Colossians 2:1-5
Well, you can open your Bibles this morning to Colossians, and we’re looking at the first five verses of Colossians 2. Find your way to Colossians 2:1-5, as we know from our previous study, over the past few weeks Paul has been explaining to the Colossians his apostolic ministry, his calling to be the Apostle of Christ, to the Gentiles in particular.
And in the text before us today, he is transitioning to speak of his ministry in particular to these Gentiles, to the Colossians, and to those others in the Lycus Valley who are believers in Jesus Christ.
He goes from the general, his apostolic ministry to all Gentiles, to the specific, to speak to them, about them, to speak of his deep concern for them and for the churches that surround them. His body may be in Rome, in prison, under house arrest, but his spirit is with these believers in their churches.
He longs to be with them. He’d love to see them, make their acquaintance, enjoy fellowship with them, and minister the Gospel to them; and by God’s grace, at the end of this first imprisonment in Rome, he will be released and allowed to do that. But for now, he’s apart, and he ministers to them from afar.
Take a look at those verses, let’s read Colossians 2:1-5. “For I want you to understand how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not seen My face in the flesh, so that their hearts may be encouraged, having been held together in love, even unto all the wealth of the full assurance of understanding, unto the full knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
“I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the stability of your faith in Christ.”
If I could summarize those verses, I’d put it this way: Those verses are about a ministry of love. A ministry of love. And the ministry of love is exemplified, first, in Paul’s concern for the Colossians, his work for the Colossians, his struggle for the Colossians. It’s all a ministry of love. But then we see, as he turns to a concern about them, he gives his express intent that they, too, following his example, practice a ministry of love with one another.
Paul himself has been struggling, as he says here, for their encouragement, and he’d have them understand that they may be fully assured in the gospel. He would have them to know God’s mystery, which is Christ, as he says here. He wants them to be satisfied in the truth, that they would not be deluded or carried away with lies.
In other words, what he’s saying here, is that knowing and understanding the truth, whether it’s in his own ministry to them or in their ministry to one another, knowing and understanding the truth is not to be an end in and of itself.
It’s critical, even essential, to know and understand the truth, but as a means to an end, of knowing God through Christ to the full satisfaction of our souls. That’s what knowing the truth is all about, to know the mystery who is Christ, is not about just stacking up facts, but it’s about knowing a person, and all for the glory of God.
I’m reminded of the elder Apostle, John. When John wrote letters to the church in Ephesus, and those churches surrounding Ephesus, called 1 John, he identified early in his letter three categories of maturity. Maybe you remember that in 1 John 2:12-14. He called them “little children” and then “young men” and “fathers.” I don’t know if you remember that.
But the little children are those who are newer to the faith. And he writes about them as those who are elated that their sins have been completely forgiven, overjoyed that they’re now in the family, that God is their father. And they have a lot to learn, these little children. A life of learning is ahead of them, but this is what occupies their heart and fills their hearts with joy, that they know the father.
The young men are those who are zealous for truth and zealous for righteousness; and John intimates in writing about them that zeal has made them strong because the Word of God has abided in them. It’s equipped them to overcome the evil one, to discern between truth and error, to fight against sins.
But then when he writes to the fathers, it sounds kind of similar to writing to the little children. But in writing to the fathers, the category of maturity in which John himself has walked for decades, when the writing of this epistle, the fathers of those who, as he puts it, “have known him who is from the beginning.” Puts in the perfect tense.
Not just that they know him, been introduced to him, that they recognize him as father, as the little children do, but now, having come through the stage of a young man and have fought for truth and fought for righteousness in their own life, and fought battles, they come through the other side and see what the truth is for. It’s for the purpose of knowing him who has been from the beginning.
He uses the verb ginosko. Ginosko, describing an experiential knowledge of the truth, what some have called experimental religion. He puts that verb in the perfect tense, saying that it started at some point in the past and moved beyond the little children’s stage and beyond the young men’s stage. The fathers have walked with God and known him for many, many years.
And this is what Christian maturity looks like. This is what we all ought to be striving for, is to be like these older, mature, seasoned saints in the faith.
Christian maturity is not a function of chronological age, and, sad to say, it’s not even a function of years professing Christ. It’s a function of a real, actual practice, focused, intentional. Hebrews 5:14 calls it “training the senses to discern good and evil.” It’s about a deep knowledge of the truth. It’s about habituating patterns of righteousness and loving God and loving his Christ and serving and loving his church.
Coming through that and doing that over years, day after day, month after month, year after year, that develops maturity, seasoned stability, tested experience, and a deep, deep love of knowing him who has been from the beginning.
What I’ve said just there about John, about the fathers in the faith, really applies to the great Apostle Paul. All these Apostles, because of their calling and their gifting, all these Apostles, because of their unique ministry, because of their growth to maturity was accelerated by the Spirit in revelatory truth, in the wisdom, though, of understanding that truth as well that was produced through intense and what is for many of us an unimaginable suffering, it accelerated their growth to maturity.
That what was forged through the crucible of suffering, what comes out on the other side is really clarity about the Christian life, clarity about Christian ministry, clarity about what it takes to shepherd the church of God.
And we find that clarity in their writings all throughout the New Testament, but specifically, as we’re looking at Colossians, we find that clarity in Paul’s writing, here. What we see in these verses are mature concerns of a tested and seasoned Apostle of Jesus Christ, who is himself a dear shepherd, a shepherd who sets a model, like his Lord before him, for all shepherds.
He follows after the Good Shepherd, follows the pattern of his ministry, and those who are trying to be shepherds and striving to follow in faithfulness, we want to be shepherds like Paul, who’s a shepherd like his Lord. And as a dear shepherd, Paul speaks out of a heart of love about a ministry of love, and it’s a ministry to the heart, a ministry to the heart.
