Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
Yesterday’s Journey Study connects with today’s!
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The Questions
1) Why is Paul writing these verses to the Colossians?
2) What do these verses teach us about Jesus?
3) What does it mean that Christ reconciled everything to Himself?
Colossians 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
For everything was created by him,
in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions
or rulers or authorities—
all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and by him all things hold together.
He is also the head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead,
so that he might come to have
first place in everything.
For God was pleased to have
all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him to reconcile
everything to himself,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace
through his blood, shed on the cross.
Original Intent
1) Why is Paul writing these verses to the Colossians?
Paul is writing to the church at Colossae where false teaching had permeated. One of these false teachings ran counter to the authority and supremacy of Christ. Word had gotten to Paul and he is writing to them regarding that specific false teaching. Paul refutes twisted doctrinal lies with solid, anchoring truth. His goal was to edify, encourage, and correct both the leaders of the Colossian church as well as its members by teaching them truth so they could easily identify the lies about Jesus, His deity, and His authority. Paul wants the local church to not be led astray into thinking Jesus is just another ‘god’, but instead is the Redeeming God they originally trusted for total salvation.
2) What do these verses teach us about Jesus?
These verses are pregnant with Jesus’ identity, His continuous work in creation, and His work both in the process of redemption and in the church. We learn many things about Jesus in these few verses. Readers are reminded, Jesus is God in the flesh, He was present at Creation, and, as God, He has all authority. These verses also speak to who Jesus is within the heavens, that He is first and He holds it all together. Paul then reminds readers that just as Christ holds supremacy over creation, Jesus also holds headship authority over the church. Paul finishes his rich description by detailing what Jesus did on the Cross to complete redemption for mankind. These declarations are not small, they encompass every aspect of who Jesus is within the Trinity and therefore remind believers in Colossae of why Jesus deserves all honor, glory, and authority. There is none like Him; He is incomparable.
3) What does it mean that Christ reconciled everything to Himself?
In verse 20 Paul says Jesus reconciled everything to Himself, both things on earth as well as in heaven, by what He did on the Cross. These verses are the culmination for all of Paul’s claims to who Jesus is within the previous verses. Only Jesus could “make peace by shedding His blood on the Cross”. No one else in all of Creation was qualified to complete that task other than God Himself. In that one act Christ righted all wrongs that had been done since the first sin in the Garden and reconciled all of Creation to Himself. Only the infinite God could possibly pay for all of finite man’s sin at one time. If Jesus were not fully God, this would be utterly impossible!
Everyday Application
1) Why is Paul writing these verses to the Colossians?
We, like the believers in Colossae, live in a world where false teaching and false statements about who Christ is exist everywhere, both outside the church, and even inside. We too must remember exactly who He is and what He has done for us and keep that forefront in our thinking. Sometimes, when we have been believers for any length of time, we begin to take for granted the truth of the Gospel and who Jesus is as fully God. We are tempted to not give Jesus the important place He deserves in our lives and in the Church. We need to heed Paul’s words just as much as the church in Colossae did by holding up our personal belief system against the unchanging truth of Scripture. Only by studying and knowing truth will we be able to identify, and step confidently away from, deception.
2) What do these verses teach us about Jesus?
These verses are the complete preeminence of the Savior showing readers His full superiority over all things. This anchoring truths remind us of the deity of Jesus, and we must cling to this! These verses are the complete defense against deceptions that depict Jesus as simply a good person or a prophet. He is none but the Son of God, who is head of all, fully equal with God the Father, and who gave Himself to die for us, that by believing in Him, we will be completely redeemed. May this truth never become old to us, and may we not be easily pulled away from the magnitude of truth held within Paul’s words the Colossians. May we cling tightly to the full truth of who Christ is, refusing to believe any watered-down version of His identity!
3) What does it mean that Christ reconciled everything to Himself?
From before the first sin in the Garden of Eden, God knew Adam and Eve would choose to love their sin over their Creator, and God had a plan to bring them back to perfect relationship with Him because of His great love for them. His plan is solely anchored in the Person of Jesus, who was there at Creation, is today, and will forever be. (Hebrews 13:8) Christ chose to be born as a baby in the manger, coming into the world He created in physical form, for the distinct purpose of taking our rightly deserved punishment of death and separation from God by His own death on the Cross, paying the price we could never pay on our own. He redeemed His Creation. However, that does not mean that through His death we all automatically receive this Redemption. We must accept what Jesus did for ourselves, every heart must choose to trust His complete work on our behalf by placing our faith in Him; only then are we reconciled back to perfect relationship with Him. While the gift of salvation is for all, we must choose to accept it and surrender to Christ and His lordship.
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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!
1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God
in your everyday!
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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