishermen of Galilee that the full glory of salvation by Christ was disclosed. Augustine has said, “Illiterate men rise and seize heaven, while we, with all our learning, are rolling in the filth of sin.”
3. The revelation of the mystery was an act of the divine will.—“To whom God would make known” (Col_1:27). There was nothing impelling Him to unfold this mystery but His own good pleasure. It was His sovereign will to disclose to the humble and devout, rather than to the proud and self-sufficient, the wondrous grace and glory of the gospel. The most sincere seeker after holiness could not of himself discover the mystery. But though made known in its richer spiritual developments only to the good, the good pleasure of God has put the knowledge of it within the reach of all.
4. The revelation of the mystery endowed humanity with a vast inheritance of moral wealth.—“What is the riches of the glory of this mystery” (Col_1:27). The terms employed seem inadequate to convey the meaning intended. It is impossible fully to explain or illustrate the sublime truths they indicate. The gospel is a mystery full of glory—a glory unique, resplendent, unsurpassable; and this glory is dowered with riches, abundant, inexhaustible, and divine. The riches of the glory appear in the manifestation of the nature and attributes of God which the mystery supplies, and also in the moral wealth that has descended upon man. Here is the most lavish provision for the salvation of sinful and perishing humanity—an inheritance of imperishable bliss.
(1) This inheritance enriched the most needy. It was exhibited “among the Gentiles” (Col_1:27). The Jews were the children of promise and possessed every religious privilege; the Gentiles were the children of mercy, and had never dared to dream of enjoying the blessings of the gospel. In the revelation of the mystery to them, the dispensation of grace achieved its greatest triumphs and displayed its transcendent glory. Here, too, was its wealth, for it overflowed all barriers of caste or race. Judaism was “beggarly” in comparison, since its treasures sufficed only for a few. The glory of the gospel was never so brilliant as in the moral transformations it effected among the degraded Gentiles.
(2) This inheritance includes the hope inspired by the indwelling Christ. “Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col_1:27). The mystery of the gospel begins and ends in Christ, and Christ is in every believer the hope of glory. Only in Christ can we hope for the highest glory, and in Him we infallibly find all the blessedness we can enjoy in this world or expect in the future. In Him we have here as seed what we shall have in Him there as harvest. “Even now we sit there in Him, and shall sit with Him in the end.”
Lessons.—
1. The Christian ministry involves solemn responsibilities.
2. The transcendent theme of the Christian ministry is divinely revealed.
3. Personal experience of the grace of God endows man with the clearest insight into its mystery, and the most satisfying possession of its spiritual riches.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Col_1:25-27. The Glory of the Gospel—
I. A mystery once hidden, but now revealed (Col_1:26-27).
II. Enriches all nations with moral blessings.
III. Is entrusted to divinely authorised messengers to make known (Col_1:25; Col_1:27).
Col_1:27. Christ in you the Hope of Glory.
I. What it implies of present experience.—
1. Generally—Christ among you.
2. Personally—Christ in you.
II. What it presages.—“The hope of glory.”
1. Personal glory—in the perfection of being where the servant is like his Lord.
2. Relative glory—sharing the throne with Jesus, and sharing in His triumph and glory.—Preacher’s Magazine.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v28 28. “Whom we preach admonishing every man and teaching…
ARGUMENT 8
PERFECTION THE ULTIMATUM OF THE PAULINE MINISTRY
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28. “Whom we preach admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ.
29. “For which indeed I labor, agonizing according to his energy, which worketh in me with dynamite.” How an immortal man destined quickly to leave his pulpit and stand before the judgment-bar, there to give an account of his ministry, can open his Bible and read these flaming declarations of inspired Paul, and then not only fail to preach Christian perfection, but have the effrontery to antagonize it, is a mystery to me indissoluble. I preached fifteen years before I received the experience of perfection, but I always preached it in the honesty of my heart, and the candor of my convictions, though like a blind dog in a meathouse, smelling the meat and jumping after it, but as apt to jump the wrong way as the right. We live amid the awful fulfillments of the latter-day prophecies, when “men will not endure sound doctrine.” John Wesley advised his people, when a preacher spoke against perfection, quietly to get up and leave. Now, sad to say, his so-called gospel sons speak against it with impunity. Wesley said, that any man who could take the vows of a Methodist preacher, and go back on Christian perfection, was fit for any other place than the pulpit.
