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COLOSSIANS, LETTER TO THE

A NT letter presenting itself as a communication from Paul and Timothy to Christians in Colossae, a significant city in the Lycus Valley, ca. 195 km. (120 mi.) E of Ephesus (Col. 1:1-2). It implies that the church there was never visited by Paul but founded by one of his associates, a certain Epaphras (1:7-8; 4:12). References to other Christian leaders in 4:7-17 (such as Tychichus, Onesimus, Mark, Barnabas, Luke, and Nympha) offer a lively picture of the importance of personal contacts and friendships in the Pauline churches (including congregations founded by Paul’s associates and disciples). Colossians is also an official communication to a Christian community, and the writer requests (commands?) that it be read in the church there and also in the Laodicean church; he further instructs the Colossians to read “the letter from Laodicea” (presumably one written by himself). One motive for the writing of Colossians is a desire to repudiate vigorously a false religious position which may tempt the addressees (2:8-23). The letter’s forceful teaching about soteriology and ethics is meant to provide a sound alternative to this false position.

The vocabulary and syntax of Colossians show similarities to the undisputed Pauline letters, notably Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, and Galatians. Many sentences, however, are comparatively long, with pleonastic expressions, and these features seem to distinguish the style of Colossians from that of Paul’s undisputed letters. The general tone of the letter is less personal and more formal than that found in many of the undisputed Pauline letters. Like Romans and Ephesians, Colossians offers a clear structural division between a main section focused on doctrine and one centered on exhortation. In its attack on false “philosophy,” Colossians has a special affinity to Galatians; in regard to the church leaders mentioned by name, it is very close to Philemon; in theological ideas and phraseology, it is extraordinarily similar to Ephesians (most scholars think the author of Ephesians was directly and heavily dependent on Colossians).

The authorship of Colossians has been debated since the first half of the 19th century, and a large number of critical scholars today consider it deutero-Pauline. Eduard Schweizer proposes that Timothy actually composed it, while Paul was in prison under conditions that made it impossible for the apostle to write the entire letter himself but may have allowed him to add the concluding greeting. Some scholars, however, continue to maintain that Paul directly wrote the letter. The syntax of Colossians, some of its theological ideas (Christ as head of the Church; primary emphasis on realized eschatology), and some of the ways in which Paul is described (the sufferings of Paul as “completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” [1:24]) make it very doubtful that Paul himself was the author. Yet the influence of Colossians on Ephesians is probably easier to explain if the letter was generally thought in the early Church to have been the work of Paul. If Paul did write Colossians, he probably did so near the end of his life, soon after composing Philemon. If Colossians was written by another in Paul’s name, it must have been composed within a decade or two of his death (Ephesians, which seems to depend on Colossians, can hardly be later than about 90). The place of origin is unknown, though Ephesus and Rome are likely possibilities.

Aside from the polemic in 2:8-23, there is little argument. Most of the letter takes the form of concise assertions and injunctions, apparently expressing “previously coined and fixed views and concepts” (Gunther Bornkamm). At least in the “hymn” of 1:15-20 and the “table of household duties” in 3:18–4:1, Colossians evidently relies on authoritative traditional church materials. In contrast to a number of other Pauline letters, Colossians nowhere stresses the authority of Jewish Scriptures (there are no OT quotations, and very few allusions). Perhaps this is because the presumed Colossian readers are overwhelmingly gentile (cf. 1:27), but it also probably reflects the fact that the “false teaching” assailed in 2:8-23 has at least some Jewish features. The writer variously assumes and asserts the authority of Paul, “absent in body but present in spirit” (2:5). All his ministerial labors are on behalf of believers like the Colossians, and those labors (and teachings) are inspired by God (1:25-29).

The exact nature of the false teaching is not very clear, though Colossians suggests that its advocates called it a “philosophy” and emphasized “the elemental spirits of the universe,” visions and worship of (or alongside) angels, the observance of special festivals (including sabbaths), and certain ritual and ascetic regulations (including circumcision and the avoidance of certain foods). Many modern scholars have tried to identify the teaching more precisely, linking it with pagan mystery cults (Martin Dibelius), Gnosticism (Bornkamm), or apocalyptic Judaism (Fred O. Francis). Others have urged that the “false teaching” is not Christian at all, but simply a form of diaspora Judaism (Morna Hooker, James D. G. Dunn). A sizable Jewish population is known to have existed in the area of Colossae in the 1st century.

Christology is at the heart of Colossians. The chief accusation against the “false teaching” is that it is not based on Christ and does not hold fast to him as head of the Church. The Holy Spirit is hardly mentioned (1:8), but God is emphasized often as Father of Jesus and Christians and the ultimate source of creation and salvation. Christ is the image of God, the one through whom and for whom God created all things. All the fullness (Gk. plḗrōma) of God dwells in Christ. His redemptive work has cosmic and universal results, though these are known at present only in the Church (his body). The ontological orientation of the christology recalls, and may be dependent on, Hellenistic Jewish concepts of Wisdom and the divine Word (Logos). Special emphasis is placed on Jesus’ saving death, which reconciled all things in heaven and earth to God and simultaneously constituted a victory over hostile spiritual forces allied with a legal bond threatening sinners (2:13-15). The present and future life of believers is one of participation in Christ: their present existence is “hidden” in him, and their bond with him assures future glory (1:27; 3:3-4).

The ethical teaching in 3:5–4:6 is grounded in the claim that Christians have received a new nature through dying and rising with Christ (presumably in baptism). They must “become what they already are” by giving up all sinful inclinations and practices and “putting on” a radically new selfhood marked by purity, love, and mutual forgiveness. Christ lives in them, and they are apparently all spiritual equals (3:10-11). Nonetheless, in 3:18–4:1 the duties of believers are described in relation to household positions (wives-husbands, children-parents, slaves-masters): inferiors are taught to obey, and superiors to command, everyone needing to bear in mind their common subjection to a heavenly Lord. The author deliberately affirms a hierarchical moral code that would not outwardly disturb ordinary Jewish and pagan sensibilities, but prefaces it with an egalitarian love ethic which could transform or at least make more tolerable “worldly” patterns of authority and submission.

Bibliography. C. E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism. WUNT 2/77 (Tübingen, 1995); J. E. Crouch, The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haustafel. FRLANT 109 (Göttingen, 1972); J. D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. NIGTC (Grand Rapids, 1996); F. O. Francis and W. A. Meeks, Conflict at Colossae. SBLSBS 4 (Missoula, 1973); A. T. Lincoln and A. J. M. Wedderburn, The Theology of the Later Pauline Letters (Cambridge, 1993); E. Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians (Minneapolis, 1982).

David M. Hay

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

COLOSSIANS, LETTER TO THE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)