Episode 303 - New Series! Colossians

Fresh off the Ephesians series, the brothers look to a similar epistle written by Paul to the church in Colassee. This episode is an introduction to the study.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

And welcome back to another episode of Two Brothers One Bible Podcast. We are so happy that you are listening today. Are you happy to be here?

SPEAKER_00 0:10

I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Are you really? Yeah. Well, it's a good thing because if you're not here, then this is not Two Brothers One Bible Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Well, that's true, but I I thought your point was I had to be happy. Yeah, that's true. Okay. That's true. You do have to be happy. Yeah, I almost wore my happy, happy, happy shirt, didn't you? You should have. That would have been really good. But I didn't know it was a test.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Well, it was a pop quiz. Okay. And you did not pass it. I did not. I'm so sorry to hear that. Let me introduce ourselves. Okay. Who are you? I am Robert Wakefield. Okay. Who are you? I'm I'm Peter Searson. And you're Peter Searson. We're Two Brothers One Bible Podcast, and we're starting a new uh series today. Yeah. We're going into a new book. Ephesians was fantastic. It was really, really good. I'm very excited about where we're going now because I think as we think about uh the book of Colossians, we're really getting a visual picture of what Jesus was really like. What his character is. That's true. So you tell me what you think about uh just beginning Colossians here.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Um it it's a great letter and it's it's very similar to Ephesians. It is. Uh some of the same comments, some of the same doctrinal things. Um, but it really kind of shows what what Paul's thinking uh and how he reacts to things. Right. Uh, you know, in chapter one we we just we find out that he's he's heard something, you know, and so we'll talk about that. And then he how he responds to it. Right. You know, and and so I you know, I think it it's it lays some really good groundwork for us today. I think the the American church especially has become kind of sluggish in in its response. We we don't do what what used to be called spiritual discipline uh for for members.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Oh, that's true. We don't.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

You know, because we're afraid of the backlash, we're afraid they're gonna get mad and go somewhere else. And so we kind of don't have this this bar of spiritual discipline of this is our expectation as as a Christian, as a believer, this is how you should behave. Right. And so Paul is hearing some things and saying, no, no, no, we're we're gonna clear this up right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

You know, it's funny that you mentioned uh spiritual discipline. You know how many times I've seen spiritual discipline in a church? How many? Once. Once, yeah. I'm 63. Yeah. And I remember because I was I was a young man when it happened. Yeah. And I was like, I think I was like 10 or 11.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

And and they were going to, you know, they'd done all the quote unquote scriptural things to do. And I remember I was mad. Oh, really? Because because I didn't well because I didn't understand spiritual discipline. Right. I just thought, why are we getting rid of people in the church? I I couldn't wrap my head around it. Of course, now uh now that I'm older, I understand what it's all about. Oh yeah. But it's it's amazing to me that we don't do that like we they used to.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, well, same for me. I'm 65 and I've seen it once. And that was overseas. I've never seen it here. Okay. And that's kind of what made me think of this is how the church ought to be. Right. And and it was the response of of those who were being disciplined that was really insightful because they didn't take it as, well, I'll just show you. They took it as thank you for loving me enough to chastise me, to show me the air of my ways. And so I thought, man, that's really that's healthy.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

That's refreshing. Yes, it really is. Because the my experience it wasn't it was not that way.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

No, it wasn't. Well, and you know, I've seen churches, you know, I don't know if they'd call it spiritual discipline, but it's it's discipline. It may not be very spiritual. Right. And that's where I think there's a lot of lot of hurt, a lot of resentment. I mean, it that's part of what hinders church growth is people saying, Wow, I've done that. I've I've been hurt. There you go. That's exactly it. You know, let me tell you what they did. And uh so I mean we're seeing Paul do it in Colossians in a very healthy, mature way.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Well, the thing about uh any kind of discipline, I mean, no matter what, whether it's disciplining our children or whatever, it's to change behavior.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

That's the only reason why you issue it. Right. And if you don't get the change behavior, then you know you go to other means. Yeah. And so, yeah, Paul talks about this in this this letter. He talks a little a great deal about it.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

You know, and that may be insightful there, Robert, because if if the barometer is how parents parent their children, we're seeing it's it's a paradigm shift to where I think the children are parenting the parents. That's true. So how do we expect spiritual leadership in a church to be authoritative if if it's not being modeled in the home. Amen. And that's why I think they're reacting so, you know, vehemently opposed to it, is because who who are you to tell me what I should do and how I should conduct my business?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Right. It's none of your business, is what we hear. Yeah. Well, the thing about Colossians, uh, this is going to be our introduction to Colossians. We're going to talk about a little bit uh before we actually get into the study. Uh I I did read that uh the the city itself was an ancient city. Yep. Uh in the uh province of Colossi, or is it actual city, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah, Colossi is the city.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

It is the city, and uh it's in uh modern day Turkey. That's correct, yeah is what I read. And here's something that um that really struck me. Um earthquakes hit the city in AD seventeen and also in AD sixty. Now, the reason why the AD sixty struck me is because they think that this letter was written in AD sixty two.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

