Colossians — Chapter 2

Authorship & Background

Map & Geography

• Laodicea (v.1): City in Asia Minor; one of the seven churches in Revelation.

Places on this map

• Laodiceanear Denizli, TurkeyA wealthy banking and textile city in the same valley, with one weakness: its water had to be piped in from miles away and arrived lukewarm, which is the image the letter to it uses. Wikipedia
• Asia MinorTurkeyThe peninsula between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, a high dry plateau ringed by mountains with the Greek cities on its western coast. Roman Asia, the province Paul worked from Ephesus, was only its western end. Wikipedia

Towns sit on their excavated or traditional site. Regions, rivers and seas are ringed rather than dotted, because for those a single point is only an anchor. Coastlines from Natural Earth.

Deep Dive

Setting: Paul writes from prison, most likely in Rome around AD 60–62 (some scholars argue for Ephesus a few years earlier), to a church he had never visited. Colossae was a small, fading town in the Lycus valley of western Turkey, about 10 miles from Laodicea and a little farther from Hierapolis. Its church was planted by Epaphras (1:7), probably during Paul's long stay in Ephesus (Acts 19:10). Chapter 1 lifted Christ high: the image of the invisible God, Creator of all things, head of the church, the one in whom "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (1:19). Chapter 2 shows why Paul said all that. Some teachers were offering the Colossians something "more" than Christ: secret wisdom, ritual rules, visions and angels. Paul's answer is that there is nothing more, because in Christ they already have everything.

Paul's Ministry to the Church (vv1–5)

• The ESV section began at 1:24. These five verses finish Paul's description of his own work, which he started in 1:24–29: suffering, proclaiming Christ, and striving "to present everyone mature in Christ."
• "How great a struggle I have for you" (v1). The word is agōn, the root of "agony." It was used of athletic contests and of the Christian life as a fight (1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 4:7). The lexicon notes that here it carries the sense of anxious concern. Paul is in chains, so the struggle is mostly prayer, the same word he uses of Epaphras "struggling on your behalf in his prayers" (4:12).
• "Those at Laodicea… all who have not seen me face to face" (v1). Paul had never been to the Lycus valley. Laodicea faced the same teaching, and Paul wants the letters swapped (4:16). A generation later Jesus writes to Laodicea himself, the "lukewarm" church (Rev 3:14–22).
• "Knit together in love" (v2). The verb (symbibazō) means to join or bring together. Paul uses it again in v19 of the body "knit together through its joints and ligaments." False teaching splits churches into the enlightened few and the ordinary rest. Love holds the whole body together.
• "God's mystery, which is Christ" (v2). In Paul a "mystery" is not a puzzle but something once hidden and now revealed (1:26–27). The false teachers apparently offered mysteries for insiders. Paul says the mystery has a name, and it is Christ.
• "In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (v3). "Hidden" is apokryphos, the word later used for secret or non-canonical books. The treasures are hidden in Christ, not hidden from believers. Anyone who has him has access to them. Compare Proverbs 2:4, which tells the seeker to search for wisdom "as for hidden treasures," and 1 Corinthians 1:24, "Christ the… wisdom of God."
• "That no one may delude you with plausible arguments" (v4). "Plausible arguments" (pithanologia) means persuasive, smooth-sounding speech. The danger was not crude paganism but something that sounded close to the truth.
• "Your good order and the firmness of your faith" (v5). Both words could describe soldiers: ranks in good order, a solid line. The church is not yet broken. Paul writes to keep it that way.
• Commentators: JFB and Guzik both take the "struggle" as Paul's fervent prayer from prison, not a quarrel with the Colossians, and JFB notes Laodicea faced "the same danger from false teachers." Guzik reads apokryphos as a deliberate dig at teachers who promised secret books and hidden knowledge, and both he and JFB see military language in v5. Henry turns v3 around beautifully: "The treasures of wisdom are hidden not from us, but for us, in Christ." He also notes that "Holy love knits the hearts of Christians one to another."