We can organize these five verses according to three imperatives. So I’ll give you three imperatives for your outline. It promotes a ministry of love, one that targets the heart and that strengthens the heart and that protects the heart. Target the heart, strengthen the heart, protect the heart: Those are the three imperatives that’ll be the outline for these verses this morning.
Let’s get to that first imperative, number one, target the heart. And I’m saying it to you as a church because you are to follow the example of your shepherds, who are following the example of Paul, who follows the example of Christ.
So as he follows the Good Shepherd and he sets a pattern for ministry in the church, we shepherds, undershepherds, are trying to follow after that ministry as well. We in our ministry target the heart.
We’re going after you, all of you, the whole of you. We’re concerned about you. We target the heart, and we want to commend that you do the same with one another, that you are not coming on Sunday mornings or coming during the week or any time that you come into the church building, that you’re not coming just to sit and take notes and go home and do nothing about it, but that you are studying as if you’re about to go out to a battlefield, and you’re studying as if you’re going to turn around and equip your fellow soldiers, and you’re going to build them up and encourage them and strengthen them in the faith.
Yours is to be an active ministry, not passive. These chairs don’t need your warmth. They’re to support you while you sit, listen with attention directed to understanding, knowing the truth that you may practice it and then turn around and teach others to do the same.
We are here, pastors, elders, shepherds, to equip you to do the work of the ministry, Ephesians 4:11-12 says. So target the heart in your ministry. Target the heart.
A ministry of love targets the heart as exemplified in verse 1 and then clarified there at the beginning of verse 2. Take a look. “For I want you to understand how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea and for all those who have not seen my face in the flesh, so that their hearts may be encouraged.” Just stop right there.
That’s enough to show both of those elements: the Apostle’s love exemplified, and then the Apostle’s love and the intent of his love clarified. He says, exemplifying his love for these people, who he has never met, and by the way, that kind of by extension puts us into the same category, doesn’t it?
He ministers to churches like ours across the ages because he’s never met us face to face, either. But would he, like he was with the Colossian church, though not present physically, but ministering to them in spirit and being with him in spirit, would he not minister to us in the same way? Is he not ministering to us in the same way, here, as we read this letter out loud? Yeah, he is.
But he says, “I want you to understand how great a struggle I have.” Understand: the verb is eido, so it’s to know. So he says, “I want you to know.” “I want you to know how great a struggle I have.” And it’s, to know, not in the sense of kind of an experiential knowledge, as if he wants them to struggle with him and kind of experience all the feelings that he goes through.
He’s saying, I want you to be mindful of it. I want you to be mindful of my struggle for you. It’s his abiding concern that the Colossians know this, that they be mindful of the fact that he is constantly struggling for them.
This connects with the previous verse, Colossians 1:29, where he says, “I labor, striving”: the verb agonizomai. “I’m agonizing according to His power that works mightily within me.” But believe me, though the power of Christ works within him, he’s feeling every strain of every muscle. He’s feeling it personally, intimately.
He experiences the hunger, the fatigue, the stress. He endures concern like, like the parent of any child. Keeps him up at night, keeps him praying for their spiritual benefit, well-being and protection. And Paul says, I want you to know about that. I want you to know about my ongoing struggle. Present tense means his struggle is constant.
It’s also, as we see here, specific. It’s for the Colossians. It’s for the Laodiceans. It’s for many others who’d never met him, yet, face to face in the flesh, which includes folks like, as Colossians 4:13 says, folks in Hierapolis, which is another city in the Lycus Valley.
So when you say, struggle, what do you mean? What kind of struggle? Specifically, concretely, what is the struggle Paul is referring to, here? Well, for one thing, as we’ve already seen in Colossians 1:9 and following, the struggle is a struggle of unceasing prayer for them.
He says, “We’ve not ceased to pray for you and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” He’s praying for people he’s never even met, and he’s struggling in prayer. He doesn’t use the verb form in Colossians 2:1. He uses agon to speak of the struggle.
Agon actually has a reference to a contest, like an athletic contest, a fight, a struggle, something you train for and work hard at and are strenuously aching over and running hard after and lifting and strengthening and fighting.
Speaking of agon, and I want you to know that he has a struggle in unceasing prayer. Have you ever prayed for somebody that you agonize over it? I would probably bet that for most of us, that’s true, but it’s true about people we know, we have personally met face to face, that we see, we interact with. And so when they go through something deeply difficult and troubling, we can find our way to agonizing in prayer over them.
But what about people we’ve never met? I mean, think about how remarkable this man’s ministry is, his apostleship, how broad and large and deep his heart developed to be, that he would have this kind of agony. I think of Jesus in the garden, praying and sweating, as it were great drops of blood, as he agonized in prayer over his disciples in the garden before his crucifixion.
Here’s Paul following after that model, praying in like manner, the verb striving, agonizomai, same as in verse 29, Colossians 1. Paul says he’s laboring, striving according to his working, and he uses the noun, agon, here, struggle. Prayer is one way he struggles for them.
Another struggle for the Colossians is in his preaching and teaching ministry. And you say, well, if he’d never been there, well, they never benefited from his preaching and teaching ministry.
I beg to differ. He was three years in Ephesus, three years in Ephesus. Epaphras met Paul there in Ephesus. He was training up leaders in Ephesus. He was building a sound, healthy, faithful local church in Ephesus. He’s building a model church, a church that would be a sending church that would build up its own members and become so strong and faithful and well-supplied and well-resourced that it would train others and then send them out.
You know, that’s exactly what happened to Epaphras, probably a businessman from the Lycus Valley, a hundred miles to the east of Ephesus, and in traveling and doing business and conducting business along with probably Philemon as well, these men met Paul in their travels, probably in their business.
They were converted under his ministry. They saw a faithful, healthy local church, how it operated, how it was led, the polity of the church, the function of the church, the purpose of the church.