No honest person can read the two verses at the head of this argument, and not see beyond the possibility of cavil that Paul and his comrades made Christian perfection the constant burden of their preaching and pastoral labor, doing everything in their power by faithful warning against everything out of harmony with perfection and importunately and indefatigably laboring night and day, teaching the people the Word of the Lord and the way of salvation, thus leading every person into the experience and doing their utmost not only to bring all into the experience, but to establish them there, sedulously fortifying them against apostasy. Hear him certify, “for which (perfection) indeed I labor agonizing.” Do you not know that agonize is the strongest word in the English language?
It is of Greek origin, and means the awful fight of the gladiators in the Coliseum; where they met and fought for life, the contest ending only in the death of one or both of the gladiators. So Paul certifies that he is striving for the perfection of every person, just like the gladiator struggled with all the power of every nerve and muscle, fists and feet, teeth and toenails, for dear life. Paul says he was thus agonizing, “according to His energy, which worketh in me with dynamite.” Not only did Paul use all of his own power, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, but he lays under contribution all the Divine energy imparted to him by the Holy Ghost, “working in him with dynamite.” When men of science discovered the wonderful mechanical power called dynamite a few years ago, they found no word in the English vocabulary competent to describe this greatest of all mechanical powers; consequently they went to the old Greek, and took the very word used so frequently by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament to reveal the power that defeats the devil, and explodes sin out of the human heart. Paul declares that the Divine energy wrought in him with dynamite, thus qualifying him for the climactic work of his ministry; i.e., leading “every person” into perfection. Woe unto the man who dares to intrude into the sacred desk, and not only prove delinquent in preaching perfection, but even have the diabolical audacity to oppose it! Infinitely better for that man that he had never been born. The preacher’s hell is, of all, the most terrible. I have been preaching forty-four years in my humble way; if, in the end, hell should be my doom, I would gladly exchange places with the gambler or the saloonist; but, glory to God! I am a long way from hell, and running heavenward at racehorse speed. Yet I am on probation, liable to fall and make my bed in hell. God, help me to be true the little remnant of my pilgrimage!
The controversy on perfection in the modern pulpit is a confirmation of the awful infidelity which has flooded our Churches like avalanches from the bottomless pit. Perfection is the battle-cry of the apostolic ministry, the great salient fact culminating in every epistle, standing out so boldly as to sweep all candid controversy forever from the field. It is like the atonement of Christ, so patent that “he who runs may read.” Good Lord, have mercy on the preacher so blind as not to read Christian perfection from the Alpha to Omega of the New Testament, and pity the man so fraught with demoniacal delusion and Satanic effrontery as to try to explain it away!
1. It had not been the privilege of the beloved apostle in person to meet the saints of Colosse and Laodicea, his ministerial comrades having enjoyed that honor.
2. “In order that their hearts may be comforted, being cemented together in Divine love and in all the riches of the full assurance of understanding.” The Oriental cement is wonderful, utterly obliterating all seams and consolidating all the fragmentary rocks into a vast monolith. When I ascended to the roof of Simon the tanner in Joppa, that I might kneel on the roof where Peter was praying when the messengers of Cornelius arrived, I observed that the whole house was a solid limestone from the foundation to the roof, including the stone stairway on the outside, the cementation so perfect that I could not recognize a seam anywhere, impressing me as if the whole house had dropped solid from the hand of the Creator. Such is the mystical union of all the members constituting the bride of Christ, “cemented in Divine love.” This is all descriptive of the sanctified experience for which the “full assurance” is but another name. “In the perfect knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ.” The Greek word here, “knowledge,” E.V., is epignosin, from gnosis, knowledge, and epi, perfect. Hence, it means perfect knowledge of the mystery. We receive a knowledge of this wonderful mystery of salvation in regeneration; but it is not free from the liability of interruption ever and anon by the clouds of doubt and fear, prone to rise out of the old bogs of inbred sin still surviving in the deep interior of the spiritual realm. Entire sanctification must come to our relief, expurgating all inbred corruption. Then we will walk in cloudless day, delighted in the victories of experimental certainty.
