Transcript
It’s time to start our service today.
I am so glad to have each one of you here with us.
I send you all of my love and greetings.
We have been out the past couple of weeks.
I have had some other engagements I had to see to over that time.
We were out of the country for a bit of that time.
I was glad to see you all, especially those of you who listen regularly and reach out so often.
I know we all have our unique challenges, and I appreciate you all.
I have also done some work with some of the brothers overseas the past week, and I send you all my greetings as well.
If this is your first time joining us, and you wonder who we are and what we are up to—
My name is Charles Paisley.
I and most of our listeners here are formerly members of the cult following of William Branham known as The Message.
The Message is a global doomsday cult with millions of members.
The Message started here in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and spread all over the world.
I am formerly associate pastor of the second-oldest Message church in the world, which was the flagship church of one of the oldest and largest international sects of The Message.
And this is a little mission we operate to offer encouragement to those leaving The Message and to take a look at the plain reading of scripture.
And today we are starting a new series.
As you can already tell from our title, we are going to the book of Colossians.
I have been thinking and praying about just where to go next.
And I have thought going through the book of Colossians could be helpful.
And so that is what we are going to start today.
The book of Colossians is a very short book of the Bible—it is only four chapters long.
But there are some things in this book which are useful and have application to our circumstances.
And we will get to that in due course.
But today, we are just starting off with the opening introduction of the letter.
I invite you to open your Bibles and turn there with me.
I will be using the English Standard Version for most of this series.
And today we will be looking at the first eight verses.
Let me read.
Colossians 1 (English Standard Version)
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father,
We ask you to help us as we study the scripture today, that we can be blessed and benefited by what we read.
You gave us the scripture for our well-being, so that we can understand you and understand our place in your creation and your plan.
You gave us scripture to help us discern what is right and what is wrong, what is pleasing to you, and what is displeasing to you.
Grant us understanding of what we read today.
This we ask, in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Introduction
As we start out this lesson and series today, it is good for us to get some background information about the church in Colossae and the circumstances of this letter. Some of that information is shared with us through the letter and also a bit of context in the book of Acts.
And what we can tell from scripture is that the Colossian church was established by a man named Epaphras. The Apostle Paul likely first met Epaphras while Paul was preaching in Ephesus. Paul spent a full year in Ephesus preaching.
Ephesus, back then, was the second or third largest city in the entire Roman Empire—it was a big metropolis. All the towns around the countryside went there to do business. Through all that travel and interaction, Paul was able to seed that entire region with churches. One of those churches was the Colossian church.
It was not started by Paul directly, but it was started by a preacher who worked alongside Paul. We can’t be perfectly sure just when Paul met Epaphras, but it seems most likely they met in Ephesus. Epaphras worked alongside Paul for quite a few years. If you read the book of Philemon, for example, Paul said that Epaphras was in jail with him in Rome. So we know that Paul and Epaphras worked together for many years.
Somewhere during that time working together, Epaphras went to Colossae and started the church there. As we read the book of Acts, we see that was a pretty normal thing. Paul had quite a few different ministers working with him as a team. They would travel together and almost sort of fan out, each one working in a different neighborhood or different town in the same region. Together, they established all kinds of churches.
Now, from what we can tell in this letter, it seems this letter is being written several years after the Colossian church had started. The Colossian church was probably ten to fifteen years old when this letter was sent to them. We can tell that in part because Paul was in jail when he sent this letter. We know through the book of Acts when Paul got arrested. So that lets us put the book of Colossians into a reasonable time period—it was probably written ten to fifteen years after the church was founded.
So it is a young church, but it is not a newborn church. These people have had quite a few years to learn and grow.
But as we read this letter, we will discover that some bad influences have entered their church. Those bad influences are really what has motivated Paul to write this letter. The exact nature of those bad influences is not fully spelled out in the letter. Paul doesn’t name names, but we do have a little bit to go on to maybe have some insight.
Paul does describe some of the things that are being thought and said. There are some similarities to what we find in the book of Galatians. Colossae is really close to Galatia, just a few miles away. It would be reasonable for us to speculate that maybe the same false teachers or the same false ideas that were popping up in Galatia were also affecting the Colossians.
As we read this book, it is at least helpful to know that Galatia and Colossae are really close together. Both Colossians and Galatians are books of the Bible dealing with similar issues, where false teachers had come and begun to introduce some perverted ideas to the people. By comparing to Galatians, it can help us as we study Colossians.
Now, one thing I think is important to point out right in this first lesson is that as we read the New Testament, we find that just about every single church in the New Testament is a church that has problems. Just about every last one of them.
