Henry: Welcome To Immerse: The Daily Bible Reading Experience.
Day 34.
Immersed in Colossians.
Why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as Don't
handle, don't taste, don't touch.
Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use
them, like the believers in Galatia.
Those in the city of Colossi were being pressured to keep certain parts of
the Jewish law, such as circumcision, Sabbath, observance, and various
festivals, and to adhere to instructions based on certain visionary experiences.
These things require strong devotion, pious self denial, and severe bodily
discipline, but don't help believers actually conquer evil desires.
Paul heard this news about the church from his coworker EPIs,
who had just come from Colossi.
Paul was in prison, but even from afar, he continued to teach and guide the
young churches around the Roman empire.
Paul wrote a letter to the Colossians and asked his friends Ticus and animus
to deliver it along with the letters we know as Philemon and Ephesians.
Colossi was located in the Roman province of Asia, modern day Turkey.
It was a place where people tended to mix practices and beliefs from
various religious traditions and where new spiritual practices
were constantly developing.
Like worshiping angels, Paul warns the believers not to let these empty
philosophies capture their thinking in.
Instead, they are to continue in the truth of the good news
they heard in the beginning.
The result is a letter giving us one of the strongest statements about the
person and work of Jesus the Messiah.
In the New Testament, Paul combats the alternative philosophies in colossi
by emphasizing the grandeur of Jesus.
He writes that following rules and seeking mystical experiences won't
strengthen a person's faith in Jesus or bring about spiritual transformation.
Rather, Paul insists that the Colossians are made complete only
through their union with Christ.
After his opening thanksgiving and prayer for the Colossian believers,
Paul presents a striking poem showing how Jesus is supreme in all things,
the fullness of God the father dwells in the sun, who is the maker of all
things and holds the creation together.
Because of the son's blood shed on the cross.
Everything in heaven and on earth is reconciled to God.
The supremacy of Christ is the great theme of Paul's letter.
Christ is sufficient for everything the Colossians need and no other
power or ruler can ever be his equal.
Paul then explains that this great victory by God's son has implications
for how the Colossians should live.
All the rules and laws they've been told to obey were only shadows.
The reality has arrived in Jesus since they have been raised with Christ.
The believers are now to live freely in his kingdom of light.
As they do so, their relationships must be marked by a commitment to love each other.
A new life of humility and forgiveness rooted in the Messiah
will anchor their community.
Paul also gives the Colossians practical instructions for household life,
showing how followers of Christ should have an attitude of love and service
in their everyday relationships.
This includes how they relate to others within the human
institutions in which they live.
While these institutions won't always change overnight, God's
people can move them closer to the ultimate goals of Christ's kingdom.
At the end of the letter, we find specific instructions for the Colossians to
share this letter with the nearby church in Leo Deia and to read their letter.
In turn, this shows how the books in our New Testament first written for
particular local churches were shared and eventually gathered into a single
collection for all God's people.
The letter to the Colossians.
This letter is from Paul chosen by the will of God to
be an apostle of Christ Jesus.
And from our brother Timothy, we are writing to God's holy people in
the city of Colossi who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.
May God our Father give you grace and peace.
We always pray for you and we give thanks to God the father
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all
of God's people, which come from your confident hope of what God
has reserved for you in heaven.
You have had this expectation ever since you first heard
the truth of the good news.
This same good news that came to you is going out all over the world.
It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives.
Just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood
the truth about God's wonderful grace, you learned about the good news from
Epi Frances, our beloved coworker, he is Christ's faithful servant and
he is helping us on your behalf.
He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.
So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you.
We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you
spiritual wisdom and understanding, then the way you live will always
honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good
fruit, all the while you will grow.
As you learn to know God better and better, we also pray that you
will be strengthened with all his glorious power, so you will have all
the endurance and patience you need.
May you be filled with joy, always thanking the father.
He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to
his people who live in the light.
For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the
kingdom of his dear son who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created in his supreme overall creation.
For Through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as
thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body.
He is the beginning supreme overall who rise from the dead.
So he is first in everything for God and all his fullness.
Was pleased to live in Christ and through him God reconciled everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means
of Christ's blood on the cross.
This includes you who were once far away from God.
You were his enemies separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.
Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death
of Christ in his physical body.
As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are
holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it.
Don't drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the good news.
The good news has been preached all over the world, and I Paul have been
appointed as God's servant to proclaim it.
I am glad when I suffer for you and my body, for I am participating
in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church.
God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming
his entire message to you.
This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now
it has been revealed to God's people.
For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you,
Gentiles too, and this is the secret.
Christ lives in you.
This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.
So we tell others about Christ.
Warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us.