So just two years after this disaster, it makes me think of we all remember Katrina and and the devastation that had. This is two years after a devastating earthquake, and Paul is writing to them because I don't think he ever met them.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

No.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

We kind of get that, we'll talk about that when we get in there. But he's writing to them, letting them know that you know things are creeping in, and you need to be aware of this stuff. And it's it's at a time where emotions are high, it's at a time where they're still rebuilding, probably. I mean, it was a devastating earthquake. Yeah. And but after that earthquake, the city went away in 400 AD. Right. It's even not even there anymore.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of archaeological stuff that hasn't even happened there yet. So it's it's it's uh kind of untapped in terms of archaeology, but uh it wasn't too far from La Odyssea.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Okay, that's the one we've heard of.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yep, and so uh yeah, it's a very important city. You know, Paul died either in 64 or 65, as late as as June uh 29th of 67. So that's oh really I did not know that. So when you put this letter in the time frame of when it was written, uh he was certainly imprisoned in Rome. Um and like you said, it most likely there's nothing, you know, in the book of Acts where we talk about his journeys, there's nothing about him staying any time in Colossae. Right. So um it was probably a spin-off from relationships he had when he was in Ephesus. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

So that that's the key thing. And and it's amazing to me that that Paul uh just because of his influence in Ephesus, look where it went all over the world. Yeah. I mean, because this is another part of the world that he never visited, and a church was established there. Right. And so it it's and I did not know about that when he died. I didn't know A.D. 65 you said?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Uh 64 or 65. But uh for some reason someone said June 29th, 67. June 29th. Yeah, very specific. Wow. Uh, but yet there's still kind of different theories about when he actually was beheaded in Rome. Right. Oh, so he was beheaded. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Well, we uh we've established that um that the disaster took place in about AD sixty. Um we uh we know who the author is. There's no question this is uh one of the prison epistles. Yep. Um he wrote he wrote four while he was in prison. He did. And can you name them? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

That was a pop quiz. I was I was that that's the actual question. Name the four epistles.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Well, we know it was Ephesians, because we talked about that. Right. Uh we know it's Colossians, because we're talking about this. Philippians uh would be the other one. Philippians would be the other one. And then I'm gonna go with Philemon. Philemon is correct. Okay. Ding ding ding. Ding you win.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

That's you know, Philemon is one of those books you don't think about. Yeah. I I don't. Uh because it's only one chapter or one and a half chapter. No, it's just one chapter. It's just very, very short. Yeah. So I I forget that Philemon was one of those. So that was your test for the day, and you passed. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. So well, so what else uh about Ephesians uh do we want to talk about as far as the introduction?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Um you know, it was a significant city. Um you know, like when we when you look at Laosia, it was well known for stuff. Uh this city was well known for this uh they had this dark red wool. Yeah. It was called Colossium.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Oh, is that what I saw? I've got a note here that says it was dark cloth. Yeah. I didn't know it was red wool.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, it was dyed red wool. Okay. Uh and so they were kind of that was kind of like their their thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Like mule day is ours. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah. But like you said, the the earthquake was was uh was pretty important. Uh but what we see, like we in our we said in our intro, was the Colossians is important because he's dealing with these false teachings. And it seems like, you know, this is a is a constant theme in the New Testament. Right. Uh part of it is the infancy of Christianity. Nobody really knew what it meant. Yeah, the these these letters weren't written written at that time until he's addressing, you know, sure paving some new territory. Exactly. But I also think, Robert, it's part of our humanity. This is a way we get to compromise. Yes, it is. So what we do is we kind of dumb it down or justify it or modify it to where it feels better.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Right, right. And and we seem to interject our feelings into to the scripture and make it doctrine.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

We want to make it more like us, more workable to our behavior instead of making our behavior change to the doctrine.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

It's it's all about us. Yes. And uh I I don't think you have that t-shirt either, do you?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Uh I could have worn that one, sure. It's all about me. Yeah. But I mean it's true. It is true. You know, and so, you know, we would think here 2,000 years later, we would very clearly understand what it means to be a Christian. This is what we believe, this is how I'm going to behave, this is what I'm gonna do. But we still had this struggle. There are still people trying to pollute, or better yet, compromise these little false things, these little nuggets of what that leads us off the wrong path.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

It's amazing that you mentioned that because that still goes on today. It happened back 2,000 years ago when the church was first getting started.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

These these doctrines, these ideas were injecting themselves into Christianity, and it it caused a lot of confusion.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Uh because if you if you were to go f come from one church to another, it'd be completely different. Sure. Uh in the way you they approach things.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

And so it it's no different today. It's no different today. Uh we live in a society where everything goes.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

That's the mindset. And because of that, uh things get interjected into you know, doctrines and what have you.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