They benefited from the model that they saw there. They’re trained by the leaders there, influenced. And they took all that they learned right back to the Lycus Valley to evangelize it, plant churches, and make and train disciples to do the work of the ministry there.
Lot of struggle there is, in building a sound, healthy, faithful local church. A lot of pain, a lot of difficulty, a lot of unseen hours of prayer, work, study, meetings, planning, leadership training, a lot of that going on without any of their knowledge out front.
But it’s because of Paul’s labors there and because of his striving and his struggle there that Epaphras and Philemon benefited. The Colossians themselves were beneficiaries of all Paul’s teaching and preaching, along with those in Laodicea, they benefited, too. Many others who never met Paul personally face to face, they benefited, too. So his struggle is an act of love that reached out to them before any of them ever knew who he was.
Speaking of struggle, what about the struggle of enduring persecution for the sake of the gospel. Enduring affliction for the sake of gospel, suffering. Let’s not forget he’s writing from prison. And why is he in prison? Because he was hounded from start to finish in his ministry and all of his travels by his own people, the Jews, and by professing Christians as well, who were influenced by the Jews, people who were stirred up by the Jews and the Judaizing Christians.
All of them stirred up by envy, by jealousy, all maligning him and misrepresenting him and trying to discredit him and trying to make him look like a power-hungry, greedy old man who just is trying to always advocate for himself and make himself and his suffering look worse than it is.
He endured suffering and persecution unjustly. And then even as he’s suffering in, in prison, people are still casting aspersions on him and his ministry and trying to steal his people out from under him.
So prayer, planting and building churches, preaching and teaching, suffering persecution for his efforts. Another form of struggle is the continuing help that he gives to men like Epaphras. That, too, also a struggle. He always stood by, ready to help those who do the work of the ministry. When they come to him, he receives them gladly. He counsels them, teaches them. In this case he writes letters to strengthen them for the fight of shepherding and for the fight of protecting the church. All this is a blessed, glorious struggle. He wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it is a struggle. He does feel it.
So why is Paul so concerned for them to know this about him? Why does he want them to know about his struggles? Is he complaining, here? Is he trying to garner sympathy for his troubles? Is he manipulating them, trying to make them feel bad?
None of that is the case, obviously. Every pastor knows this is evidence of affection. It takes kind of a pastor and someone who does this to kind of see what’s going on, here. He cares for them. He’s demonstrating by writing this and opening up, he’s demonstrating affection. He’s letting them in. He’s drawing them close to him, and he wants them to see him in a more personal light.
So he shows the depth of his own affection for them in what he suffers for them, and he does it because he loves them. He’s not making any money off the Colossian church. He’s in Rome, in prison. They’re in Colossae. He’s never been there.
He’s not benefiting personally in some greed-driven way. He has no covetous desire. There was no Internet back then, so nobody’s posting how difficult things are for him and showing his day-to-day in the jail. He’s not on reality TV and he’s not going to get any deals out of this, this is all affection.
So he wants to show the depth of his own affection for them in hopes that it will awaken and evoke their affection for him. You say, look at him, so greedy. He wants love. He’s just a love-starved guy. No, no, this is real Christianity. It’s all about the relationship between one Christian and another for the glory of Christ.
John Calvin says, “He declares his affection toward them that he may have more credit and authority, for we readily believe those whom we know to be desirous of our welfare. And it’s evidence, here, of no ordinary affection that he was concerned about them in the midst of death, that is, when he was in danger of his life.”
So what’s Calvin saying, there? He’s saying the more intense the suffering, the clearer the evidence that his affection and concern for them was intense and very sincere. And therefore he wants them to know it’s wholeheartedly trustworthy.
Beloved, I say this for no other reason than to help all you soft, believing hearts to know that you have leaders here, pastors, deacons, elders, you have ministers and members at this church who love you, those who struggle for you in prayer, those who minister to you in preaching and in teaching, in administrating, those who struggle and work hard to communicate clearly.
Emails come out and I know what you do if you’re anything like me. Emails come out and you just delete, and then you’re like, I wonder if I should have looked at that. There’s a lot of work that goes into writing clear emails, personally, corporately.
The Colossians themselves were beneficiaries of all Paul’s teaching and preaching, along with those in Laodicea, they benefited, too. ” Travis Allen
A lot of work that goes into leading, making hard decisions, dealing with logistical challenges, shielding the church from hurtful, divisive people, guarding the flock from false teaching, from bad influences that flow in and out of here. And many of you, thankfully, praise be to God, you’re unaware of a lot. And I’m grateful for that.
But no true minister struggles, striving, working hard, no true minister does it for personal credit. But we do seek a higher esteem for the ministers of the church, just as Paul did, to facilitate the good and rightful exercise of lawful authority from Christ, lawful authority that is for your good and for your benefit. As you come under submission to authority to the Word of God and to Christ and to his undershepherds, you benefit from good authority. It’s for the good of church members. It’s for blessing and benefit and gratitude and joy. That is what we’re after. That’s what every true minister wants.
For Paul, after all, it’s not their wallets that are the target. It’s not their applause. It’s not the likes, the shares, the clicks that any true minister is after. As we said, the target is the heart. And note the purpose clause in verse 2, “so that,” hina, purpose clause, “in order that their hearts may be encouraged.” Strong, encouraged hearts, that’s why we labor, that’s why we struggle. That’s what we’re after, strong, encouraged hearts.
Now I need to pause at this point and address a very important question. What does it mean by the heart? What’s that? Most people today, when they talk about the heart, they’re referring to their emotions, to their feelings. That’s not the biblical use of the term kardia, heart, or leb in the Old Testament. It’s not the term. The Bible does have a word specifically to refer to the feelings, splanchna. Isn’t that a beautiful word? Splanchna.
Maybe it doesn’t sound too pleasing to the ear, but in translation it comes across much better, mercies, tender mercies, compassion, affection. That word splanchna is very feelings oriented. Splanchna means inward parts, the guts. Entrails is really another term.
