For this installment of the Deep Dive series, we will examine St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  

This brief letter comes from Paul and Timothy (1:1). The Apostle attests his authorship in the first (1:1) and last verses—“I Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains” (4:18). This is one of the four Captivity Epistles, written by Paul while imprisoned in Rome. Besides Colossians, that group includes the letters to Philemon, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians.  

Colossae sits about 100 miles from Ephesus in the southwestern part of modern-day Turkey. Colossae, Laodicaea, and Hierapolis (see 4:13) were three cities close to each other in the Lycus River valley. Laodicaea is better known for being one of the seven churches mentioned in the beginning of the Book of Revelation (3:14-22). Paul asked that the letter to the Colossians be passed along to the Laodicaeans, and that their letter—perhaps Ephesians? Or a lost letter?—would be shared in Colossae.  

Early Christian Hymn

The first chapter contains what scholars label an early Christian hymn in 1:15-20. This is some of Paul’s high Christology. Out of a handful of canticles added into the post-Vatican II Liturgy of the Hours, this canticle appears every week.  

All Catholics need to come to terms with a vital question to our faith: who is Jesus? St. Paul gives us almost a guided meditation of sitting and praying over that question. 

Redemptive Suffering 

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (1:24).  A superficial reading of this verse can appear problematic. Were Christ’s sufferings incomplete or lacking? Certainly not! Besides that, St. Paul rejoices in his sufferings.  

It’s one of the harder teachings to accept in Catholicism. Suffering leads to glory; death leads to life. Many of us would far rather pick up our bag of candy and follow Jesus. United in His Mystical Body, we do not complete Christ’s inadequate sacrifice; He leaves room for the members of His Body to join their sufferings to His. 

In 1984, Pope St. John Paul II wrote an encyclical on the meaning of suffering, Salvifici Doloris.  It has some beautiful reflections on a difficult topic. To make any sense out of the Catholic teaching on suffering, we first “must look to the revelation of divine love, the ultimate source of the meaning of everything that exists” (#13). Explanations that omit the supernatural will ultimately fall flat.  St. Paul saw this as well, for he considered suffering (and the joy to be found in it) as inseparable from the Passion of Jesus.  That is, the Passion of Jesus was the ultimate expression of divine love.  St. John Paul II concludes his encyclical underlining the same point. “The mystery of the Redemption of the world is in an amazing way rooted in suffering, and this suffering in turn finds in the mystery of the Redemption its supreme and surest point of reference” (#31).  

Death to earthly things

It’s a fairly common, modern saying that Christians are called to live in the world and not be of the world. While that’s true, St. Paul goes into far more detail in chapter 3:

“If then 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 hid with Christ in God” (3:1-3).

There are two very important verbs in these few sentences: seek and set. It’s very easy to get caught up in the allure of the world’s conditions for happiness—pleasure, wealth, honor, and power. To live a true Christian life, we have to actively seek Our Lord. It’s all too easy to presume upon the goodness and mercy of God; C.S. Lewis described this one-sided relationship with God.  Although he was describing a pantheist position, lackadaisical Christians can fall into the same category. “The Pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you” (from Miracles). To this mentality, St. Paul urges the Colossians to seek. Specifically, transcend the distractions of the world and focus on what is above. What exactly, besides Jesus? 

Immediately following this exhortation, St. Paul goes into concrete details on what that does and does not look like. He first gives a list of vices (3:5-11) and sins against charity. The reason behind our charity is simply, “Christ is all, and in all” (3:11). Flipping the coin, what does it look like to seek what is above? (3:12-17) Kindness, compassion, forbearance, forgiveness, “and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (3:14). I read that and wonder, what would our families and parishes look like if people lived in such a way? The more important musing: what would my life look like, lived in that manner?

Cast of Heroes

We don’t have a lot of information on many of the figures in the early Church. For some like Barnabas, all the biographical information about him is in the New Testament. Colossians is a bit of a gold mine for this. St. Paul had a team of heroes with him while imprisoned in Rome. He passes on greetings from Onesimus, the subject of Paul’s letter to Philemon. Paul also tells us that Barnabas and Mark the evangelist are cousins (4:10). Paul identifies St. Luke as the “beloved physician” (4:14). Imagine St. Paul, St. Luke, and St. Mark sitting together at a table in Rome, sharing stories about Jesus! 

For Further Reading

I recommend first consulting one of these orthodox, Catholic commentaries: the Ignatius Study Bible, the Navarre Bible series, and the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture series. For a more extensive introduction to Colossians, check out William Barclay’s commentary (a Unitarian, but overall, has good Scripture commentaries).