Alive in Christ (vv6–15)

• "As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him" (v6). "Received" is the word for receiving a passed-down teaching (1 Cor 15:1–3). They received not just ideas about Jesus but Jesus himself, as Lord. The way in is the way on: the Christian life continues the way it started, by faith in Christ, not by graduating to something else. "Walk" is the Old Testament picture of a whole way of life.
• "Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith" (v7). Three pictures in one breath: a tree, a building, and a legal word for something confirmed and made firm. "Rooted" is a completed action, done once. "Built up" is ongoing. And all of it overflows in thanksgiving, a theme Paul returns to again and again in this short letter (1:12; 3:15–17; 4:2).
• "See to it that no one takes you captive" (v8). The verb sylagōgeō means to carry off as plunder, from words for "booty" and "lead." It is used only here in the New Testament. The picture is a raider marching captives away. Paul is not saying they are already captured. He is warning that they could be.
• "By philosophy and empty deceit" (v8). In that world "philosophy" covered any system of religious or moral teaching, including mystery cults and Jewish sects (Josephus called the Pharisees and Essenes "philosophies"). Paul is not attacking careful thinking. He is attacking this particular system, which he calls empty and deceptive.
• "According to human tradition" (v8). Jesus used the same charge against the Pharisees: "you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8).
• "According to the elemental spirits of the world" (v8). The Greek is ta stoicheia tou kosmou, and it is one of the hardest phrases in Paul. Stoicheia means things in a row: letters of the alphabet, so "ABCs" or basic principles (Heb 5:12); the physical elements of earth, air, fire and water (2 Pet 3:10); or the spirit powers people believed ruled those elements and the stars. The lexicon lists all these senses. The ESV picks "elemental spirits," the Tyndale-based translation "spiritual forces," the KJV "rudiments." The reading through spirits fits the "rulers and authorities" of v15 and the angels of v18. The reading through basic principles fits the food rules and festivals of vv16 and 21. Paul may intend both: elementary religion that keeps people under the powers. Galatians 4:3, 9 uses the same phrase of the law and of pagan religion alike.
• "In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (v9). This may be the strongest statement of Christ's deity in the New Testament. "Fullness" is plērōma, picked up from 1:19. Later Gnostics used plērōma for the whole set of divine emanations between God and the world, and some scholars think the Colossian teachers were already using the word that way. Paul says the fullness is not spread across a ladder of spirits. It all lives in one person. "Deity" is theotēs, used only here, meaning the divine nature itself, not just godlike qualities. "Dwells" is present tense: it still does. "Bodily" means in the incarnate, now risen, human Jesus. God has not kept his distance from matter.
• "You have been filled in him" (v10). The same root as "fullness." He is full, and in him they are filled. The KJV's "complete in him" catches it. The Colossians were being told they lacked something. Paul says they lack nothing. And Christ is "the head of all rule and authority," so the very powers the teachers wanted them to placate answer to him.
• "A circumcision made without hands" (v11). The teachers probably urged circumcision or at least Jewish ritual. Paul says believers have already been circumcised, inwardly, by Christ. The Old Testament itself called for a circumcised heart (Deut 10:16; 30:6; Jer 4:4), and Paul says the same in Romans 2:28–29 and Philippians 3:3. "Putting off the body of the flesh" means cutting away not a bit of skin but the whole old self ruled by sin. "The circumcision of Christ" could mean the circumcision Christ performs, or Christ's own "cutting off" in death. Both readings have good support.
• "Buried with him in baptism… raised with him through faith" (v12). The same picture as Romans 6:3–4. Baptism pictures burial and rising, and the raising comes "through faith in the powerful working of God." Paul ties the outward sign and the inward faith together without making the water itself the power.
• Readings differ on vv11–12. Reformed and Presbyterian Christians see baptism here as the New Testament counterpart of circumcision, and so a sign fit for believers' children as circumcision was for Israel's. Baptists answer that the true counterpart is the spiritual circumcision "made without hands," given through faith, so baptism belongs to those who believe. Both agree that Paul's main point is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, not the mechanics of the rite.
• "Dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh" (v13). They were spiritually dead and, as Gentiles, outside God's covenant people. God did not improve them. He "made alive together with him," the same wording as Ephesians 2:5. Paul switches from "you" to "us" when he gets to forgiveness: he needs it as much as they do.
• "The record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands" (v14). The Greek cheirographon means something written by hand. In everyday use it was a signed note of debt, an IOU in the debtor's own handwriting. The lexicon gives "handwriting, note of hand, bond." Our own signature, so to speak, is on the charge sheet. "Its legal demands" (dogmata) points to God's law, which says what we owe and cannot pay.
• "Canceling… set aside, nailing it to the cross" (v14). "Canceling" is exaleiphō, to wipe out or blot out, the word in Acts 3:19 for sins being "blotted out." Writing on papyrus could literally be washed off. Then the note is "set aside," literally taken out of the middle, and nailed to the cross. Some connect this with the charge notice nailed over a crucified man's head (John 19:19). Over Jesus' head hung "King of the Jews." In Paul's picture, our charges were nailed there too, and paid.
• "He disarmed the rulers and authorities" (v15). The verb apekdyomai means to strip off. The lexicon notes it could mean Christ stripped the powers of their weapons, or stripped them off himself like clothing. The ESV's "disarmed" takes the first view, which most translations follow. With the debt cancelled, the accuser has nothing left to accuse with (Rev 12:10).
• "Put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him" (v15). Thriambeuō is the word for a Roman triumph, the victory parade in which a general led captured kings in chains through the streets (also 2 Cor 2:14). The cross looked like Jesus' public shame. Paul says it was the powers' public shame instead. "In him" can also be read "in it," that is, in the cross. The thought is the same: Genesis 3:15 fulfilled, the serpent's head crushed in the moment the heel was struck.
• Commentators: Henry calls Christ's fullness in v9 real, "and not figuratively; for he is both God and man," and says of vv6–7: "The more closely we walk with Christ the more we are rooted and established in the faith." On v15 he is memorable: "The Redeemer conquered by dying." JFB stresses that theotēs means the very essence of the Godhead, not just divine qualities, which the lexicon supports ("deity, Godhead"). JFB takes the handwriting as the whole law condemning humanity, while Henry allows either the law's curse or the ceremonial law, and Guzik reads it as the record of charges against us. Guzik says the verb for wiping out suggests whitewashing over. The lexicon does list "plaster, wash over" as an older sense, but in Colossians it gives "wipe out," so the whitewash picture should not be pressed. On baptism the three part ways: Henry calls it God's covenant engagement with his people, JFB allows pouring where immersion is impractical, and Guzik argues against reading infant baptism out of the circumcision comparison.