3. “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” While knowledge is the wonderful insight into Divine truth, imparted by the infallible Revelator, wisdom is that blessed enduement of heavenly gumption which we constantly need to qualify us to make a correct application of this wonderful supernatural knowledge revealed in God’s Word, Spirit, and providence.
4. “I say this, that no one may deceive you in a persuasive discourse.” This is a solemn warning against Satan’s preachers, whose strong forte is soft palaver, winning words, and genial manners, pandering to the prejudices of all and antagonizing none, so soft and polite that butter will hardly melt in their mouths. An old bishop in his cabinet, surrounded by the elders, receives a petition from a metropolitan Church, “Please send us a round man, who will please all the people.” Pausing a moment, he observes, “There is but one round figure, and that is Zero; the other nine all having sharp points and corners. So I hope I have no such a man in this Conference as this petition calls for; i.e., naught. Tell them I can not supply them, but they can pick such a one almost anywhere.”
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v29
Colossians
CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR
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Col 1:29.
I have chosen this text principally because it brings together the two subjects which are naturally before us to-day. All ‘Western Christendom,’ as it is called, is to-day commemorating the Pentecostal gift. My text speaks about that power that ‘worketh in us mightily.’ True, the Apostle is speaking in reference to the fiery energy and persistent toil which characterised him in proclaiming Christ, that he might present men perfect before Him. But the same energy which he expended on his apostolic office he expended on his individual personality. And he would not have discharged the one unless he had first laboured on the other. And although in a letter contemporary with this one from which my text is taken he speaks of himself as no longer young, but ‘such an one as Paul the aged, and likewise, also a prisoner of Jesus Christ,’ the young spirit was in him, and the continual pressing forward to unattained heights. And that is the spirit, not only of a section of the Church divided from the rest by youth and by special effort, but of the whole Church if it is worth calling a Church, and unless it is thus instinct, it is a mere dead organisation.
So I hope that what few things I have to say may apply to, and be felt to be suitable by all of us, whether we are nominally Christian Endeavourers or not. If we are Christian people, we are such. If we are not endeavouring, shall I venture to say we are not Christians? At any rate, we are very poor ones.
Now here, then, are two plain things, a great universal Christian duty and a sufficient universal Christian endowment. ‘I work striving’; that is the description of every true Christian. ‘I work striving, according to His working, who worketh in me mightily’: there is the great gift which makes the work and the striving possible. Let me briefly deal, then, with these two.
I. The solemn universal Christian obligation.
Now the two words which the Apostle employs here are both of them very emphatic. ‘His words were half battles,’ was said about Luther. It may be as truly said about Paul. And that word ‘work’ which he employs, means, not work with one hand, or with a delicate forefinger, but it means toil up to the verge of weariness. The notion of fatigue is almost, I might say, uppermost in the word as it is used in the New Testament. Some people like to ‘labour’ so as never to turn a hair, or bring a sweat-drop on to their foreheads. That is not Christian Endeavour. Work that does not ‘take it out of you’ is not worth doing. The other word ‘striving’ brings up the picture of the arena with the combatants’ strain of muscle, their set teeth, their quick, short breathing, their deadly struggle. That is Paul’s notion of Endeavour. Now ‘Endeavour,’ like a great many other words, has a baser and a nobler side to it. Some people, when they say, ‘I will endeavour,’ mean that they are going to try in a half-hearted way, with no prospect of succeeding. That is not Christian Endeavour. The meaning of the word--for the expression in my text might just as well be rendered ‘endeavouring’ as ‘striving’--is that of a buoyant confident effort of all the concentrated powers, with the certainty of success. That is the endeavour that we have to cultivate as Christian men. And there is only one field of human effort in which that absolute confidence that it shall not be in vain is anything but presumptuous arrogance; namely, in the effort after making ourselves what God means us to be, what Jesus Christ longs for us to be, what the Spirit of God is given to us in order that we should be. ‘We shall not fail,’ ought to be the word of every man and woman when they set themselves to the great task of working out, in their own characters and personalities, the Divine intention which is made a Divine possibility by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Divine Spirit.
