Paul's last words, as always, refer to the Lord's abiding grace and thus ends this

precious epistle, a wonderful balance to the Ephesian letter, with its stress on `working

out' in practice what God has so wonderfully `worked in', with a view to the prize in

connection with the `high calling of God in Christ Jesus'. May we all participate in this

`working out' day by day.

In the first century, Colossae was an ancient but declining commercial centre, situated

in Phrygia on the south bank of the River Lycus, a tributary of the Maeander, about 100

miles eastward from Ephesus, near the cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis. The Christian

message was evidently introduced there during Paul's Ephesian ministry (Acts 19: 5)

possibly through the faithful witness of Epaphras (cp. Col. 1: 7; 4: 12). Within 5 years

the Apostle was a prisoner at Rome, waiting to have his case heard by the Emperor, to

whom he had appealed. He was free to receive visitors, and among them Epaphras, who

gave Paul up to date news of the churches in that area. The question as to whether any

of his prison letters were written from an imprisonment at Caesarea or Ephesus rather

than Rome has been dealt with in the introduction to the epistle to the Philippians (see

Volume XLV, p.192).

Although there was much for which to thank God, one disquieting feature was the

introduction at Colossae of teaching which, although outwardly appearing very spiritual,

actually dethroned the Lord Jesus Christ from His unique place of having the

preeminence in all things. It was a sort of pre-gnosticism combining Jewish and Greek

elements which later developed more fully in the second century and it was to combat

this error that the epistle to the Colossians was written. From its contents it is obviously a

companion to the epistle to the Ephesians, and although some of the same ground is

covered, yet it has its own distinct message with its central section of warning.

With the Colossian letter we must also link that to Philemon written at the same time

and both were delivered by Tychicus and Onesimus, the runaway slave (4: 3, 7-9;

Philemon 12).  As to which was written first with regard to Ephesians and Colossians,

we do not elaborate, as it does not affect the doctrine of the epistles. Some expositors

think that Colossians was the prior letter, but that they were written within a short time of

each other there seems no doubt.

As regards the heresy which had developed at Colossae, we only have the internal

evidence of the epistle to reconstruct it. It evidently combined Judaism with a stress on

legal ordinances such as circumcision, food prohibitions, and the times of feasts of the

sabbath and the new moon. Combined with this was a Gentile philosophy which dealt

with the spirit world. A large place was made for angels, who had figured so largely in