Let No One Disqualify You (vv16–23)

• "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you" (v16). The "therefore" looks back to the cross. If Christ has cancelled the debt and defeated the powers, no one gets to sit as judge over believers on these matters.
• "Food and drink… a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath" (v16). This is the Old Testament's own list of sacred times, yearly, monthly and weekly (1 Chr 23:31; Hos 2:11). Food laws came from Leviticus 11, and the drink rules may reflect Jewish or pagan ascetic practice, since the law forbids little drink beyond the Nazirite vow. Whatever else was mixed into the Colossian teaching, it plainly had a Jewish strand.
• "A shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (v17). "Substance" is literally "body" (sōma), set against "shadow" (skia). The lexicon notes the same contrast in Hebrews 10:1. A shadow is real, and it shows something is coming, but no one hugs a shadow once the person is in the room. Sabbath rest pointed to the rest Christ gives (Matt 11:28; Heb 4:9–10). Clean food laws pointed to a holy people. The feasts pointed to Passover lamb, firstfruits and harvest, all fulfilled in him.
• Readings differ on the Sabbath. Most Christians read v16 as freeing believers from the weekly Sabbath as a binding law, while keeping a regular day of worship and rest as wise and good (Rom 14:5–6). Others, including many Reformed and Puritan writers, think Paul means only the ceremonial sabbaths tied to the feasts, and that the weekly Sabbath, rooted in creation, carries over as the Lord's Day. Seventh-day Christians hold that the Saturday Sabbath still binds. Paul's clear point is that no one may judge a believer's standing with God by these observances.
• "Let no one disqualify you" (v18). Katabrabeuō comes from the word for an umpire who awards the prize. The lexicon gives "give judgment against" or "deprive of the prize." The teachers set themselves up as referees, ruling ordinary believers out of the race. Compare Philippians 3:14, where the prize is God's upward call in Christ.
• "Insisting on asceticism and worship of angels" (v18). "Asceticism" is literally "humility" (tapeinophrosynē), here probably fasting and self-denial done to prepare for visions. "Worship of angels" can mean worshiping angels (praying to them as go-betweens) or joining in the worship the angels offer in heaven, which some Jewish mystical writings described. Scholars split on which. Either way, it pulled attention off Christ. Revelation twice shows an angel refusing worship (Rev 19:10; 22:8–9). Interestingly, a church council held in Laodicea in the 300s still had to forbid Christians from invoking angels.
• "Going on in detail about visions" (v18). The verb embateuō means to step into or enter, and the lexicon flags the phrase as one of the hardest in the passage. Inscriptions from Apollo's oracle at Claros, in the same province of Asia, use the word for initiates "entering" a sanctuary after an oracle. The sense is someone who builds his authority on what he has "seen." The KJV, following a different reading of the text, has "intruding into those things which he hath not seen."
• "Puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind" (v18). The irony is sharp. The "humble" visionary is actually inflated, and his mind, which he thinks is spiritual, is literally "the mind of his flesh."
• "Not holding fast to the Head" (v19). This is the root problem. Paul returns to the picture of 1:18: Christ the head, the church his body. The whole body is "nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments" and grows "with a growth that is from God." Ancient medicine thought of the head supplying the body through its connections. Cut off from the head, all the spiritual technique in the world is just a severed limb.
• "If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits" (v20). The stoicheia again, from v8. Death ends obligations: a dead man owes no more taxes. Since they died with Christ (v12; Rom 6:2), the old powers and rules no longer have a claim on them. To submit again is to live "as if you were still alive in the world."
• "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" (v21). Paul is likely quoting the teachers' slogans, with a little mockery in the rhythm. The religion is defined by what it forbids. Jesus said the same about food: "whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him" (Mark 7:18–19).
• "Things that all perish as they are used" (v22). Food is eaten and gone. Making such things the measure of holiness is mistaking the temporary for the eternal. "Human precepts and teachings" echoes Isaiah 29:13, which Jesus quoted against the Pharisees (Mark 7:7).
• "Self-made religion" (v23). Ethelothrēskia, a word that appears nowhere earlier in Greek and may be Paul's own coinage: "will-worship," religion of one's own choosing. The KJV keeps "will worship." The rules look wise, humble and tough on the body.
• "Of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh" (v23). The punchline. Rules may change what a person eats, but they cannot change the heart. The Greek of v23 is awkward, and some read it differently ("of no value, serving only to indulge the flesh"), meaning such religion actually feeds pride. Either way, Paul has the answer ready in the next chapter: "Seek the things that are above, where Christ is" (3:1). Holiness comes from union with Christ, not from a longer list of don'ts.
• Commentators: Henry says the angel-worshipers were "taking that honour which is due to Christ only and giving it to a creature," and adds that "Pride is at the bottom of a great many errors and corruptions." On v19: "When men let go their hold of Christ, they catch at that which is next them." JFB defines will-worship as "arbitrarily invented worship" and says the ascetic rules, "while seeming to deny self and the body, they really are pampering the flesh." JFB also reads v18 as robbing believers of their prize, which the lexicon supports. On the Sabbath the commentators differ. JFB limits v16 to the annual feast-day sabbaths, insisting "the weekly sabbath rests on a more permanent foundation." Guzik reads it more broadly: believers may keep a Sabbath or food rules if they wish, but may not count them as bringing them nearer to God or judge others by them. He also warns, with F. F. Bruce, that severe self-denial can live side by side with spiritual pride.

