Colossians 1

1 ¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of our Father, and Timothy our brother, ²to Colossae's holy, faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from our Father.

Grateful for Your Faith

³We always thank our Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying for you, ⁴since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all the saints, ⁵because of the hope kept for you in heaven, which you already heard in the message of truth, the gospel, ⁶which reached you, bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world as it has among you, since the day you heard and truly understood our Father's grace. ⁷You learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, ⁸and he has told us about your love in the Holy Spirit.

⁹So, since the day we heard, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking that you be filled with knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of our Father, ¹¹being strengthened with all power by his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, ¹²giving thanks to our Father, who qualified you to share the saints' inheritance in the light. ¹³He rescued us from darkness's reign and brought us into his beloved Son's kingdom, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The Son Above All Things

¹⁵He is the image of our invisible Father, the firstborn over all creation. ^a a v15 The Son is the visible likeness of the Father no one has ever seen — to look at Jesus is to see what our Father is like. ¹⁶For everything was created in him—things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, powers, authorities—all created through him and for him. ¹⁷And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸He is head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, firstborn from the dead, so that he might have first place in everything. ¹⁹For our Father was pleased to have all his fullness live in the Son, ²⁰and through him reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, making peace through his cross's blood.

²¹Once you were alienated from our Father, hostile in your thinking, because of your evil deeds. ²²But now our Father has reconciled you in Christ's fleshly body through death, to present you holy, blameless, and beyond reproach before him, ²³if you truly remain in the faith, grounded and firm, not moved from the hope of the gospel you heard, proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a servant.

Paul's Suffering for the Church

²⁴I now rejoice in my suffering for you, and in my flesh complete what is still lacking in Christ's hardships, for the sake of his body, the church. ^b b v24 Paul doesn't mean the cross was incomplete — he means his own suffering extends Christ's saving mission through the church, his body. ²⁵I became its servant through the assignment our Father gave me for you: to fully proclaim our Father's word. ²⁶The mystery that was hidden for ages and generations but is now revealed to his holy people. ²⁷To them our Father chose to reveal this mystery's glorious riches among Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. ²⁸We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, to present everyone mature in Christ. ²⁹For this I labor, striving with all the energy our Father supplies, which so powerfully works within me.