If you are looking for a perfect church, you won’t find it in the New Testament. They all had problems. The church in Jerusalem had problems. The church in Ephesus had problems. The church in Rome had problems. The Corinthians, the Galatians, the Laodiceans, and the Thessalonians all had problems. In fact, that is why most of the New Testament was written—it was the apostles dealing with the problems.
And it is just the same thing here with the Colossians.
As I say that, I want you to think this through with me. If the early church had all these problems, how does it make sense to say we want to go back to the book of Acts? Why do we set up the book of Acts as this sort of golden age of the church that we should try to get back to?
Just think about that premise. It is a very common thing we heard where we come from—that the book of Acts was a perfect sort of age, and we need to get back to it.
And like most things in the Message, we never questioned the underlying premise. But let me ask you two things about that.
First, where does that come from in scripture? Is there really anything in the Bible that says the church will fall away and then be restored back to the book of Acts?
Is that in the Bible anywhere?
And the answer is no. That is not anywhere in the plain reading of the Bible. The people who hold that idea arrive at it by using things you can’t find in the Bible.
In the churches we come from, they did it through interpreting symbols. They would say, “This symbol means this, and that symbol means that—therefore, the church will be restored in the last days to the book of Acts.”
Others base it on prophecies you can’t find in the Bible, which came from modern so-called prophets like William Branham.
But there is not actually anything in the Bible that says the church will fall away and then in the last days be restored to something like the book of Acts. That is not in the Bible.
And it is important for us to recognize that is not in the plain reading of the Bible. Because if we choose to believe that— which you may still choose to believe—it is important to recognize that you are basing that idea on things that are at least partially outside of the Bible.
Now, the second question I want to ask you is this: Is it even true that the early church was a perfect church?
That is a very direct question, one we can know the answer to. Was the early church a perfect church? Was it a church we should seek to be like in every way?
And the answer to that question is no.
No, the early church was not a perfect church. The early church was not one we should seek to be like in every way.
All you have to do is read the New Testament, and you find the early church was full of a mountain of problems. It had all kinds of problems.
And so, not only is there nothing in the Bible that says we should be restored back to the book of Acts, the very premise that the early church was somehow the ideal church is a terribly flawed idea.
I don’t think we should be like the Corinthians—they were a bad church. I don’t think we should be like the Galatians—they were a bad church. I don’t think we should be like the Colossians—they were a bad church.
Some were worse than others. When John wrote to the Ephesians, he told them they did a lot of good things. But they lost their first love.
We shouldn’t be like the Ephesians either.
The early church was full of problems.
And when you hear someone say, “We need to be restored to the book of Acts,” or “We need to get back to the early church,” I hope that you think about what they are actually saying.
Because they are saying, “Let’s get back to Galatians. Let’s get back to Corinthians. Let’s get back to Colossians.”
And that is no place to get back to.
So for myself, I don’t believe there is any such thing as being restored back to the book of Acts. That is just a silly idea on its face.
We need to aspire to something greater than the early church. We need to aspire to something that is better than the early church.
And let their faults and failures be a lesson to us, not a model we should try to follow in every way.
If there were no perfect churches in the early church, then don’t be surprised that we don’t see any perfect churches today.
From the very beginning, churches have had problems. That is the history of the church.
And so, if we are looking for a perfect church, we are not likely to find it. Every church is going to have some level of problems.
We aspire toward perfection, but we will only have perfection when Jesus comes again. In the meantime, we need to have our expectations in the right place.
So be tolerant toward some level of problems—it is normal.
And as I say that, there is a line.
It’s up to each of us to define that line for ourselves in our own walk.
And it’s important for us to do that.
Because there are churches which are harmful cults, they do far, far more harm than good, and sadly, there are many churches of that category.
I heard a very famous preacher pray a prayer this past week. A famous preacher who is on TV sometimes. And as I heard him pray, I just had to shake my head. He is a man doing more harm than good.
And there are churches like that in the world. And maybe they are not really churches at all—maybe they are just wicked cults.
And so, we do want to be part of a healthy church if it is possible. And we are wise to avoid churches that act like cults and beware of churches with excessive problems.
If we can find a church that is growing in a positive way, is moving in the right direction, that is keeping the focus on Christ and the gospel, and a focus on helping people grow in Christ, a church that is exemplified by the love of God and the fruit of the Spirit, then we have found a good place to be.
But when we find a church that is in deep error, that is harming people left and right, and wicked men have their hands on the levers of power, and there is no way to dislodge them, then we do good to get away from a place like that.
And in Colossae, their church is starting to cross the line into one that needs to be avoided, and that is what has led Paul to write this letter. An external influence has begun to make its way into the hearts and minds of the people in their church—something contrary and contradictory to the gospel message they had first been taught.
