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From Paul, With Love (2025)
Contributed by Gordon Curley on May 15, 2025 (message contributor)
Summary: Complete in Christ #1: From Paul, with Love – Colossians chapter 1 verses 1-14 – sermon by Gordon Curley (PowerPoint slides to accompany this talk are available on request – email: gcurley@gcurley.info)
SERMON OUTLINE:
(a). The City.
(b). The Church.
(c). The Crisis.
(d). The Content.
(d1) A saving faith (vs 4a, 6b)
(d2) A shared love (vs 4&8)
(d3) A sure hope (vs 5)
SERMON BODY:
Reading: Colossians chapter 1 verses 1-14
• The first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson, in 1971,
• He is the one to thank or blame for what is,
• An indispensable tool in our digital lives.
• Today, there are 3.9 billion email accounts (and counting).
• That's about half the world's population.
• With Gmail being by far the biggest and most popular email provider in the world,
• A typical email contains 434 words.
• The average person checks their email 15 times a day!
• TRANSITION: 200 years ago,
• People communicated in written form – a letter.
• Not quite paper and envelope (that would come along later).
• But they wrote via a Codex.
• A Codex or parchment was like paper,
• And this replaced having to write on expensive scrolls.
• Put simply, a Codex was a letter or several letters sown into a book.
Ill:
• Talking about letters,
• Reminds me of the old joke of a soldier on assignment abroad,
• He wrote to his girlfriend every day.
• When he eventually returned home on leave,
• He discovered that she had run away with the postman!
BACKGROUND TO THE LETTER:
• This letter was probably written around A.D. 62,
• While the apostle Paul was in prison in Rome.
• (Acts chapters 27-28).
(a). The city:
• Colosse was a city in Asia Minor,
• Which is modern day Turkey.
• It might surprise you to know that the name of the city, ‘Colossae,’
• Only appears once in the Bible (here in chapter 1 verse 2).
• Colosse was one of a trio of cities:
• Hierapolis and Laodicea being the other two.
• They both get a name check in chapter 4 verse 13,
• These cities rested at the foot of Mount Cadmus.
• These three cities were almost in view of each other.
Ill:
• This area used to be a meeting point of East and West
• At one time an important trade route passed through there:
• But when the road system changed.
• Colosse’s trade business declined.
• By the apostle Paul’s day, this one time a wealthy and populous city.
• Had been reduced to an insignificant market town.
• Today, we know of its location but there is nothing to see there.
• Because the site has never been excavated.
(b). The Church:
• We know from what the apostle Paul writes in chapter 2 verse 1,
• That had never visited Colosse.
• Quote: “…for all who have not met me personally.”
• But Paul did spend three years working 100 miles away in Ephesus.
• Ephesus was a magnet city,
• Acts chapter 19 verse 10 tells us that.
• People from all over Asia visited that city.
• People from all over the area (including Colosse).
• Visited Ephesus and some encountered the apostle Paul,
• The apostle Paul was a missionary, he was out to convert people,
• And many heard the gospel, got converted,
• Then they returned home and shared the message with their friends and family.
• That is what happened to a man named ‘Epaphras,’
• He gets a name check in verse 7,
• In this letter the apostle Paul reminds the Church that this Church,
• Verse 7: "…learned it (the faith/gospel) from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant".
• Epaphras was a citizen of Colosse, who went to Ephesus,
• And when he returned back home, he shared the gospel with his relatives and friends.
• And as a result, people were converted, and a church was planted.
• The church at Colosse was probably about five years old,
• When it received this letter from Paul.
(c). The crisis:
Ill:
• A man with three sons won £1 billion on the lottery.
• Since he now had more money than he knew what to do with,
• He offered to buy his sons anything they wanted.
• He stressed money was no object.
• His first son said he had always wanted a Jaguar car,
• So, his father bought him seven Jaguar cars in seven different colours,
• So, he would have a different one to drive every day of the week.
• His second son wanted a motorcycle.
• So, the father went out and bought him 30 new motorcycles,
• So, he would have a different bike to ride every day of the month.
• His youngest was only 8, and he said he wanted a Mickey Mouse outfit.
• So, his father went out and bought him, Southampton Football Club!