Seek the Things that are Above

Week Seven - Day 6

Today's Reading

Letter to the Colossians

Writing sometime around 61-62 A.D. during his imprisonment in Rome, Paul reaches out to a the Christian community in Colossae, a city in southwest Asia Minor.  It is not a community that Paul had evangelized during his journeys.  That was apparently done by a man named Epaphras (1:7-8), someone who has told Paul about the faith and existence of the Colossians.  Never one to miss an opportunity to encourage or correct converts, Paul writes of the supremacy of Christ, "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (1:15).  He also tells him that his own present struggles are for them and others, even though they have not met "face to face" (2:1).

While scholars tend to dismiss Paul as the actual author of this letter, I find it enriching to hear it as Paul calling out from his confinement with concern for the lives that others are finding and living in Christ.  Nothing caused Paul to withdraw into himself, and while his words at times might be cutting, they are always offered in love.  They are always urging believers to reach for a new level: "So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." (3:1-4).

And so, our time with Paul during our 8-Week New Testament Journey comes to the end.  Tomorrow, we begin the final leg of our journey with the reading of the Gospel according to John.  It may seem like a chronological step back in time, but it is filled with the thoughts and concerns of a Christian community that existed well after Paul's lifetime.  But more on that tomorrow . . .