6 which are come to you, as [they are] in all the world, [and] are bearing fruit and growing, even as also among you, from the day ye heard [them] and knew indeed the grace of God, in truth:
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and have set you that ye should go and [that] ye should bear fruit, and [that] your fruit should abide, that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he may give you.
By Silvanus, the faithful brother, as I suppose, I have written to you briefly; exhorting and testifying that this is [the] true grace of God in which ye stand.
being complete as regards the fruit of righteousness, which [is] by Jesus Christ, to God's glory and praise.
But I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that I often proposed to come to you, (and have been hindered until the present time,) that I might have some fruit among you too, even as among the other nations also.
And these glad tidings of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole habitable earth, for a witness to all the nations, and then shall come the end.
He hath remembered his loving-kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
if ye have heard him and been instructed in him according as [the] truth is in Jesus;
(for the fruit of the light [is] in all goodness and righteousness and truth,)
[so as] to walk worthily of the Lord unto all well-pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing by the true knowledge of God;
For our glad tidings were not with you in word only, but also in power, and in [the] Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; even as ye know what we were among you for your sakes:
But we ought to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved of [the] Lord, that God has chosen you from [the] beginning to salvation in sanctification of [the] Spirit and belief of [the] truth:
For the grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared, teaching us that, having denied impiety and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and justly, and piously in the present course of things,
elect according to [the] foreknowledge of God [the] Father, by sanctification of [the] Spirit, unto [the] obedience and sprinkling of [the] blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through [the] resurrection of Jesus Christ from among [the] dead,
So faith then [is] by a report, but the report by God's word. But I say, Have they not heard? Yea, surely, Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the extremities of the habitable world.
Go [therefore] and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit;
And he said, Thus is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast the seed upon the earth, and should sleep and rise up night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth bears fruit of itself, first [the] blade, then an ear, then full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is produced, immediately he sends the sickle, for the harvest is come.
And he said to them, Go into all the world, and preach the glad tidings to all the creation.
But [the] hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for also the Father seeks such as his worshippers.
And a certain woman, by name Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God, heard; whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul.
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in holy splendour: from the womb of the morning [shall come] to thee the dew of thy youth.
in [the] power of signs and wonders, in [the] power of [the] Spirit of God; so that I, from Jerusalem, and in a circuit round to Illyricum, have fully preached the glad tidings of the Christ;
but [which] has now been made manifest, and by prophetic scriptures, according to commandment of the eternal God, made known for obedience of faith to all the nations --
But by God's grace I am what I am; and his grace, which [was] towards me, has not been vain; but I have laboured more abundantly than they all, but not *I*, but the grace of God which [was] with me. Whether, therefore, I or they, thus we preach, and thus ye have believed.
For we do not, as not reaching to you, overstretch ourselves, (for we have come to you also in the glad tidings of the 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:-