Colossians (Program #28) – The All-Inclusive Christ Versus Culture

When the Apostle Paul was addressing the Corinthians, he first had to deal with the problem of their fleshly sin and temptations. When he wrote to the churches in Galatia, he was faced with the problem of their adding practices of Judaism to their Christian faith. But, the church in Colossae offered perhaps the greatest obstacle to his labor to bring them into a deeper experience of Christ and that was their culture and philosophy.

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Colossians (Program #27) – Conclusion

The book of Colossians is a book that gives us the highest vision and revelation of Christ. It’s a book unveiling Christ. The full revelation of Christ comes in Chapter 3 verses 10 and 11, which reveal the heart’s desire of God, the New Man, a corporate entity composed of Christ as the head and the members as His body. With all their cultural and ethnic differences blended away, so that joined with the head they become His full and unique expression. Well, we would consider such a book would have a lofty and profound conclusion to match its rich content, but rather it concludes with various greetings and short reports concerning different brothers in Christ familiar to the Colossians. It is tender but it seems to lack the impact and spirit to make it a fitting conclusion. Was this Paul’s random thought? Or, God’s marvelous wisdom?

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Colossians (Program #26) – The Living of the Saints in the Union with Christ (2)

What kind of person is the most spiritual? or let’s say, what kind of person really expresses Christ? Well, maybe you would answer a minister, or a priest, or perhaps even a monk, someone that has gone off to live in simplicity and solitude in order to manage a Christ-like living. Well, the Bible gives no such encouragement if our hearts desire is to express Him in our human life. Quite the contrary to express Christ in human life according to Colossians takes husbands and wives and children. Just how can this be that we would be those that actually express Christ in our ordinary daily lives? We’ll look at that today on a marvelous program from Colossians.

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Colossians (Program #25) – The Living of the Saints in the Union with Christ (1)

In any situation where you have more than one person occupying the same space, conflicts and differences are bound to occur regardless of how compatible these people might think they are. Just check with any married couple. While these conflicts are not only disruptive to a peaceful marriage life, they’re also devastating within the Body of Christ which Paul calls the New Man in Colossians and Ephesians. So what does the Bible offer as a solution to the conflicts that occur in our daily life and our Church life? Well, we’ll see in today’s life study of the Bible.

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Colossians (Program #24) – Christ-The Constitution of the New Man

Paul the Apostle often repeats a thought if not the exact phrasing of the important truths that he opens up in his ministry. For example, both Ephesians and Colossians tell us that we must put on the new man. While we may think we understand his imperative, “to put on the new man”, but then again as often as the case when our understanding has become full and our view adjusted by the light of God’s Word, what we think and what the Bible reveals are often not that similar. I believe that such will be the case today for many in our listening audience as we come back to Colossians.

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Colossians (Program #23) – Christ-Our Life

We live in an age when Christians and faith in God and belief in His Word are under much outward attack. Things that were once accepted as firmly part of our heritage and foundation as a nation are now ridiculed, publicly criticized. Many believers see this as a time to rise up and be heard, be seen. Many high profile ministries, Christian workers vie for exposure in the media to make a name for themselves to counter this attack of God’s enemy against His people. But, what does the Bible say about our outward visibility? Yes, we are to be lights in the world shining forth with the Word of light, but we need to consider Paul’s word to the Church in Colossians 3. “If therefore you were raised together with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things which are above, not on the things which are on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.”

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Colossians (Program #22) – The Experience of Christ’s Death Versus Asceticism

Ask yourself this question “what is the center of the universe?”  Well, we many not know the answer as a point in space.  But the Bible shows us that in reality, the center, the focus of the universe is the unique , preeminent and all-inclusive person, Christ.  God’s government which administrates the universe also has a center and focus; and this is the cross of Christ.  These two items which are also the focus of the whole Bible, Christ and the cross.  One Person and one way.

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Colossians (Program #21) – Christ the Body of All Shadows and Christ versus Mysticism

Paul the Apostle is marvelous in his writing in the book of Colossians. He begins with a universal presentation of Christ, and not just Christ, but Christ in us the hope of glory. But then he turns and becomes very practical in leading us into the genuine experience of such a Christ. Listen to verses 16 and 17 in Chapter 2, “Let no one therefore judge you in eating and in drinking or in respect of a feast or of a new moon or of the Sabbath, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ”. Here, he begins to remove things like the law and angels and anything else that represents God to us in an indirect way. For God’s desire is that nothing stands between us and Him no matter how good or how religious it may seem.

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Colossians (Program #20) – The Economy Of God’s Salvation

As the Church in Colossae continued after its promising beginning, several factors became important to the believers there. Among these were the practice of keeping various ordinances and aspects of the Old Testament law as well as the influence of those who promoted the worship of angels to serve as intermediaries between sinful and fallen man and the righteous and holy God. Though these things may not seem harmful or dangerous, Paul the Apostle went to great lengths to completely eradicate these factors from the sphere or the realm of the salvation of the saints.

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Colossians (Program #19) – Made Full And Circumcised in Christ

In the second chapter of Colossians, the Apostle Paul was struggling to remove all barriers that stood between genuine believers and their full and proper enjoyment of Christ. Two major items that he labored to deliver them from were the worship of angels and the practice of asceticism. Why were these things so damaging to the Church in Colossae? We’ll look at these today.

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