Hi James and Ellen,
Colossians was written by a guy during his first incarceration in the city of Rome. As a way to be debriefed and to bring closure to his third journey as an itinerant missionary– which lasted somewhere around four years, the guy – who was Paul, decided in 57 A.D. – in spite of counsel from acquaintances – that included a very respected Christ-follower elder by the name of Agabus, to not to do it, to go the city of Jerusalem where the headquarters for Christ-followers was located. Even though Paul stubbornly claimed that God – as God the Spirit, prompted him to go to the city of Jerusalem, Because of a growing aversion of Paul by non-Christ-follower guys and gals because of Paul’s confident exhortations and cogent teachings to become Christ-followers, Paul put the lives of his fellow Christ-follower guys and gals at risk by his showing up and being with them in the city of Jerusalem. Because your grandpaa knows what it is like being a missionary – as he has spent over twenty years surviving in unfamiliar, other country cultures, your grandpaa can empathize somewhat with Paul and his desire to be around guys again who he could candidly unpackage four or so years of intense, non-stop ministry foci. It did take Paul long to find out – after he arrived in the city of Jerusalem, that the guys who he had been counting on to listen to his recounting of what he had done, that these same guys were more interested in tasking Paul to help them. Your grandpaa believes that when Paul walked into the city of Jerusalem in 57 A.D. that his physical, emotional and spiritual reserves had been totally maxed out. Your grandpaa thinks that because of Paul being physically exhausted, emotionally taxed and spiritually drained that he became decision making challenged leading him to take on an unwise, unhealthy visibility – which enabled non-Christ-follower guys to find him and have him falsely indicted so that they would have a reason to get rid of a hated nemesis. Even though Paul did not get martyred, Paul still ended up in the prison that was located in the city of Caesarea – which your grandpaa thinks could have been dungeon like. Paul languished for two long years in the city of Caesarea’s poky. There is no record – other than Paul being visited a couple of times at which time he did ‘poor me’ diatribes, that Paul did anything while he was stuck in the city of Caesarea’s jail. Paul’s last invective that he made to Herod Agrippa II lead him to be transferred from the city of Caesarea’s jail to a city of Rome’s jail.
Once Paul was in the city of Rome, Paul began again to have letters penned. These letters became known as Paul’s prison epistles. After sending a pithy doctrinal/lifestyle circular – which succinctly identifies what takes place at the moment when a guy, gal or kid makes a decision of faith when he or she accepts the prodding or prompting of God – as God the Spirit, to unreservedly concede as being true what God – as God the Son, did for him or her while He was brutally hung on and nailed to a cross and how to live a life that reflects his or her new belief paradigm, to the Christ-follower fellowships that were in the city of Ephesus, Paul sent a letter in 60 A.D. to the Christ-follower fellowship that was located in the city of Colosse. Epaphras – a young city of Colosse resident – who had gone to the city of Ephesus to ‘sit under’ Paul’s teachings during the two years that Paul was the resident professor at the Tyrannus Bible Lecture Hall in the city of Ephesus, had returned to the city of Colosse where he was instrumental in implementing the Christ-follower community of guys and gals that was in the city of Colosse. While Paul was doing time in the city of Caesarea slammer, false teachers were infiltrating and embedding themselves into fellowships of Christ-follower of guys and gals – including the Christ-follower fellowship that was in the city of Colosse. Because of how directly focused and personally intimate the Colossians Letter’s four chapters are, your grandpaa believes that Paul is responding directly in his Colossians Letter to a communiqué that Epaphras couriered to Paul not long after Paul was taken to the city of Rome. There is the sense per the gist of the letter that Paul sent to the guys and gals who were in the Christ-follower fellowship that was in the city of Colosse that – because of the influence of misguided teachers of the Torah, that the guys and gals were morphing back to being Judaistic. These disingenuous, duplicitous teachers were pushing a circumcision requirement, instructions for following ordinances created by man, meat and drink stipulations, requisites for keeping the Sabbaths, for handling feast day celebrations and for honoring new moons. Paul warns the Christ-follower guys and gals who were living in the city of Colosse that integrating work-based beliefs with their Christ-follower faith-based beliefs meant that pride had beguiled them to accept as a norm the concept of syncretism or the belief that there can be an amalgamation of God’s perfectly designed spiritual game plan with all kinds of religiosity rules and regulations that mortal men have conjured.
Paul – in the missive that he sent to the Christ-follower guys and gals who were living in the city of Colosse, reaffirms that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, that treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden in Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ is the perfect embodiment of the completed holiness that all Christ-follow guys, gals and kids have been imparted to have through Jesus Christ – who unreservedly loves equally every guy, gal and kid who was chosen and elected by God – as God the Father, to be His before planet Earth was molded and hung.
Colossians