And and it makes it polluted. It's uh is a good word for it, it's polluted.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, well, and you know, for our listeners, uh, this is a challenge because there's there's tons of podcasts. Oh, yeah. As as we've said, in the in a landscape, you know, in a world. Yeah. So, you know, how do you know? And and I think the the one thing we've got to rely on as as a believer is the Holy Spirit. I think the Holy Spirit really does his best to help us have discernment. Right. And say, man, there's something off about that. I even even the new Christian still has it, you know, all the Holy Spirit they're ever going to need. Right. And so if if you're just weeks into Christianity, there's still that Holy Spirit that you can say, Holy Spirit, help me to know what truth is. Because if you're listening to something on the radio, you're listening to a podcast, you're watching a TV show, you're showing up at a church for the first time, you want to make sure you're submitting yourself, putting yourself at the feet of someone who's going to teach you well, teach you biblically, right, and not mislead you.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

It's not something that we're looking for that, whoa, I like that. That's that's good for me. It it doesn't really matter. You know, it it's I want to make sure I'm learning correctly what the Word of God says and and someone hold me accountable back to church discipline.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Right. That's so good. You know, you mentioned um you mentioned new Christians. Uh one of the uh commentaries that I looked at this week said that they suggest that you read John as a new Christian, and that we just did a whole year series on, and then right after that come to Colossians. Really? Because they their reasoning was that you see the Jesus living his life on earth, okay, and then you see the supremacy of Jesus in Colossians. Yeah. And so they thought those two kind of go really good together. Now I don't I never thought about that.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Uh this was just one of these commentaries that I saw.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

So I thought I thought that was really good because the supremacy of Christ is a major theme uh in the book of Colossians.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

He hits it right out of the gate. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Again, you know, as we'll we'll explore when we get into the the actual book, but I mean, he hears his report, and and he doesn't say, Oh, I heard this, but by what he comes back with is let me tell you who Jesus is, right? You can tell that's what the issue is. And like you said, that's still a thing today. There's a lot of people debating about who Jesus is, not only who he was and what he came to do, but what role does he play in my life. Right. Exactly. And and boy, we have a hard time saying I'm gonna let Jesus be the boss of me. You know, we do have trouble with that. Why is that? Well, because we're fiercely independent. We certainly are, and uh, we're raised to be like that, you know, and there's there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is when it comes to words like submit or surrender, that goes against this independence.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, we don't want any part of that. No, we want nothing to do with submit or surrender.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

No, but if if we're going to confess the supremacy of Christ, then we've got to fall under that. We can't be above that. We cannot say Jesus is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, and He's the creator of the universe, and He's almighty, but I'm more important than him. He comes in second.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

We can't say that. No, but but we do act that way. We do.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

We do. We act that way, and and we put him in in a place that uh, well, he doesn't need to be. He needs to be first in our lives. Yeah. That is for sure. Uh some of the other themes that uh we're gonna talk about in Colossians is um, let's see, what's my notes here? There was one oh uh we're gonna talk about his uh supremacy, which we mentioned that, uh his might, his power. Um Colossians is gonna help us better understand who Jesus is in the long term.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Uh so I'm very excited about this study. I think it's really gonna be good.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah. But one one thing that I really like is this, and and I don't think we think about this, but I when I'm looking at this letter, I'm just mindful of who Paul was before he was Paul. Saul. Okay. Okay. So Saul was in his own words, the the Jew of Jews. You know, and he rattles off his training and his pedigree and his credentials. Oh man, absolutely. You know, and that's I I'm thinking since he was like three years old, it was you gotta be the best Jew you can be. And so he that was his thing. Right. He knew the law, he lived the law, he tried to enforce the law, and so anything for for Saul, the supremacy in his life was the law. That was the whole thing. He elevated it, he worshipped it, he lived it. Now he's saying the supremacy in his life is Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

And that is where he changed, wasn't it? When that road to Damascus changed everything for for Paul. Yeah. And then when he said that he went off for three years, I I think he had to, you know, reprogram himself. Because when you have a lifetime full of, you know, all these traditions and all these rules, it takes it takes a while to get that out of your system.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Sure. Well, not only did he have this major shift from the supremacy of the law to the supremacy of Jesus, but he had the supremacy of being Jewish to saying he came to the Gentiles too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Isn't that amazing?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

He hated the Gentiles. He hated Jews who were becoming Christians because they were defiling what it meant to be Jewish. Wow. Yeah. And so the the shift, the paradigm shift in his thinking about who he was and what he thought, and what he believed, and how he lived and how he acted. Right. Radically changed when he came to Christ.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

And we should too.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

That, yes, that is a picture of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.17, is we're a new creation. Right. There needs to be a radical shift in how we think, how we talk, how we act, how we behave, just like Paul did.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

That's a great way to uh end this uh this introduction to uh Colossians. And we're going to uh be going through this for the next few weeks. So we hope that you will join us on every episode because if you don't, you'll miss something.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

You know, I think you're right. They would miss out. They would miss something because we're gonna talk about something. Well, the way you present it, I'm I'm planning to be there. Well, I love it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Thanks so much for listening today. I'm Robert Twakefield. I'm Peter Searson. And we appreciate so much that you listen, and we will um we'll see you next time. Is that when I'm sure? Oh, and um God bless. God bless. We say that too.