4 having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which ye have towards all the saints,
Wherefore *I* also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which [is] in you, and the love which [ye have] towards all the saints,
remembering unceasingly your work of faith, and labour of love, and enduring constancy of hope, of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father;
hearing of thy love and the faith which thou hast towards the Lord Jesus, and towards all the saints,
and not by his coming only, but also through the encouragement with which he was encouraged as to you; relating to us your ardent desire, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I the more rejoiced.
But Timotheus having just come to us from you, and brought to us the glad tidings of your faith and love, and that ye have always good remembrance of us, desiring much to see us, even as we also you;
Now concerning brotherly love ye have no need that we should write to you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. For also ye do this towards all the brethren in the whole of Macedonia; but we exhort you, brethren, to abound still more,
For God [is] not unrighteous to forget your work, and the love which ye have shewn to his name, having ministered to the saints, and [still] ministering.
who by him do believe on God, who has raised him from among [the] dead and given him glory, that your faith and hope should be in God. Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth to unfeigned brotherly love, love one another out of a pure heart fervently; being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by [the] living and abiding word of God.
And this is his commandment, that we believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and that we love one another, even as he has given us commandment.
And *we* have known and have believed the love which God has to us. God is love, and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
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:-