Or my favorite is the King James reading, bowels. The King James Version speaks of “bowels of mercy,” “bowels of compassion.” Growing up in church as a little kid, that’s when I woke up. I’m like, what? Bowels? So biblically speaking, a movement of the bowels is a stirring up of the affections, feelings of tenderness and compassion. Look, I just want you to think biblically, okay, even about your bowels.
And the word, heart, that is not the locus of the feelings only. There’s affection, there, in the heart, but the heart is first and foremost the center of thinking, reasoning, choosing, deciding. The heart is the control center that drives the entire doing of life.
Biblically speaking, the heart has three component parts, three constituent parts: the intellectual part, the affectional part, and the volitional part. So the mind, the emotions, and the will, biblically speaking, those are the three components of the heart, the three constituent parts of the heart.
We think with the mind, intellectually apprehending and then understanding and comprehending the truth. We’re assenting to its truthfulness, to its veracity. The intellectual part, the mind, comes to understand truth by the words that are used and the meaning of the words and understanding and interpretation, and then assenting to that truth, calling it true, believing it to be true. You think with the mind. That’s the intellectual aspect.
And then we’re affected by the truth. We’re not neutral. We’re affected. We have an affinity for what is taught, or in some cases, when what is taught is a negative thing, a sin and evil thing, what’s taught, there, we have an antipathy for that thing. We react to what we know to be true. We love or we hate; we like or we dislike. Whatever the truth reveals about that thing, we’re not neutral about it. We’re not apathetic. Our affections are stirred in some measure.
And finally, we respond to the truth. We must respond to the truth with a will. We volitionally move in one direction or another, but we do not stay static. The truth moves us. It has a dynamic effect on us. It propels us forward toward greater righteousness, holiness. Truth causes us to make choices, to live in accordance with the truth.
Now take all that back to what Paul has said, here. When Paul says, “so that their hearts may be encouraged,” now we understand that the heart is the mind, the affections, the will, and this is expanding for us what he’s meaning, here.
Ministry is for encouraging, or let’s substitute the word, which we can do validly, the word, strengthening. Ministry is about strengthening the mind and strengthening the affections and strengthening the will.
There are churches and ministries, pastors and teachers out there who target only one of these three aspects of the heart. Many today target the emotions. They stir the passions. They think that they exist to affirm people’s feelings, and they use the term encouragement to speak about that. If people feel better, well, I’ve done my job in encouraging them.
They think encouragement is about making people feel good about themselves, good about their choices, good about their decisions. They wouldn’t dare do anything to upset their feelings.
Some ministries do nothing but target the will. They call people to action, mobilize people. They do very little for the mind. And yes, the emotions are useful tools to affect them in the moment, driving them to some action by some unthoughtful but passionate response to be activists.
But nothing, really, since the mind is unaffected and the intellect is unchanged, nothing lasts over the long haul. The mind isn’t fed. The reason is not engaged. Pastors in these type of churches serve like coaches, not shepherds; maybe more like politicians or community leaders rather than teachers, shepherds, pastors.
Others target the mind only, expositing Bible passages, but never warming up the affections, never giving any exhortation to challenge the will. They certainly, in churches like this, stay far from admonition lest they risk offending people.
There are pastors today, even so-called expository preachers these days, I’m sad to say, they’re able to stay quite safe, drawing plenty of people into their churches because they can explain Bible texts, and the more good preaching, like John MacArthur’s preaching and others that’s put online, the more they can just cut and paste, cut and paste, cut and paste. The more AI becomes a thing for pastors to use in sermon preparation, the more they can just have AI spit out a sermon for them that’s basically expositorily faithful.
So it makes people feel informed without ever disturbing their peace, without ever troubling them because, by telling them they’re wrong, by telling them that they’re sinning, by telling them that they can’t stay the way they are, but they must change. That’s not faithful.
It’s exposed when Paul tells Timothy to “reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.” But don’t forget the first part: the commands “reprove, rebuke, and exhort.”
Paul’s apostolic ministry sets a pattern for all church ministry by targeting the heart. So all our ministry efforts should target the heart, to encourage it, biblically encourage it, to strengthen it, to strengthen the mind, the affections, and the will.
Those who do not follow this ministry pattern, who are not targeting all three constituent parts of the heart, well, they’re not being faithful to this pattern, are they? And that’s what we can pray for whenever we see that. Don’t condemn. Pray. Long for greater faithfulness, a more comprehensive, fuller apostolic ministry.
So if a ministry of love targets the heart, how do we hit that target? Let’s come to the second imperative, number two, strengthen the heart, strengthen the heart. A ministry of love strengthens the heart.
And Paul unpacks this in verse 2. There’s a participle of means that follows his first “so that your hearts may be encouraged.” There’s a participle of means that comes after that, explains what strengthening your heart looks like.
He says, “I want you to know of my struggle for you along with all those I’ve never met so that their hearts may be encouraged,” and then this, “having been held together in love even unto all the wealth of the full assurance of understanding and to the full knowledge of God’s mystery, that is Christ.”
Let me just simplify that a little bit. What encouragement looks like, what strength is all about, is being unified in love and then striving together for full assurance and full knowledge of Christ. That’s basically what he’s saying in verse 2.
Now verses 2 and into verse 3 explain what he means by encouragement, and it further elaborates the purpose of his ministry. So a ministry of love that targets the heart in each constituent part of the heart will strengthen the heart in each constituent part of the heart. Sounds like a Doctor Seuss riddle or something.
So first, strengthening the heart is a functioning of unity in love. Strengthening the heart is a function of unity in love. He says, “having been held together in love,” or, I like this translation, “knit together in love.”
