6 Which has come to you; and which in all the world is giving fruit and increase, as it has done in you from the day when it came to your ears and you had true knowledge of the grace of God;
You did not take me for yourselves, but I took you for myself; and I gave you the work of going about and producing fruit which will be for ever; so that whatever request you make to the Father in my name he may give it to you.
I have sent you this short letter by Silvanus, a true brother, in my opinion; comforting you and witnessing that this is the true grace of God; keep to it.
Being full of the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
You may be certain, my brothers, that it has frequently been in my mind to come to you (but till now I was kept from it), so that I might have some fruit from you in the same way as I have had it from the other nations.
And this good news of the kingdom will be given through all the world for a witness to all nations; and then the end will come.
He has kept in mind his mercy and his unchanging faith to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
If in fact you gave ear to him, and were given teaching in him, even as what is true is made clear in Jesus:
(Because the fruit of the light is in all righteousness and in everything which is good and true),
Living uprightly in the approval of the Lord, giving fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Because our good news came to you, not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Spirit, so that you were completely certain of it; even as you saw what our behaviour to you was like from our love to you.
But it is right for us to give praise to God at all times for you, brothers, loved by the Lord, because it was the purpose of God from the first that you might have salvation, being made holy by the Spirit and by faith in what is true:
For the grace of God has come, giving salvation to all men, Training us so that, turning away from evil and the desires of this world, we may be living wisely and uprightly in the knowledge of God in this present life;
Who, through the purpose of God, have been made holy by the Spirit, disciples of Jesus, made clean by his blood: May you have grace and peace in full measure. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who through his great mercy has given us a new birth and a living hope by the coming again of Jesus Christ from the dead,
So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, Did not the word come to their ears? Yes, certainly: Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
Go then, and make disciples of all the nations, giving them baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
And he said, Such is the kingdom of God, as if a man put seed in the earth, And went to sleep and got up, night and day, and the seed came to growth, though he had no idea how. The earth gives fruit by herself; first the leaf, then the head, then the full grain. But when the grain is ready, he quickly sends men to get it cut, because the time for cutting has come.
And he said to them, Go into all the world, and give the good news to everyone.
But the time is coming, and is even now here, when the true worshippers will give worship to the Father in the true way of the spirit, for these are the worshippers desired by the Father.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a trader in purple cloth of the town of Thyatira, and a God-fearing woman, gave ear to us: whose heart the Lord made open to give attention to the things which Paul was saying.
Your people give themselves gladly in the day of your power; like the dew of the morning on the holy mountains is the army of your young men.
By signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have given all the good news of Christ;
But is now made clear; and by the writings of the prophets, by the order of the eternal God, the knowledge of it has been given to all the nations, so that they may come under the rule of the faith;
But by the grace of God, I am what I am: and his grace which was given to me has not been for nothing; for I did more work than all of them; though not I, but the grace of God which was with me. If then it is I who am the preacher, or they, this is our word, and to this you have given your faith.
For we have no need to make ourselves seem more than we are, as if our authority did not come as far as to you: for we came even as far as you with the good news of Christ:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Colossians 1
Commentary on Colossians 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 1
We have here,
Col 1:1-2
Col 1:3-8
Here he proceeds to the body of the epistle, and begins with thanksgiving to God for what he had heard concerning them, though he had no personal acquaintance with them, and knew their state and character only by the reports of others.
Col 1:9-11
The apostle proceeds in these verses to pray for them. He heard that they were good, and he prayed that they might be better. He was constant in this prayer: We do not cease to pray for you. It may be he could hear of them but seldom, but he constantly prayed for them.-And desire that you may be filled with the knowledge, etc. Observe what it is that he begs of God for them,
Col 1:12-29
Here is a summary of the doctrine of the gospel concerning the great work of our redemption by Christ. It comes in here not as the matter of a sermon, but as the matter of a thanksgiving; for our salvation by Christ furnishes us with abundant matter of thanksgiving in every view of it: Giving thanks unto the Father, v. 12. He does not discourse of the work of redemption in the natural order of it; for then he would speak of the purchase of it first, and afterwards of the application of it. But here he inverts the order, because, in our sense and feeling of it, the application goes before the purchase. We first find the benefits of redemption in our hearts, and then are led by those streams to the original and fountain-head. The order and connection of the apostle's discourse may be considered in the following manner:-