So then what we come to is just this, dear brethren, if we are Christians at all, we have to make a business of our religion; to go about it as if we meant work. Ah! what a contrast there is between the languid way in which Christian men pursue what the Bible designates their ‘calling’ and that in which men with far paltrier aims pursue theirs! And what a still sadder contrast there is between the way in which we Christians go about our daily business, and the way in which we go about our Christian life! Why, a man will take more pains to learn some ornamental art, or some game, than he will ever take to make himself a better Christian. The one is work. What is the other? To a very large extent dawdling and make-believe.
You remember the old story,--it may raise a smile, but there should be a deep thought below the smile,--of the little child that said as to his father that ‘he was a Christian, but he had not been working much at it lately.’ Do not laugh. It is a great deal too true of--I will not venture to say what percentage of--the professing Christians of this day. Work at your religion. That is the great lesson of my text. Endeavour with confidence of success. The Book of Proverbs says: ‘He that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster,’ and that is true. A man that does ‘the work of the Lord negligently’ is scarcely to be credited with doing it at all. Dear friends, young or old, if you name the name of Christ, be in earnest, and make earnest work of your Christian character.
And now may I venture two or three very plain exhortations? First, I would say--if you mean to make your Christian life a piece of genuine work and striving, the first thing that you have to do is to endeavour in the direction of keeping its aim very clear before you. There are many ways in which we may state the goal of the Christian life, but let us put it now into the all-comprehensive form of likeness to Jesus Christ, by entire conformity to His Example and full interpretation of His life. I do not say ‘Heaven’; I say ‘Christ.’
That is our aim, the loftiest idea of development that any human spirit can grasp, and rising high above a great many others which are noble but incomplete. The Christian ideal is the greatest in the universe. There is no other system of thought that paints man as he is, so darkly; there is none that paints man as he is meant to be, in such radiant colours. The blacks upon the palette of Christianity are blacker, and the whites are whiter, and the golden is more radiant, than any other painter has ever mixed. And so just because the aim which lies before the least and lowest of us, possessing the most imperfect and rudimentary Christianity, is so transcendent and lofty, it is hard to keep it clear before our eyes, especially when all the shabby little necessities of daily life come in to clutter up the foreground, and hide the great distance. Men may live up at Darjeeling there on the heights for weeks, and never see the Himalayas towering opposite. The lower hills are clear; the peaks are wreathed in cloud. So the little aims, the nearer purposes, stand out distinct and obtrusive, and force themselves, as it were, upon our eyeballs, and the solemn white Throne of the Eternal away across the marshy levels, is often hid, and it needs an effort for us to keep it clear before us. One of the main reasons for much that is unsatisfactory in the spiritual condition of the average Christian of this day is precisely that he has not burning ever before him there, the great aim to which he ought to be tending. So he gets loose and diffused, and vague and uncertain. That is what Paul tells you when he proposes himself as an example: ‘So run I, not as uncertainly,’ The man who knows where he is running makes a bee-line for the goal. If he is not sure of his destination, of course he zigzags. ‘So fight I, not as one that beateth the air’--if I see my antagonist I can hit him. If I do not see him clearly I strike like a swordsman in the dark, at random, and my sword comes back unstained. If you want to make the harbour, keep the harbour lights always clear before you, or you will go yawing about, and washing here and there, in the trough of the wave, and the tempest will be your master. If you do not know where you are going you will have to say, like the men in the old story in the Old Book, ‘Thy servant went no whither.’ If you are going to endeavour, endeavour first to keep the goal clear before you.