We start and end with unity and love. Here’s why I prefer “knit together” rather than “held together.” I think “held together,” in my mind, it sounds like something that’s externally imposed on them or forced upon them; whereas I kind of see the idea of “knit together,” it kind of conveys a weaving together idea, which is more internal and provides a greater cohesion.
After all, the love of God by the Spirit was planted within us, Romans chapter 5, and that’s what, heart-to-heart, person-to-person, knits us together in love. It’s internal. It’s not externally imposed, externally reinforced, encouraged, taught. But really we’re drawn to this. True Christians are drawn to love one another like this. So I like knit together.
Now for those who are young in the faith, the little children, in John’s affectionate expression, it’s vital that they draw near to learn all that they can, to nestle into the church, drink deeply of the truth, learn the truth. They need to strengthen, to reinforce their new-found faith, knowing that God the father is now God their father.
The little children in the faith need to instruct their believing intellect, to keep on informing their reasoning so that they know and understand the truth. They need to reflect on the truth that they’ve come to understand so that it affects them, warms their hearts, grips their emotions, and then propels and directs their will to make good choices, to de-habituate bad things that they learned in their unbelieving background, and then habituate good discipline, self-control.
There’s nothing quite like taking a younger Christian, one of these little children, and discipling them. Such a privilege, isn’t it, as an older Christian to show a newer Christian around, to kind of expose them to the truth and help them to discover new things, new doctrines, learn all that God has given to us in Christ and given to them.
Now for those who are young men in the faith, zealous for truth, zealous for righteousness, eager to fight battles, cross blades with the enemy, slay dragons of lust, topple idols, mortify the flesh, they need to see the point in all of this.
Young men need to see that the study of the truth and the strengthening of the intellect and the growing in the knowledge and the understanding and fighting the fight, it’s not about winning arguments. It’s not about showing yourself to be greater than the other. It’s not about showing yourself to be smarter, more informed, better read. It’s not about parading your intellect.
Young men, one of the last idols to topple in a young man’s heart is the idol of self. When I say young men, I include you women, too, but it’s mostly a young men thing. It’s not about winning arguments. It’s about loving people.
F. F. Bruce says, “Over and against all those who try to intellectualize the Christian faith, speaking of knowledge or gnosis as if it were an end in itself, Paul emphasizes the revelation of God cannot be properly known apart from the cultivation of brotherly love within the community.” Amen to that.
Young men, hear the Apostle, “Knowledge puffs up.” By that he means knowledge and knowledge alone, knowledge for knowledge’s sake. “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.” It builds up, it strengthens. Knowledge is needful, yeah, absolutely. It’s essential. But knowledge is not an end in and of itself. It’s for a purpose. As Paul writes in the next chapter, Colossians 3:14, “Beyond all things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Love. So if we’re to pursue a ministry of love modeled after that of the Apostle Paul, we start and end with unity in love.
Second, strengthening the heart means we’re to strive together for full assurance. Back to verse 2, he says it’s “unto all the the wealth,” or the word is riches, ploutos, “unto all the wealth of the full assurance of understanding.”
So the idea of striving, where you say, where does that come from? It comes from the preposition which is eis. It’s, unto, which here is showing, with the accusative, here, showing purpose. So this is what we’re striving together for. We, we come into all the riches. We strive until we attain to all the benefits of the full assurance of understanding.
Again, notice the aspects of the heart, understanding, have to do with our mind and our intellect. Full assurance, the result of sound reasoning from faith, believing the truth, knowing and understanding the truth, reasoning from the truth so that we’re fully assured in the truth, and we stand confidently in the truth.
So what riches do they come to enjoy? Well, when they’re fully assured, that means they’re confident before God, they can “draw near to the throne of grace at any time to find help in their time of need.”
What else? When they’re fully assured and confident before God, they rest assured in God’s fatherly protection, in his loving care. Hearts are full of gratitude; they’re joyful in trial and suffering.
When they’re fully assured, confident before God, they can draw near to Christ, benefit from his high-priestly ministry, be guided by his Spirit, taught from his Word, comforted by his love. Hearts that understand the truth are hearts that are confident and fully assured in the truth.
Experience anxiety, fears, restlessness, apprehension about the future, foreboding, worry? Here’s the secret. It’s about the truth getting in you, settling your heart and your mind, fully assuring you, making you confident so that you can draw from all the riches and the wealth of your God in Christ.
We enter into a lifetime of discovering just how rich we are, how much wealth we really have inherited. There are ever-increasing degrees of contentment that bring joy and satisfaction and gratitude and simply make us unfazed by any trouble that comes to us in this life.
So strengthening the heart is about unity and love. It’s about striving together for full assurance; and then this, third, strengthening the heart means striving together for the full knowledge of Christ.
And with this, Paul is getting to the very heart of the whole section. It’s really the very heart of the whole letter. Takes us back to the high Christology of Colossians 1:15-20 that we’ve been through. But take a look at that, there in verse 2b through 3, “Unto the full knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
There’s some debate among commentators about the reason for Paul’s choice of certain words in that section. We know he uses language that came to characterize the Gnostics. You can find it there, and find that in later Gnostic writings, they use these same terms: full knowledge, epignosis; mystery, mysterion; hidden, apokryphos. You hear the word, apocrypha, there that’s where it comes from, means hidden. Wisdom, knowledge; sophia, sunesis.
The question then becomes for these commentators is, did Paul borrow these terms from the proto-Gnostics, that is, these people, here, who aren’t full-fledged Gnostics, those who would come in the second century, but really were their forebears, those troubling the Colossians? Is he using their language, putting it here? Or is there some other reason that he chose these words?
Clearly, Paul knew the nature of the false teaching that was enticing the Colossians, the Laodiceans, troubling the people of the Lycus Valley. He’s not ignorant of that. Epaphras actually came to visit Paul in prison in Rome to get his help to combat all this. And so, obviously, he’s going to hear the language that they’re using, hear the nature of their enticements and their false teaching. Epaphras came to learn to be a better pastor to his church so he could go back and protect them from the threats.
