The lectionary reading for Trinity 4 in Year C is Colossians 1.1–14, the opening greetings and prayer of Paul for the followers of Jesus he has not met in an ekklesia which he did not plant.
Paul adapts the standard letter greetings in a striking way, and his two part prayer/introduction (there is a break at verse 9) contains some remarkable ideas. Paul’s eschatological understanding of ‘two kingdoms’ or ‘two ages’ is implicit rather than explicit, so we need to tease that out. And he has a repeated focus on the fruitful growth of the gospel and the fruitful growth of the people, which remind us of the parable of the sower, the Exodus narrative, and the creation of the world.
The Bible Project video on Colossians is here.
The gospel reading is Luke 10.25–37, the so-called parable of the Good Samaritan, and you can watch the discussion here.
and find the written commentary here.
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Thank you Ian and James for this discussion about Colossians. Just a thought I have had for a while about Colossians that I would be glad to get your impressions of. Could it be that Paul wrote Colossians to accompany Onesimus and the letter to Philemon to the Lycus valley to explain why ‘in Christ’, as well as being no longer Jew and gentile, there is also no longer slave and free — that slaves (even runaway slaves?) are now ‘beloved brothers (and sisters)? Or, in other words, Colossians is the ‘theological’ underpinning of EpPhilemon? Tom Wright did ‘say’ (paraphrasing the *big* Paul book) that, if EpPhilemon were the only NT letter we had, we would have to conclude that something major had happened in the gospel.