And endeavour next to keep up communion with Jesus Christ, which is the secret of all peaceful and of all noble living. And endeavour next after concentration. And what does that mean? It means that you have to detach yourself from hindrances. It means that you have to prosecute the Christian aim all through the common things of Christian life. If it were not possible to be pursuing the great aim of likeness to Jesus Christ, in the veriest secularities of the most insignificant and trivial occupations, then it would be no use talking about that being our aim. If we are not making ourselves more like Jesus Christ by the way in which we handle our books, or our pen, or our loom, or our scalpel, or our kitchen utensils, then there is little chance of our ever making ourselves like Jesus Christ. For it is these trifles that make life, and to concentrate ourselves on the pursuit of the Christian aim is, in other words, to carry that Christian aim into every triviality of our daily lives.
There are three Scripture passages which set forth various aspects of the aim that we have before us, and from each of these aspects deduce the one same lesson. The Apostle says ‘giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue,’ etc., ‘for if ye do these things ye shall never fail.’ He also exhorts: ‘Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.’ And finally he says: ‘Be diligent, that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, blameless.’ There are three aspects of the Christian course, and the Christian aim, the addition to our faith of all the clustering graces and virtues and powers that can be hung upon it, like jewels on the neck of a queen; the making our calling and election sure, and the being found at last tranquil, spotless, stainless, and being found so by Him. These great aims are incumbent on all Christians, they require diligence, and ennoble the diligence which they require.
So, brethren, we have all to be Endeavourers if we are Christians, and that to the very end of our lives. For our path is the only path on which men tread that has for its goal an object so far off that it never can be attained, so near that it can ever be approached. This infinite goal of the Christian Endeavour means inspiration for youth, and freshness for old age, and that man is happy who can say: ‘Not as though I had already attained’ at the end of a long life, and can say it, not because he has failed, but because in a measure he has succeeded. Other courses of life are like the voyages of the old mariners which were confined within the narrow limits of the Mediterranean, and steered from headland to headland. But the Christian passes through the jaws of the straits, and comes out on a boundless sunlit ocean where, though he sees no land ahead, he knows there is a peaceful shore, beyond the western waves. ‘I work striving.’
Now one word as to the other thought that is here, and that is
II. The all-sufficient Christian gift.
‘According to His working, which worketh in me mightily.’ I need not discuss whether ‘His’ in my text refers to God or to Christ. The thing meant is the operation upon the Christian spirit, of that Divine Spirit whose descent the Church to-day commemorates. At this stage of my sermon I can only remind you in a word, first of all, that the Apostle here is arrogating to himself no special or peculiar gift, is not egotistically setting forth something which he possessed and other Christian people did not--that power which, ‘working in him mightily,’ worked in all his brethren as well. It was his conviction and his teaching--would that it were more operatively and vitally the conviction of all professing Christians to-day, and would that it were more conspicuously, and in due proportion to the rest of Christian truth, the teaching of all Christian teachers to-day!--that that Divine power is in the very act of faith received and implanted in every believing soul. ‘Know ye not,’ the Apostle could say to his hearers, ‘that ye have the Spirit of God, except ye be reprobates.’ I doubt whether the affirmative response would spring to the lips of all professing or real Christians to-day as swiftly as it would have done then. And I cannot help feeling, and feeling with increasing gravity of pressure as the days go on, that the thing that our churches, and we as individuals, perhaps need most to-day, is the replacing of that great truth--I do not call it a ‘doctrine,’ that is cold, it is experience--in its proper place. They who believe on Him do receive a new life, a supernatural communication of the new Spirit, to be the very power that rules in their lives.
