The Gospel in Colossians – 1.21-23

1.21-23
21 And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him- 23 provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel. [NRSV]

• Through their comprehension of ‘the grace of God’ in the goodnews (1.6), they have been ‘reconciled’ to God.
• This is so that they may leave behind a life characterized by ‘evil deeds’ and become ‘holy, blameless and irreproachable before him’ for the day of judgment.
• This will only happen if they do not depart from the goodnews, in particular the ‘hope’.
• This ‘hope’ has been given a universal audience.
• Paul has become a servant of ‘this goodnews’.

From this passage and 1.3-7 we can establish that ‘the gospel’ is about actual events (‘word of truth’), and that it includes a forward looking dimension (‘hope’), all of which is of universal relevance (‘the whole world’; ‘every creature under heaven’). Furthermore, the reception of this news brings about a transformation in its recipients (‘bearing fruit’).

Two questions remain: 1) What real world events does the gospel speak of? 2) what is the nature of the ‘hope’ included within this?

The Gospel in Colossians – 1.3-7

1.3-7
3 In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. 7 This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. [NRSV]

What do we learn about ‘the gospel’ from this passage?

• The Colossian’s ‘faith in Christ Jesus’ and ‘love for all the saints’ spring from the ‘hope laid up in heaven’.
• This ‘hope’ was a part of ‘the goodnews’ (gospel) brought to them by Epaphras, a colleague of Paul and Timothy.
• This goodnews is ‘bearing fruit among them’ and ‘in the whole world’, it is impacting human life in keeping with what it communicates.
• It has been having this impact among them since they ‘heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God’.

Talking Money with Gabe

I have been engaging in dialogue with Gabriel Graumann on his blog Money Talk with Gabe. In this post we have been discussing the nature of “needs” and “prosperity” in the comments section. I also suggest checking out his posts My Flag is Higher!, A Spending Culture, and the first in a series of posts entitled Do I really “Need” This?

There is alot of wisdom in these posts and matters to seriously ponder. While I dont agree with all that he puts forward, I think our perspectives are actually closer than I first thought. Thanks again Gabe for the dialogue.

Suggested Reading: a summary of prosperity teaching

For a very helpful summary of prosperity teaching (from a non-sympathetic perspective) drawing on the work of many others, see The Heart of the Prosperity Gospel: Self or the Saviour? by Dan Lioy, pp. 1-9. You can freely view this in PDF format by clicking the link.

1 John 2.15-17 – ‘do not love the world’

2.15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; 16 for all that is in the world-the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches-comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever. [NRSV]

So what is John trying to communicate in this passage? Is he saying that we should not desire or enjoy material things? Things that GOD called ‘good’ and gave to us (Gen 1)?

‘Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world’ (v.15)

When John speaks of ‘the world’ he means both the physical ’space’ we inhabit (creation of which we are a part)[1] and humankind in the embrace of patterns of life contrary to the commands of GOD. ‘The ‘world’ hates the recipients of John’s letter because of their love for one another (3.13); ‘false prophets’ and the ’spirit of the antichrist’ are ‘of the world and the world listens to them’ (4.1-5); ‘the whole world is in the power of the evil one’ (5.19); and through ‘faith’ the world will be ‘overcome’ (5.4-5).

And so John tells his recipients not to ‘love the world or the things in the world’. The ‘love’ spoken of here is not the same as the ‘love’ John exhorts his readers to. It is rather an affection for the patterns of life that characterize human society and culture in rebellion against GOD, patterns which focus on satisfying oneself. To ‘love the world’ is to long for and take delight in the “desires” John speaks of in v16 which do not have their origin in the Father but in humanity without GOD.

‘the desire of the flesh’

While the term ‘flesh’ may easily evoke the thought of sexuality given a past association of sex with our ’sinful flesh’, it is more likely used in a similar sense to to Paul’s use in Romans where it refers to perverted human character in general.[2] The NIV helpfully translates this as ‘the cravings of sinful man’.

‘the desire of the eyes’

Again, in a society and culture where “sex” is invading more and more of our visual space through billboards, magazines, Television and movies, it is hard for it not to spring immediately to mind here. But the thought need not be so restricted, and can refer to the desire for anything aroused by seeing it,[3] whether it be material things such as clothes, the latest cell phone, cars or anything one wishes to possess. Greed and materialism are certainly in John’s view here given the following ‘desire’ (‘pride in riches’) and 3.17 which we will look at in another post.

‘pride in riches’

This is fairly straight forward and can include the attitude and belief that one is self-made, self-sufficient, has no need for GOD, and no acknowledgment of GOD’s provision of all things.

