Colossians
1:1-14— Obedience
pleases God. In daily life we are accustomed to being transferred, and with
each transfer we hope it means a promotion with larger salary. We may transfer
schools. We may get a transfer at work from one department to another one. The
company may transfer us to another city. In our Epistle Paul talks about the
greatest transfer of all: from darkness to the light of God’s kingdom.
Under the theme “The
Benefits of Obedience” Paul would remind us that obedience pleases God.
Paul gives thanks for the Colossians’ faith and love
vv.3-4 grounded in their heavenly hope. V.5 The Gospel, not the local
perversion of it, has produced their hope I them and this same Gospel was
manifesting its power wherever it was being preached in the world. V.6 Having
reminded them V. 7 that they had heard the Gospel of the grace of God from
Paul’s helper Epaphras, from whom Paul had in turn heard of the Colossians’
love v. 8 Paul informs the Colossians (v.9 of the continuing prayer for them
that they would grow in the knowledge of this Gospel so that they would not be
ensnared by false wisdom but would have the ability to discriminate between the
false and the true and to grasp the relations in which things stand to each
other.
Such spiritual wisdom and understanding, centering in
the Christ whom the Gospel reveals issue in right practice. V.10 God Himself
supplies the power to lead a life pleasing to Him and to persist in so doing
with patient joy. With God strengthening them, the Colossians would be able to
lead lives of continual thanksgiving to the Father for the great things He had
done through His Son; redemption, forgiveness, deliverance from darkness, and
qualification of a heavenly inheritance. Vv.12-14
For newness of life in Christ: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast
away the works of darkness and put upon ourselves the armor of light now in the
time of this mortal life in which Your Son, Jesus Christ, came to visit us in
great humility, that in the Last Day, when He shall come again to glorious
majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to life immortal;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. [2]
Collect for Thursday of the Week of Pentecost 5: O God, who by Thy Holy Spirit didst at first establish a Church, and who, sanctifying it by the same Spirit, dost still preserve and govern it; hear, we beseech Thee, the prayers of Thy servants and mercifully grant us the perpetual assistance of thy grace, that we may never be deceived by any false spirit, nor overcome by the suggestions of flesh and bold, but in all our doubts may be directed in the ways of truth, and in all our actions guided by this Thy Holy Spirit; who, with Thee, and Thy eternal Son, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen (John Wesley) [3]
[1]
The Good Samaritan Woodcut by Baron Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872, a
distinguished German artist known especially for his book, The Book of Books in
Pictures ©WELS for personal and congregational use.
[2]
Collect for newness of life in Christ, Lutheran Service Book © 2006 Concordia
Publishing House, St, Louis
[3]
Collect for Thursday of the week of Pentecost 5, For All the Saints, A Prayer
Book For and By the Church, Vol. II © 1995 The American Lutheran Publicity
Bureau, Delhi, NY
No comments:
Post a Comment