Teaching Session #38 - Sun 14th March 6.30pm
The letter of Paul to the Colossians
Main speaker - Peter Guinness
Leader for the evening - Saju Muthalaly
Peter writes:
"Paul writes to a very new (young) church. He is thankful to God for them and their faithfulness. He acknowledges a number of co-workers, particularly Epaphras who brought them the good news of Jesus. Paul’s letter, to be read out loud, is to encourage them and also to warn them to avoid some false teaching. Rather than explain too much about the false teaching, he focuses on Jesus the Messiah, reminding them to hold fast to him. Paul includes a short ‘poem’ – a brilliant piece of creative inspired writing, a lyrical, profound and majestic description about the true identity of Jesus. The letter has specific counsel to different groups how to live the Christian life both in the church and in the world. For Paul the Hebrew Scriptures provide the framework for ethics. His understanding of Old Testament scripture, now made clearer through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, means that class distinctions, social divisions, and ethnic divisions are gone; we are all “in Christ”.
How do we apply this letter to our 21st century church? We need to avoid false teaching from some Christian groups today. However, the call still is, firstly, to hold fast to Jesus the Messiah, knowing that his identity is with God the Father and the Spirit, and secondly to know the Scriptures in order to conduct our lives ethically."
Have your Bible ready, bring an open and enquiring mind and as always plenty of questions.
Resources from the session:
For this evening, the teaching was divided into 3 sessions, each followed by a Q and A. Therefore we have made available below the complete teaching on its own in audio. and also the 3 sessions separately in both video and audio.