‘The world and its desires are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever’ (v.17).

The old order, human life in rebellion against GOD due to its love for the ‘things of the world’, is being brought to an end. John is not saying that the physical world should not be enjoyed or that it is evil. What he is saying is is that believers need to be vigilant to guard themselves from the perverted ways of enjoying GOD’s good creation, the idolatrous and self-serving ways that put the ’self’ (me) at the center of living which characterize ‘the world’.

Marshall sums it up masterfully:

“Clearly all people need possessions, and therefore it cannot be wrong to want and take pleasure in and what God has provided for our needs. But when I begin to desire more than other people, to covet whatever I see, to boast of what I have, and to claim that I am self-sufficient, then my desires have become perverse and sinful, and I stand condemned. John’s teaching stands as a timeless warning against materialism.”[4]

[1] For this sense see 4.1, 3-4, 9, 17

[2] So I. Howard Marshall, The Epistles of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 145.

[3] ibid.,

[4] ibid., 146

Wealth and Poverty in the New Testament

Its time to kick off a survey of the NT teachings on money and possessions, wealth and poverty, greed and generosity.  We will begin with 1 John (for no particular reason), and I intend to dedicate one post to each passage examined. Below is a list of those covered so far with links directly to them. I invite you to post comments, especially where you disagree with my exegesis. Lets do it…

1 John 2.15-17

‘Evangelism in a total church model’ by Tim Chester

Evangelism in a total church model by Tim Chester

In this article Tim Chester presents a three-fold understanding of evangelism (building relationships, sharing the gospel, introducing to community) in which the christian community takes on an importance it hasn’t often had in thinking about evangelism. I found it really helpful and recommend you have a read…

Here are some tasty quotes:

“Christian community is a vital part of Christian mission. Mission takes place as people see our love for one another. We all know that the gospel is communicated both through the words that we say and the lives we live. What Jesus says is that it is the life we live together that counts.”

“We need to be communities of love. And we need to be seen to be communities of love. People need to encounter the church as a network of relationships rather than a meeting you attend or a place you enter. Mission must involve not only contact between unbelievers and individual Christians, but between unbelievers and the Christian community. We want to build relationships with unbelievers. But we also need to introduce people to the network of relationships that make up that believing community so that they see Christian community in action.”

“It is our cross-love for each other that proclaims the truth of the gospel to a watching and sceptical world. Our love for one another, to the extent that it imitates and conforms to the cross-love of Jesus for us, is evangelistic.”

“If evangelism is a community project, our different gifts and personalities can complement one another. Some people are good at building relationships with new people. Some people are socialites – they are the ones who will organise a trip to the cinema. Some people are great at hospitality. Some people are good at initiating gospel conversations. Some people are good at confronting heart issues.”

Is there a ‘Center’ to the Theology of the NT Writings?

In a recent post, Michael Bird asks “What is the theological centre of the New Testament?” and offers some thoughts on ‘apostolic discourse’ as a helpful possibility. I have pondered this question before, and now wonder whether there is something wrong with the question itself.

In the writings of theologians and NT/OT scholars we can often observe the controlling influence of certain themes/concepts on the theological systems they produce and their treatment of various topics, even when their method of proceeding is not made explicit. It seems to me that this is what is being looked for when we speak of ‘the theological center’ of the NT. However, unlike with the writings of scholars, such a ‘center’ has not clearly stood out across the writings in the NT, even with the substantial amount of scholarship which has focused upon finding one.

What does this tell us? Probably that we are looking for the wrong thing, imagining (some of us hoping for and others against) that the writings of the NT have the type of coherence a single authors writings often do. I think it is clear that this is not the case. It also tells us that given ‘centre’ is a metaphor, it has not served us well in illuminating the NT writings or early Chrsitianity. The question we have asked is legitimate, but perhaps the terminology that shaped it has turned out to be a dead end. I think it is more helpful to think in terms of ’starting points’ for both the work of scholars and the NT writings.

Instead of asking what the ‘center’ to the theology of the NT writings is, perhaps we should ask whether the various authors of the New Testament writings have a shared starting point out of which their writings grow? How do we go about answering this question? Are we are now attempting to move behind the writings themselves? And if we are, can we with any amount of confidence, move from the unity and diversity exhibited between the NT writings to knowledge about the unity and diversity in early Christianity, given that the ’starting points’, although not always finding expression in the extent writings, may exhibit a different pattern of unity and diversity? In other words, might there be a more clearly evident unity in early Christian belief and practice than the NT canon exhibits?

thoughts please…