So Paul hears that language. Obviously he knows what’s at stake, what language is being used. And the Gnostics, for their part, or the proto-Gnostics, this incipient form of gnosticism here in the Lycus Valley, it did portray true knowledge as an esoteric, hidden, secret knowledge.
And they flattered men in their pride, enticing them that by their personal individual effort, by their superior reason, by their wisdom, by their smarts, by their gifts, they, too, could find the keys to that hidden knowledge if they kind of followed their program. And they would move upward, level by level, back to the divine where they really belong. Well, there’s nothing like that. That’s a pretty powerful flattery to the pride of a man or a woman.
Paul’s certainly, then, not unaware. False teachers are using this kind of language, and they’re promising Christians a fuller knowledge of Christ, promising to introduce them to deeper truths and raise them to more sublime mysteries than they’ve ever heard before, unveil hidden secret things that lead them to true knowledge and true wisdom.
to engage a ministry of love, three imperatives, target the heart, strengthen the heart, protect the heart.” Travis Allen
And so Paul, yes, he knew that by using these words, here, he would be hitting some nerves. In fact, he’d probably be confronting and exposing some in these churches who were sinning, who were being enticed. They’re in the process of being led astray, maybe even becoming troubling to their own church.
Still, that’s, I believe, not why he used this language. Sure, the effect on some was in some measure intentional, but in view of his larger purpose, his pastoral purpose, I believe it was incidental and secondary to his greater purpose.
Paul has a greater pastoral purpose, here, in writing and using this language, to edify and encourage. It’s just what he said; he’s consistent with what he’s actually said. He wants to strengthen the Colossians in Christ, and he’s not merely trying to combat false doctrine, here. He does do that. He’s about to do that straightaway and beginning in earnest in verse 8.
But his higher aim is to establish the Colossian believers in Christ firmly. And in fact, look at verses 6 and 7. We’re not going to get to those today, but next time. He says, “Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in HHim.” Keep walking in him. “You’ve been firmly rooted and are being built up in Him.” You’ve been established in your faith. So “just as you were instructed,” you’re, “abounding with thanksgiving.”
And basically, he’s making the point, why do you want to trouble that? If that is accomplished, all that in your life, why would you depart? Why would you let your eyes flit to the left and to the right and see what else is out there? Don’t do that. He wants to strengthen them in Christ.
So if Paul’s intentional to take his language from anywhere, where would it be from? Scripture. By using Scripture, he’s building for his hearers a continuity between what they’ve heard before in their reading of the Old Testament and what they’re hearing from him.
You know, biblical people, they like that kind of continuity. I like that continuity. I like to be able to say things, and you’re like, hey, wait. I think that’s said in Colossians. I think that’s said in Genesis. I’ll lace my sermons without citing references to Scripture. I’m putting Scripture in there, and I just want to see who comes up and says, hey, did that come from Numbers? Yeah, it did. I’d love to hear that.
So Paul’s going to take his language from anywhere. It’s to show continuity with the Bible. And so by doing that, he’s using language that predates the Gnostic or proto-Gnostic movements. It predates all the mystery religions. It predates the Jewish-influenced philosophies that are all found and woven into the Pagans and the Greeks.
Earlier in our service, we may in fact have been reading from Paul’s source material. You can, if you’d like to, turn back to Proverbs chapter 2, and you can track with me. Credit Douglas Moo for making this connection, for drawing this out. I think that’s very helpful.
He points to the language coming out of Colossians 2:2-3 as coming from Proverbs 2:1-8. Solomon writes in Proverbs 2:1,
“My son, if you’ll receive my words and treasure my commandments within you.” The word, treasure, there, translates also in other texts, store up, or hide; krypsis in the Septuagint of Proverbs 2:1, or apocryphas, hidden, in Colossians 2.3.
Proverbs 2:2 says, “To make your ear pay attention to wisdom.” That’s sophia in Colossians 2:3. “To incline your heart to discernment.” Your heart, kardia, the chief target for strengthening, Colossians 2:2.
In Proverbs 2:3, he says, “If you call out for understanding,” again, sophia; “give your voice for discernment,” there’s sunesis, that’s Colossians 2:2 again. Those terms are there.
Proverbs 2:4, “If you seek for her as silver, search for her as for hidden treasures,” that term is found in Colossians 2:3, fascinating word that Paul uses in Colossians 2:3, treasures, thesauros. It’s where we get our word, thesaurus.
What’s a thesaurus? I imagine I have to say this for many who live in the Internet age. A thesaurus is a book. It’s a thick book, a very scary-looking thick book for those in the digital age.
And you think, what is that for? It’s like a, so you know what a dictionary is? Dictionary, big thick book with words and you look up these words. You’re not going to find, like, “lol” or anything like that in there. You’re going to find, like, real words we use, like not texting to each other, but actual, like words I’m using right now. You’ll find those in a dictionary, and there’s meanings after them, sometimes several nuances of words we use. Very helpful tool back in the day.
And then there’s another companion volume called a thesaurus. And a thesaurus is a lovely book filled with synonyms of words. Okay, what’s a synonym? Well, you go back to that dictionary and you look it up, and you find it’s a word that kind of means the same thing. An antonym is, like, you take a word and it’s, you find its opposite. So the antonym of error is truth. Okay, lesson over.
A thesaurus, then, is a treasure trove for writers. It’s, it is a, the love of every wordsmith, and perhaps you’ve found online repositories of dictionary and thesaurus. I understand that. I use it, too.
But thesauros is found here, Proverbs 2:4, “If you seek her as silver and search for her as for,” thesauros, “hidden treasures.” Paul speaks of “Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures,” thesauros, a full book.
We read on in Proverbs 2:5-7, find more familiar words, “and you will understand the fear of Yahweh, find the knowledge of God, for Yahweh gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and discernment.” Man, just over and over he’s using these words. It comes out in Colossians.
