Colossians 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul tells the Colossians how hard he is struggling for them and for believers who have never met him, so that they will be encouraged and will know God's hidden truth, and so no one will talk them out of it with persuasive words. He writes that all the fullness of God lives in Christ in bodily form, that they were buried and raised with Christ in baptism, forgiven, and released from the written record of rules that God nailed to the cross. He then warns them not to let anyone judge them over food, drink, festivals, new moons, or Sabbath days, and not to be robbed of their prize by people who push false humility and the worship of angels. He closes by saying that rules like "do not touch, do not taste, do not handle" come from human teaching and only look wise.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • Paul says he wants them to know how great a conflict he has for them.
   • The conflict is also for those at Laodicea.
   • The conflict is also for as many as have not seen his face in the flesh.
2. 2:2
   • The purpose is that their hearts might be comforted.
   • The purpose is that they be knit together in love.
   • The purpose is that they come to all the riches of the full assurance of understanding.
   • The purpose is that they come to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.
3. 2:3
   • In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4. 2:4
   • Paul says he says this so that no one may deceive them with persuasive words.
5. 2:5
   • Paul is absent in the flesh.
   • Paul is with them in the spirit.
   • Paul rejoices as he beholds their orderly arrangement.
   • Paul beholds the firmness of their faith in Christ.
6. 2:6
   • They have received Christ Jesus the Lord.
   • Paul commands them to walk in him.
7. 2:7
   • They are to be rooted in him.
   • They are to be built up in him.
   • They are to be established in the faith as they were taught.
   • They are to abound in thanksgiving.
8. 2:8
   • Paul commands them to beware lest anyone carry them off as plunder through philosophy and empty deceit.
   • Such teaching is according to the tradition of men.
   • Such teaching is according to the elemental principles of the world.
   • Such teaching is not according to Christ.
9. 2:9
   • In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
10. 2:10
    • They are made complete in him.
    • He is the head of all principality and authority.
11. 2:11
    • In him they were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.
    • That circumcision consists in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh.
    • That circumcision is the circumcision of Christ.
12. 2:12
    • They were buried with him in baptism.
    • In it they were also raised with him.
    • They were raised through the faith of the working of God.
    • God raised him from the dead.
13. 2:13
    • They were dead in their sins.
    • They were dead in the uncircumcision of their flesh.
    • He made them alive together with him.
    • He forgave them all trespasses.
14. 2:14
    • He blotted out the handwritten record of ordinances that was against us.
    • That record was contrary to us.
    • He took it out of the way.
    • He nailed it to the cross.
15. 2:15
    • He stripped principalities and authorities.
    • He made a public display of them openly.
    • He triumphed over them in it, whether in the cross or in him.
16. 2:16
    • Paul commands that no one judge them in food.
    • Paul commands that no one judge them in drink.
    • Paul commands that no one judge them in respect of a festival, or a new moon, or sabbath days.
17. 2:17
    • These things are a shadow of things to come.
    • The body is of Christ.
18. 2:18
    • Paul commands that no one defraud them of their reward.
    • Such a person delights in humility and in worshipping of angels.
    • Such a person intrudes into things which he has not seen.
    • Such a person is vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh.
19. 2:19
    • Such a person is not holding fast the Head.
    • From the Head the whole body is supplied through joints and ligaments.
    • From the Head the whole body is knit together.
    • The body grows with the growth of God.
20. 2:20
    • If they died with Christ from the elemental principles of the world, Paul asks why they submit to ordinances.
    • Submitting to ordinances is as though they were living in the world.
21. 2:21
    • The ordinances say: do not touch.
    • The ordinances say: do not taste.
    • The ordinances say: do not handle.
22. 2:22
    • All these things are destined to perish with use.
    • These ordinances are according to the commandments and doctrines of men.
23. 2:23
    • These things have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed worship, humility, and severity to the body.
    • They are of no value against the satisfying of the flesh.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

Laodicea was a wealthy city in the Lycus valley of western Asia Minor (now Turkey), about ten miles from Colossae. The KJV's "great conflict" translates a Greek word taken from athletics, the strain of a contest in the games; it means hard exertion on their behalf, not a quarrel with them.

2:2

"Mystery" in these letters does not mean a riddle or something unknowable. It translates a word for a secret that was kept hidden for a long age and has now been announced in the open. The end of this verse is the single most uncertain piece of Greek in the letter: the manuscripts differ, and it can be read as "the mystery of God, that is, the Father and Christ," or "the mystery of God, namely Christ."

2:4

"Beguile" means to trick or fool somebody. "Enticing words" are words that sound good and pull you in before you notice.