Pointing to Christ

Every offer the Colossian teachers made, Paul answers with Christ. Secret wisdom? All its treasures are hidden in him. Spiritual fullness? It dwells in him bodily, and believers are filled in him. Circumcision? He has done it without hands. Fear of the powers? He led them in his triumph. Festivals and food laws? They were the shadow, and he is the body that cast it. Christ is not the first step toward something higher. He is the whole of it, and the way to grow is to hold fast to the Head.

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik provides thorough analysis of Christ's sufficiency, the four threats (philosophy, legalism, mysticism, asceticism), and the cross's triumph.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Colossians -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

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Reflection

• Treasures Hidden in Christ (v.3) — Paul says all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, not scattered across competing teachers or systems. Where are you tempted to search for wisdom outside of Him?
• Guarding Against Empty Philosophy (v.8) — Paul warns believers not to be captured by philosophy and empty deceit built on human tradition rather than on Christ. What ideas or influences shape your thinking that you've never tested against Him?
• Made Complete in Christ (v.10) — Because the fullness of God dwells in Christ, believers who are in Him lack nothing. Do you live like you're already complete in Him, or do you keep chasing the next experience to feel whole?
• The Debt Nailed to the Cross (v.14) — The record of everything held against us was canceled and nailed to the cross with Christ. Do you still carry guilt over sins He's already erased?
• Shadow and Substance (vv.16-17) — Food laws, festivals, and sabbaths were only a shadow pointing forward; the substance they pointed to is Christ himself. Are there religious rules you let others use to judge you, when Christ has already fulfilled what they pointed to?
• Rules That Can't Change the Heart (vv.20-23) — Self-made rules about what not to touch or taste look wise but have no real power to restrain sinful desire. Where do you lean on willpower and self-imposed restrictions instead of the Spirit's power for real change?