And that is one of the most common dangers Christians and their churches face. There is always a danger that influences external to the gospel message can come in and pervert or pollute biblical Christianity. We see that throughout history, and we even see it in the New Testament.
In fact, that is what the book of Colossians is about. The Colossian church has received external influences, and those influences have very gradually, very gently, pulled them away from the true tenets of the Christian faith. Paul is staging an intervention, and that is what this letter is—Paul’s intervention to help the Colossians before it is too late.
The Colossians have had preachers and teachers come in and try to convince them there is a higher level of Christianity than what they already have. They started to believe that there is something deeper or higher or greater than what had already been imparted to them through the apostles.
And, throughout the history of the Christian church, this has been the standard pattern for perverting the church. It happened to the Galatians, just like here with the Colossians. It has happened repeatedly throughout history.
A false teacher comes in and tells them they have some good basics of Christianity, but they tell people there is this higher level, higher degree, a greater understanding, a greater, deeper something. And if they will only get that greater thing, they will finally arrive at the perfect.
They convince them that the gospel is just the first step to salvation, and this new false preacher has come to bring them the extra steps they need to finally make it.
That is what the Jehovah’s Witnesses did. It’s what the Moonies did. It’s what the Mormons did. It is what the Adventists did. It’s what William Branham did with the Message. It is a common pattern that has repeated over and over and over again.
And it is the same thing that happened to the church in Colossae. And dealing with that situation is what has caused Paul to write this letter to them.
We are going to find Paul addressing those problems in chapters 2 and 3. So, it won’t be until we get into those chapters that we begin to look at the problems specifically.
And as we just get started today, I encourage you—go ahead and read the whole book of Colossians. It is just four chapters long. You can read it in fifteen or twenty minutes; it won’t take very long. And reading it will help you be ready for our study of this book over the next several weeks.
Reading the Verses
Now, with that introduction done, let me turn to looking over our first verses today with you. And I will start reading at verse 1.
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
Notice there how Paul always starts his letters. He is not bombastic about it, but he is always plain and direct, letting his readers know he has a special authority that comes from God himself. And in saying that, this is part of what lifts his letters to the level of scripture.
Jesus Christ personally came to Paul and commissioned him and gave him a mission. And notice also that Paul references that this letter is from Timothy too. This letter has two authors—Paul and Timothy.
This is something I think is easy to miss, but most of the New Testament epistles of Paul have co-authors.
Verse 2
2 To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. 3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints.
So, although Paul is going to deal with some major issues and major errors going on in their church, here at the start Paul is speaking very positively, very optimistically, very encouragingly. And it is important to notice that.
Paul is optimistic, he is hoping for the best, and he is doing so genuinely. And it is so important to notice that Paul here is considering that his readers in Colossae are Christians. Even though they have problems, even though they have some major errors, Paul is still addressing them as authentic fellow believers.
He gives them the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps, I think it is fair to say, even more than that.
And that is important to note because even though these people in Colossae have drifted into some pretty terrible error and bad practices, Paul still recognizes them as fellow believers—just fellow believers who are in error.
And we do good to remember that genuine, authentic Christians can indeed be in deep error. That is possible. And it does not affect their salvation at all.
Salvation is not related to believing erroneous things. You are not saved by how well you understand the mysteries of the Bible and a great many other things. In fact, you can be pretty wrong about all those things and still be a genuine, authentic Christian.
And that bears out if we just think of the way Paul writes his letters to the Colossians and even to other churches facing major problems.
And I point this out because I want to draw your attention back to how Paul has taught salvation, like we read in our studies of Ephesians or in Romans.
Genuine and authentic saving faith in Christ is enough to overcome every difficulty. And as long as that saving faith can be detected, even though there may be some problems, even serious problems, it’s nothing the grace of God cannot cover.
And that knowledge should shape the way we should approach people in error, just as it shapes the way Paul approaches the Colossians.
There are people in the Message who are in deep serious error, but they are still Christians, they are still saved, and they will still be with us in glory.
If Jesus is your Savior, you will make it. And that is the basis on which Paul can make these opening statements in this letter to the Colossians—to a people who are in deep error.
Paul says to this deeply troubled church:
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints.
And you detect there in verse 4 what Paul is using as evidence for their faith—it is love.
They have faith in Christ as Savior. And they have love, which is the fruit of the Spirit. Therefore, there is both a confession of faith and evidence of the Holy Spirit in them. And Paul can very safely address them as genuine Christians.
Make sure you notice that because it is very important.
And one more thing to notice in these verses is who Paul gives all the credit to.
Later on, we will pick up that Epaphras was the preacher who taught them the gospel, and Paul was likely the man who converted Epaphras. But when Paul writes here, all of his thanks goes to God.
When we think back to our path to salvation, we thank it to God—not Epaphras, not Paul, not Timothy. Our thanks goes back to God, however it happened, however it came about.
There is no get-out-of-jail-free card where the preacher who taught us the gospel can get away with whatever he wants because he was the man who taught us about Jesus.
No.
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints.
Love for all the saints.
All the Christians, all the believers.
Not just some, not just those in the same building, but all of them.
Paul is not writing this to an isolated cult group. This group has problems, but it’s not that sort of problem. There is a love for all their brothers and sisters, even ones who are different from them.
So just notice, Paul does not take credit to anyone but God for saving these people in Colossae. And that is how it should be.
A preacher is putting himself into a position where he has no right when he is taking credit and making himself into something important.
The goal is not for preachers to make followers of themselves, but to make people followers of Christ. And you can’t help but detect that in the way Paul writes these verses.
One Hope
Now, there is one more thing I want to point out to you from these verses today.
There is a bit more in these same verses I want to examine with you next week, but there is one last thing I want to bring to your attention today.
And it is verse 5.
Let me read from verse 3 down to verse 5, and I will point it out to you.
Paul writes:
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this, you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel.
Now, Paul there talked about “the hope laid up for you in heaven.”
And you notice the way he phrased that—he said THE hope.
The one hope.
If you recall, back when we went through Ephesians chapter 4, Paul said there was one hope of our calling.
There are not ten different hopes.
There is just one hope.
And that one hope is the reward we have in glory.
And it’s not a hope like perhaps some people may use the word hope—it is a certain hope.
It is an absolutely going to happen hope.
And we look forward to that hope.
And I say that because I want you to notice that Paul is saying these Colossians have this hope.
The same hope of their calling which all Christians have.
And it is Christ within you, the hope of glory.
And, it is just one singular hope.
The HOPE.
And these Colossians have it.
They have it despite their errors, despite their incorrect practices, despite the flaws and failures of their church.
They are saved, they have Christ, and they have the same, one and only, singular hope of glory.
And I want to draw your attention to that in light of what many of us were taught in the message.
And I want us to realize—this is the plain reading of Scripture here.
The plain reading of Scripture says there is one hope, not five or six different hopes.
And the same hope Paul had, of glory in heaven, is the same hope these Colossians had.
Paul, at the height of his understanding and revelation and service to God—he had the same one hope which these Colossians, in their mistakes, their errors, and their bad practices, had.
I want you to think about that.
Think about the implications of that.
Paul is not looking at some sort of a tiered system, where you have higher and lower levels.
Some people have a hope of greater glory, and some people have a hope of less glory.
And because they are X, they get X glory, and because this other group is Y, they get Y glory.
There is not really a way to make that sort of an idea compatible with what Paul has said.
There are, of course, different degrees of glory, different degrees of reward—we find that in 1st Corinthians chapter 15, for example.
But, as we can see here, Paul is not telling these Colossians:
“You are going to miss the rapture, and you are going to burn up, and you are going to have all this lower status because you have all these errors.”
Paul is not saying that.
Instead, with all their problems—Paul is telling these Colossians that they still have the same hope of glory that all Christians have.
And, you might say, Brother Charles, are you sure that is what Paul is talking about?
And we can say, Yes, we are absolutely sure that is what Paul is talking about.
Because that verse, Christ in you, the hope of glory, is verse 27 in this same chapter.
And we will get there in time.
And it is totally and absolutely obvious that Paul is including these Colossians—with all their mistakes and errors—into this one and singular hope of glory.
Amen.
They don’t have a lesser hope of glory, a second-tier level hope of glory.
They have the same, singular, hope of glory as Paul had.
Let me read it to you again:
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the [singular] hope laid up for you in heaven.
And what is that hope?
Jump down to verse 27 and read it.
It is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And just as the Colossians had a right to that hope, despite all that they had wrong—you and I and every Christian believer have the same right to that hope today.
Regardless of whether or not we understand everything perfectly, regardless of whether or not we have some things wrong in our lives or thoughts—in Christ, we are saved to the utmost, and His grace and His salvation are greater than all our faults and all our failures and all of the limits of our understanding.
Amen.
Here we will close today.
And there is a bit more in these same verses I want to examine with you next week.
But until then, God bless each one of you.
Let me close here in prayer.
Prayer
Lord God, thank You for Your kindness towards us,
For keeping us and helping us in our times of need.
Thank You for the Bible and the truth in it.
Bless each of my brothers and sisters today.
This I ask, in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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