2:5

Both of the KJV's words here are borrowed from the army. "Order" is the drawing up of troops in their proper ranks, and "stedfastness" is a solid, unbroken front. Paul is picturing a formation that has not been broken.

2:6

"Walk" is a standing Hebrew and Greek idiom for the whole conduct of a life, not for taking a stroll. To walk in someone is to live one's daily life within that relationship.

2:7

Paul paints two pictures here. You are like a tree with deep roots. You are also like a strong house being built.

2:8

The KJV's "spoil you" does not mean ruin you. It renders a word for carrying a person off as plunder, the way a raider takes captives. "Rudiments of the world" translates stoicheia, literally the things in a row: the ABCs. Ancient readers used it both for elementary first lessons and for the elements that make up the universe, and by extension for the spirit powers thought to stand behind sun, stars and seasons. Which sense Paul intends is genuinely disputed, and the rendering's "basic forces" keeps the question open.

2:9

"Fulness" translates pleroma, a word some religious teachers of the period used for the total sum of divine being, thought of as spread across many ranks of intermediaries. The claim here is that the whole of it resides in one person, and in a body at that.

2:10

"Principality and power" are not English words for provinces. They are two of the standard terms of the period for ranks of invisible rulers and authorities, and the same words were used of earthly officials. The vocabulary deliberately covers both.

2:11

Circumcision was the cutting away of the foreskin, performed on a Jewish boy on his eighth day, and it was the physical mark of belonging to the covenant people of Israel. The live question in Colossae was whether non-Jewish believers had to undergo it. "The body of the sins of the flesh" uses "flesh" in its moral sense, human nature as it runs on its own appetites, not the meat of the body.

2:12

Baptism at this period was immersion: the candidate went down under the water and came back up, which is what makes burial and rising the natural image. The KJV's "the faith of the operation of God" is ambiguous in the Greek as well: it can mean faith in God's working, or the faith that God's working produces.

2:13

"Quickened" is old English for made alive, from the same root as "the quick and the dead." "The uncircumcision of your flesh" is shorthand for being a Gentile, physically unmarked and so standing outside the covenant people.

2:14

"The handwriting of ordinances" translates cheirographon, the ordinary word for an IOU: a debt note written out and signed in the debtor's own hand, acknowledging what he owed. Cancelling such a note was done by wiping the ink off the papyrus. Nailing it up in public is the image of the charge being posted where everyone can see it has been settled.

2:15

The KJV's "spoiled" again does not mean ruined. The verb means stripped, as a defeated soldier is stripped of his armor, hence disarmed. "Triumphing over them" points to the Roman triumph, the victory parade in which a general rode through the city with his captives led in chains behind his chariot for the crowds to see. The final "in it" is ambiguous in Greek: in the cross, or in Christ.

2:16

These are the three standing Jewish observances, listed from the yearly down to the weekly. A "holyday" is an annual festival such as Passover or Tabernacles. The new moon, the first day of each lunar month, was marked by sacrifices and a pause from ordinary business. The Sabbath was the seventh day of rest. Jewish law also restricted which foods could be eaten, and in some stricter circles what could be drunk.

2:17

The picture is of a solid object with the light behind it, throwing its shadow out ahead of itself. "Body" here means the substance, the thing itself that casts the shadow, and not a human body.

2:18

"Beguile you of your reward" is one Greek verb taken from the games: it is what an umpire does when he rules against a competitor and denies him the prize. "Worshipping of angels" is ambiguous in the Greek and has been read two ways for centuries: worship offered to angels, or the worship that angels themselves perform, which the visionary claims to have joined. "Intruding into those things which he hath not seen" is also uncertain; the verb was used of entering in at initiation into a mystery cult, and some manuscripts lack the word "not," which would make it "things which he has seen," that is, in a vision.

2:19

"Bands" is old English for ligaments. The picture follows the medical writing of the period, in which the head supplies the rest of the body through joints and ligaments and coordinates its growth.

2:20

The KJV's "are ye subject to ordinances" is a single passive verb, roughly "do you let yourselves be regulated." On "rudiments of the world," see the note at verse 8.

2:21

These three commands are not Paul's instructions. He is quoting back, in clipped form, the slogans of the teachers he is arguing against. The KJV's "touch" and "handle" render two different Greek verbs; the first means to take hold of or have anything to do with, and is the stronger of the two.

2:22

The point of "perish with the using" is that food and drink are consumed and gone the moment they are used, so rules governing them are rules about perishable things.

2:23

"Will worship" is a coined Greek compound, roughly self-chosen or self-invented religion, worship a person prescribes for himself rather than receives. The last clause of this verse is famously the hardest sentence in the letter to construe: the Greek can be read as "of no value against the indulgence of the body," or as "with no honor, serving only to gratify the flesh," and translators have never settled it.