We want to present them to God perfect in their relationship to Christ.
That's why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ's
mighty power that works within me.
I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at
La Deia and for many other believers who have never met me personally.
I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love.
I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God's
mysterious plan, which is Christ himself in him lie hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
I'm telling you this so no one will deceive you with well-crafted arguments
for though I am far away from you, my heart is with you, and I rejoice
that you are living as you should and that your faith in Christ is strong.
And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you
must continue to follow him.
Let your roots grow down into him and let your lives be built on him.
Then your faith will grow strong in the truth You are taught and you
will overflow with thankfulness.
Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high sounding nonsense
that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world.
Rather than from Christ, for in Christ lives all the
fullness of God in a human body.
So you also are complete through your union with Christ who is the
head over every ruler and authority.
When you came to Christ, you were circumcised, but
not by a physical procedure.
Christ performed a spiritual circumcision, the cutting away of your sinful nature.
For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized and with him,
you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God
who raised Christ from the dead.
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut
away, then God made you alive with Christ.
For he forgave all our sins.
He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it
away by nailing it to the cross.
In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities.
He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
So don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink or for not celebrating
certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or sabbaths for these rules are only
shadows of the reality yet to come, and Christ himself is that reality.
Don't let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self denial or
the worship of angels saying they have had visions about these things.
Their sinful minds have made them proud, and they're not connected
to Christ, the head of the body.
For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments,
and it grows as God nourishes it.
You have died with Christ and he has set you free from the
spiritual powers of this world.
So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as don't
handle, don't taste, don't touch.
Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them.
These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious
self denial, and severe bodily discipline, but they provide no help
in conquering a person's evil desires.
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the
realities of heaven where Christ sits in the place of honor, at God's right hand.
Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.
For you died to this life and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.
And when Christ who is your life is revealed to the whole world,
you will share in all his glory.
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within.
You have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity,
lust, and evil desires.
Don't be greedy for a greedy person as an idolater worshiping
the things of this world.
Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.
You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world, but
now is the time to get rid of anger.
Rage, malicious behavior, slander and dirty language.
Don't lie to each other.
For you, have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.
Put on your new nature and be renewed as you learn to know your creator
and become like him in this new life.
It doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised,
barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free.
Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves
with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Make allowance for each other's faults, and forgive anyone who offends you.
Remember the Lord forgave you so you must forgive others.
Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in
perfect harmony, and let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts.
For as members of one body, you are called to live in peace and always be thankful.
Let the message about Christ and all its richness fill your lives,
teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives.
Sing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks through him to God the Father.
Wives.
Submit to your husbands as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.
Husbands love your wives and never treat them harshly.
Children always obey your parents for this, pleases the Lord.
Fathers do not aggravate your children or they will become discouraged slaves, obey
your earthly masters in everything you do.
Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you.
Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord.
Work willingly at whatever you do as though you are working for
the Lord rather than for people.
Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward and that
the master you are serving is Christ.
But if you do what is wrong, you'll be paid back for the wrong you
have done for God has no favorites.
Masters be just and fair to your slaves.
Remember that you also have a master in heaven.
Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.
Pray for us too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about
his mysterious plan concerning Christ.
That is why I'm here in chains.
Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should.
Live wisely among those who are not believers and make
the most of every opportunity.
Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have
the right response for everyone.
Will give you a full report about how I am getting along.
He is a beloved brother and faithful helper who serves
with me in the Lord's work.
I have sent him to you for this very purpose, to let you know how
we are doing and to encourage you.
I am also sending ESUs a faithful and beloved brother, one of your own people.
He and Tikki will tell you everything that's happening here.
Aris Starke, who is imprisoned with me, sends you his greetings
and so does Mark Barnabas's.
Cousin, as you were instructed before, make Mark welcome if he comes your way.
Jesus, the one we call Justice, also sends his greetings, the, these are the
only Jewish believers among my coworkers.
They're working with me here for the kingdom of God, and
what a comfort they have been.
EPIs, a member of your own fellowship and a servant of Christ,
Jesus sends you his greetings.
He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and
perfect, fully confident that you are following the whole will of God.
I can assure you that he prays hard for you and also for the believers in Laia.
At Hira, Luke, the beloved doctor sends his greetings and so does Demas.
Please give my greetings to our brothers and sisters at Latia and to MFA and
the church that meets in her house.
After you have read this letter, pass it on to the church at
Latia so they can read it too.
And you should read the letter I wrote to them and say to our kiis, be sure to
carry out the ministry the Lord gave you.
Here is my greeting in my own handwriting, Paul.
Remember my chains?
May God's grace be with you.
This concludes today's Immer Reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.