“He stores up sound wisdom for the upright,” stores up again. This is the verb thesaurizo, related to, again, to thesauros. “He’s a shield to those who walk in integrity, to guard the paths of justice, keeps the way of His holy ones.” Benefits of all that Paul’s talking about, here.
So no doubt Paul, being thoroughly, deeply biblical in his thinking and his speaking and his writing and his use of language, it’s this wisdom literature, where he sees Christ personified but predicted and pointed to in all the wisdom literature. And this wisdom literature, open, available for anyone who cared to take up and read, available for any Gentile who cared to go and hear in a Jewish synagogue and listen.
It’s never hidden, secret, esoteric knowledge available only to a select elite like the false teachers were teaching. Rather, Proverbs 1 verse 20, “Wisdom shouts in the streets. She gives forth her voice in the square and at the head of the noisy streets. She calls out at the entrance of the gates of the city. She utters her sayings. ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love simplicity, and scoffers delight in scoffing, and fools hate knowledge?’” Don’t do that. “‘Turn to my reproof and behold, I’ll pour out my spirit on you. I’ll make my words known to you.’”
Oh, wisdom has been available since the foundation of the world, divine wisdom available, widely available to all. So why have so few found it then? If it’s so available, why do Gnostic cults peddling the secret, esoteric knowledge stuff, why do they have such success? What makes this false religion such a hot market? Why do so many people buy what they’re selling?
Well, we have to keep reading in Proverbs 1 because wisdom continues her little speech. “‘I called and you refused. I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention, and you neglected all my counsel. You weren’t willing to accept.’”
There’s the issue. The will is the problem, the will that’s corrupt and fallen, plagued with sin. It darkens the understanding, and it distorts and twists and perverts the affections. That’s the issue.
“‘You weren’t willing to accept my reproof. And so I’m going to laugh at your disaster. I’m going to mock when your dread comes. When your dread comes like a storm, your disaster comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they’ll call on me, but I’m not going to answer. They’ll seek me earnestly, but they won’t find me because they hated knowledge and they did not choose the fear of Yahweh.’”
We could keep on reading in Proverbs chapter 1. You find these themes all through the wisdom literature, but that very last verse says it all, “They did not choose the fear of Yahweh.” Going back to Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.” So no fear of God, no knowledge, no wisdom, no understanding.
We can take that back to Colossians 2 verse 3. For these Gentiles, ignorant fools who despise wisdom and discipline, Proverbs 1:7 says the love of God in Christ has come to them. Colossians have been blessed and benefited by a kind grace and mercy of God, who saw them as ignorant, fools, scoffers, mockers, and instead of crushing them, he sent them Christ.
And so what was once a mystery, and what was hidden for them from them, locked away in a vault, never to be opened up because they lacked the key, they didn’t have the fear of God, well, now in Christ, God has given them an incredible gift.
By the Spirit, he’s opened their hearts to the gospel. And by opening their hearts and taking out their old nature and giving them a new nature, all of a sudden that new nature fears God. That new nature has eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to, to fear God, understand, listen, heed, and obey.
Paul made plain in Colossians 1:15-20, there is no one like him, no one like Christ. And so he would have them study Christ, to learn who he is, what he’s like, worship him, be fully satisfied in him for all the wisdom of the law and the prophets, all the wisdom of King Solomon himself. “In him,” Colossians 2:3, “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Jesus himself said it. Luke 11:31, “‘The queen of the south will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Behold, something greater than Solomon is here.’” Christ is the thesauros. He’s the treasure book. He contains all wisdom, all knowledge of the infinite God of heaven.
And this is why a ministry of love targets the heart, because it’s with the heart that one learns to fear God, that one believes God, receives his gospel, and trusts in Jesus Christ. This is why a ministry of love aims at strengthening the heart, knit together in Christ and his love, striving together to enjoy all the riches of the full assurance of understanding and the full knowledge of God’s mystery Christ, who is a storehouse of treasure of wisdom and knowledge.
We have time for one final point, just a very brief point about a ministry of love, and I just want to say this because this wouldn’t be complete without addressing this, but we will get into more of this theme in the weeks to come because that’s really the nature of the coming weeks, is to address the threats to the Colossian church.
But to engage a ministry of love, three imperatives, target the heart, strengthen the heart. Third imperative, protect the heart, protect the heart. A ministry of love protects the heart. A true shepherd who shares the heart of the Apostle Paul will share this same concern for all Christians, really, but especially the ones in close proximity to him. Colossians 2:4, “I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.”
What Paul has written, he’s written with the purpose of seeing that the Colossians not be led astray. And this brings us really to the occasion of the letter and the, the point of writing the letter, to see that they’re protected from any insidious, influential, deceptive enticements.
As I said, we’re going to have a lot more to say about this in weeks to come, so I’m just going to keep these comments brief. But to be deluded, here, by persuasive argument, it really happens to those who aren’t well-grounded in the truth in the first place.
The term, deluded, is paralogizomai. We get a common philosophical term from that verb. It’s paralogism, which is a philosophical term for a fallacious argument, one that sounds good on its face, but it violates principles of valid reasoning. It violates aspects of formal logical deduction.
And there are those who are immature in the faith and don’t know it, but they imagine themselves to be stronger than they really are. But they really are like little children, Ephesians 4:14, they’re “tossed to and fro by the waves.” They’re “blown about by winds of doctrine,” but they don’t think they are.
They’re not satisfied with simple faith in Christ. They’re not content. They’re always looking for something more and something better, and so they chase fads and fancies and speculations. They’re like the little kid who says, “I can do it all by myself.” And they really can’t.
