The book of Colossians gives straightforward ways to live our life; it is pertinent to the Laodicean church. Second Timothy melds in with Colossians. Both books are excellent to study before Passover.

Church leaders should pray for the faithful members. We should give thanks to God and Christ. Notice that apostleship is by the will of God, and faith in Christ must be unfeigned.

Col 1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Col 1:2  To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Col 1:3  We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

Col 1:4  since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints;

2Ti 1:1  Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

2Ti 1:5  when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.

Truth is mentioned twice in the following verses. Epaphras was a faithful minister, which was rare back then, and is rare at the end time.

Col 1:5  because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel,

Col 1:6  which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth;

Col 1:7  as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,

Col 1:8  who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.

2Ti 2:15  Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

There are a lot of scriptures in the Bible about the knowledge of God. Our zeal toward God must be according to knowledge. Correct spiritual understanding requires correct knowledge.

IN A NUTSHELL.

The old covenant promised physical rewards for keeping the Commandments physically. Keeping the Ten Commandments was physical righteousness. Christ’s death allows us to have eternal life. Righteousness after Christ’s death is faith. God puts His laws in our heart. Eternal life means keeping God’s laws physically and spiritually. God’s laws must be kept, but we are saved by faith. We cannot earn eternal life by keeping the law: Eternal life comes by the grace of God.

Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom 3:31  Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.

We must increase in the knowledge of God.

Col 1:9  For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

Col 1:10  that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Rom 10:2  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

We must always give thanks to God. Some of God’s requirements for Christian living are mentioned.

Col 1:11  strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy;

Col 1:12  giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

God loves His Son. Our sins are forgiven through the sacrifice of Christ.

Col 1:13  He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

Col 1:14  in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Without God’s law there would be no sin.

1Jn 3:4  Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

God must come first in our lives.

2Ti 2:10  Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

2Ti 2:11  This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him.

God gives everything to His Son.

Col 1:15  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Col 1:16  For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

Col 1:17  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Joh 13:3  Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God,

Jer 10:11  Thus you shall say to them: “The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”

Jesus Christ is the head of God’s church.

Col 1:18  And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence.

It is Jesus Christ who will build the Laodicean church.

Mat 16:18  And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

If we continue in the faith, we can be presented to Christ: thanks to Christ’s death on the cross.

Col 1:19  For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,

Col 1:20  and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

Col 1:21  And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled

Col 1:22  in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight

Col 1:23  if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Col 1:24  I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,

2Ti 1:10  but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

Eph 5:27  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

God decides who His ministers are.

Col 1:25  of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,

2Ti 1:11  to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.

Christ’s sacrifice is a mystery, which is only made clear to the church. The goal of this mystery is to become perfect by emulating Christ.

Col 1:26  the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

Col 1:27  To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Col 1:28  Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

When fully understood: the following verses will bring tears to the toughest man. It is a message to the Laodicean church of God. The Laodicean church will have the knowledge of the mystery of God.

Col 2:1  For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh,

Col 2:2  that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ,

Col 2:3  in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The Laodicean church will have some members who are beguiled by false teachers. We must be alert to that problem.

Col 2:4  Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words.

Col 2:5  For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

We must follow Christ.

Col 2:6  As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,

Col 2:7  rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

God requires us to emulate Christ, not the ways of this world.

Col 2:8  Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

There is no way to salvation other than Christ.

Col 2:9  For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;

Col 2:10  and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

Col 2:11  In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

Col 2:12  buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Col 2:13  And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,

Act 4:12  Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

There are some ordinances from God, which have to be kept forever: the following scriptures will show that the ordinances, which were nailed to the cross, are the old covenant ordinances, which were added because of transgression.

Col 2:14  having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Eph 2:15  having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,

Eph 2:16  and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

Hebrews chapters 9 and 10 tells of the ordinances of the old covenant. I will quote a few verses, but the whole chapters need to be read. Eternal life was not available under the ordinances of the old covenant. Christ died so that we may have eternal life.

Heb 9:1  Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.

Heb 9:7  But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance;

Heb 9:8  the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.

Heb 9:10  concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.

Heb 9:11  But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.

Heb 9:15  And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

Heb 10:1  For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.

Heb 10:8  Previously saying, “SACRIFICE AND OFFERING, BURNT OFFERINGS, AND OFFERINGS FOR SIN YOU DID NOT DESIRE, NOR HAD PLEASURE IN THEM” (which are offered according to the law),

Heb 10:11  And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

Col 2:20  Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations

Col 2:21  “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,”

Col 2:22  which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men?

Col 2:23  These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Christ overcame Satan and the ways of the world.

Col 2:15  Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

The Sabbaths which God requires us to keep, are shadows of what is to come. The church is of Christ.

Col 2:16  So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,

Col 2:17  which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

We must be aware of false teachers in the church.

Col 2:18  Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

Col 2:19  and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

God’s people will put off the works of the flesh.

Col 3:1  If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

Col 3:2  Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

Col 3:3  For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Col 3:4  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Col 3:5  Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Col 3:6  Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,

The rest of this chapter exhorts us to put off the works of the flesh and put on the ways of Christ. We will reap as we sow.

Col 3:25  But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.

Chapter 4 gives a wrap up of the faithful ministry, and exhorts us to be true to God. The book of Colossians is to be read to the Laodicean church.

Col 4:16  Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.

Colossians and 2nd Timothy are good books to study prior to the Passover, they give a good balance of knowledge and Christian living.