It is an inward gift. It is not like the help that men can render us, given from without and apprehended and incorporated with ourselves through the medium of the understanding or of the heart. There is an old story in the history of Israel about a young king that was bid by the prophet to bend his bow against the enemies of Israel, as a symbol; and the old prophet put his withered, skinny brown hand on the young man’s fleshy one, and then said to him, ‘Shoot.’ But this Divine Spirit comes to strengthen us in a more intimate and blessed fashion than that, for it glides into our hearts and dwells in our spirits, and our work, as my text says, is His working. This ‘working within’ is stated in the original of my text most emphatically, for it is literally ‘the inworking which inworketh in me mightily.’
So, dear brethren, the first direct aim of all our endeavour ought to be to receive and to keep and to increase our gift of that Divine Spirit. The work and the striving of which my text speaks would be sheer slavery unless we had that help. It would be impossible of accomplishment unless we had it.
‘If any power we have, it is to ill, And all the power is Thine, to do and eke to will.’
Let us, then, begin our endeavour, not by working, but by receiving. Is not that the very meaning of the doctrine that we are always talking about, that men are saved, not by works but by faith? Does not that mean that the first step is reception, and the first requisite is receptiveness, and that then, and after that, second and not first, come working and striving? To keep our hearts open by desire, to keep them open by purity, are the essentials. The dove will not come into a fouled nest. It is said that they forsake polluted places. But also we have to use the power which is inwrought. Use is the way to increase all gifts, from the muscle in your arm to the Christian life in your spirit. Use it, and it grows. Neglect it, and it vanishes, and like the old Jewish heroes, a man may go forth to exercise himself as of old time, and know not that the Spirit of God hath departed from him. Dear friends, do not bind yourselves to the slavery of Endeavour, until you come into the liberty and wealth of receiving. He gives first, and then says to you, ‘Now go to work, and keep that good thing which is committed unto thee.’
There is but one thought more in this last part of my text, which I must not leave untouched, and that is that this sufficient and universal gift is not only the means by which the great universal duty can be discharged, but it ought to be the measure in which it is discharged. ‘I work according to the working in me.’ That is, all the force that came into Paul by that Divine Spirit, came out of Paul in his Christian conduct, and the gift was not only the source, but also the measure, of this man’s Christian Endeavour. Is that true about us? They say that the steam-engine is a most wasteful application of power, that a great deal of the energy which is generated goes without ever doing any work. They tell us that one of the great difficulties in the way of economic application of electricity is the loss which comes through using accumulators. Is not that like a great many of us? So much power poured into us; so little coming out from us and translated into actual work! Such a ‘rushing mighty wind,’ and the air about us so heavy and stagnant and corrupt! Such a blaze of fire, and we so cold! Such a cataract of the river of the water of life, and our lips parched and our crops seared and worthless! Ah, brethren! when we look at ourselves, and when we think of the condition of so many of the churches to which we belong, the old rebuke of the prophet comes back to us in this generation, ‘Thou that art named the House of Israel, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?’ We have an all-sufficient power. May our working and striving be according to it, and may we work mightily, being ‘strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv26–28 (See Scofield "Mat 13:11").
mystery
(See Scofield "Mat 13:11").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v28 we proclaim ... We admonish ... we teach ...…
we proclaim ... We admonish ... we teach ... we may present
These words do not include the Colossians. (See: Exclusive and Inclusive "We")
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We admonish every person
"We warn everyone"
so that we may present every person
You may need to make explicit to whom they will present every person. AT: "so that we may present to God every person" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
complete
Being complete is a metaphor for being spiritually mature. AT: "spiritually mature" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
preach
wise
labor
power
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v26 1:26 The concept of a secret, hidden at one…
1:26 The concept of a secret, hidden at one time and then revealed, is based upon Jewish apocalyptic ideas. Jewish thinkers conceived of God’s entire plan as already existing in heaven, hidden until God should draw back the curtain and reveal it. The Good News, especially for the Gentiles, had been kept secret until it was revealed in Christ.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.