It’s the shiny-object syndrome, always chasing after the next fad, always intrigued by some speculative theology, something that promises to be more robust. They follow the latest influencers on YouTube, Substack, or whatever platform it is, all those people who say they’re asking the important questions, you know, the ones that the establishment authority, they don’t dare to ask, but I’m asking them because I just don’t care anymore. I’m just a truth-seeker, a fact-finder. They’re going to wake up one day to realize they’ve been carried off by the trickery of men and by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
The immature and unstable are like that. They’re susceptible to delusion by specious arguments because they sound so good, emphasizes persuasiveness, plausibility; arguments on their face, seem so right.
So maybe you think to yourself, well, how can I as a Christian then have confidence I’m not going to be deluded, persuaded? I mean, if it seems right on its surface, what hope is there for me? I mean, I work ten hours a day, five-six days a week, trying to earn a living. I’m a mom at home, raising kids, how am I ever going to stand up to any of this?
Well, this brings us to verse 5, which is, this is the good stuff right here, Paul’s fundamental confidence about these Colossians. He’s basically saying, look, I’m not worried about you. I’m going to give you my concerns, and I’m going to try to strengthen and solidify and stabilize your faith in Christ and tell you don’t go anywhere. You’ve got the good stuff. I’m going to tell you all that. But I, I’m going to tell you, I think you’re true believers. You’re true believers.
And he’s not confident in the Colossians themselves per se. It’s not as if he’s like, you know what? You’re like, made of different stock over here in the Lycus Valley. You’re not like those coastal dwellers on the west, left coasts of Ephesus, all those people who love the sun and fun. No, you’re here in the Lycus Valley, made of stern stuff, salt-of-the-earth kind of people. You’re going to see through this.
That’s not what he’s saying. In fact, he’s writing a letter, because they are being deceived, or some of them are. His confidence is actually in the true faith that they possess, which is not of their own doing. It’s the grace of God.
But God is going to use the grace and the gift that he gave them of true, saving faith to hold them fast. Because true, saving faith, it meets every constituent part of the heart: the mind or the intellect, the will or the volition, and the emotion of the affection. True, saving faith addresses all three, and ministers to all three, and strengthens all three, and holds all three. Lacking any one of those three, it’s not true saving faith.
But Paul says, verse 5, “Even though I’m absent in the body, nevertheless, I’m with you in spirit. I’m rejoicing to see your good order and the stability of your faith in Christ.” He’s physically absent, but by his active and persistent interest in them, and by the detailed and vivid reports that come from Epaphras about them, and through his constant prayers for them, which includes much thanksgiving, Colossians 1:3-8 speaks of the genuineness of their faith that he gives thanks for.
And now, by means of the very letter that he has written to them, Paul, though he is not with them physically, he is with them in spirit. He’s there, he’s among them. His influence is felt. Paul is ultimately not worried that they will drift aimlessly into some false teaching.
From the start, he rejoices even before he addressed any concern of influence coming into their church. From the start, he rejoices to see their good order and the stability, the steadfastness of their faith in Christ.
Look, this is a relatively young church, but they are nevertheless a serious-minded church. They’re orderly, and they’re orderly and disciplined for the sake of giving the truth an unobstructed hearing, to give the truth its say without any distraction, not allowing in the church any competing or rival interest. That’s what good order and discipline in a church does it provides. It’s a protection, it’s a safeguard to put truth on display.
Because the Colossian leaders, which include Epaphras, they’re going to let the truth have its say. They’re going to work and ensure that that happens. They’re going to ensure an orderly environment. They’re going to oversee a disciplined body.
They’re going to even practice church discipline and excommunicate those who are divisive and troublemakers and rebellious, because they are in the end, after protecting the hearts of their people, they want to see a well-ordered stable church in Christ, its members protected in this safe environment of good order and stability.
So the outlook for this Colossian church is really good. Even as Paul is going to turn his attention to demolishing this false teaching that’s come to trouble them and test them, the outlook is great.
As he writes, addressing false doctrine, he’s beginning with this encouragement, and really he wants to sow that all the way through, to note their good order and the stability of their faith in Christ. And why does he do this? Why does he work so hard at writing it this way? Again, he loves them. This is a ministry of love.
Grace Church, with all my heart I’m pleased to say the same thing about you. Unlike Paul, I’m present, not absent. I’m with you in body and in spirit. And like Paul, I, too, am rejoicing to see your good order and your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.
So can I just encourage you? Keep on targeting the heart, beloved. Don’t be afraid. Target the heart. In your ministry of love for one another, target the heart, and keep strengthening the heart in each of its constituent parts: mind, will, emotion.
And be sure to protect the heart, your heart, and the heart of others around you. Danger is always lurking out there. Trouble is always at the doorstep. The devil is always prowling about, seeking whom he may devour.
You know who he devours? It’s kind of like wolves at the edge of an elk herd. It goes after the, the diseased, the sickly, the straying, the wandering, those who aren’t in our midst very much. He goes after them as prey.
Draw them close, beloved. Love them. Target the heart, strengthen the heart, protect the heart. I’m grateful to God that I see the good order of your faith and the stability of your faith in Christ. Let’s give thanks for that.
Our Father, we do bow before you and give thanks. We love you so much. We see what you have done for us in sending this savior, this kind of a savior, who comes in the flesh, who is your very glory tabernacling among us. He comes in a person, a unique one-of-a-kind person, Son of God, Son of man, human nature and divine nature joined together, inseparable. No one like him.
But he does come in humanity with a face that we can see, a body we can touch and embrace. And one day we, all those who are believing, will be able to do just that. We long for him, we love him, we see his glory and his beauty, his goodness, his truth all unfolded in the pages of Scripture.
And we want to be like him. We want everybody to know about him. We want everybody to be conformed to his image. And so will you please help us with that very thing, that we would be ministers after the heart in the ministry of the Apostle Paul, a ministry of love that targets, strengthens, and protects the heart. Please protect us, strengthen us, and conform our hearts to the heart of Christ himself. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen.