Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon

N. T. Wright

Colossians, one of the shortest of Paul's letters, is also one of the most exciting. Writing to a young church discovering what it was like to believe in Jesus Christ and to follow him, Paul shares their sense of wonder as he encourages them to explore the treasures of the gospel and to order their lives accordingly. There is, in fact, so much evocative language -- talk about the gospel, about Jesus Christ, about holiness, about the church -- that it is easy to lose track of the overall thread of the letter and merely to pick out a few details. But if the details are worth having, the letter as a whole is even more so. It is not a miscellaneous collection of helpful thoughts. It is a particular letter written to a particular congregation at one point in its very early history. To believe, in fact, the Colossians is inspired Scripture is to believe that God intended to say just these things to this church -- and in so doing to address, somehow, the church as a whole. But what were these things? And why did they need saying? And what relevance may it all have for a different church in a different place and time? Ultimately, these questions can be answered only as we go along through the book. - Introduction.