The Thursday After

We’re continuing our stroll through Colossians at WMB. Today Adam talked us through 1:24-29.

Our stroll through Colossians is a good prompt for me to become familiar with the book. I’ve come across a few things that are helpful and share them in case they are helpful for you.

Reading through

I’ve taken Jeff’s encouragement to read through all of Colossians in one go. I’ve done it a few times. I can affirm Jeff’s encouragement – it is very helpful to read the letter through. For example, I notice that while Paul gives general principles and direction, he still mostly encourages the Colossians to work out how to follow King Jesus themselves.

I find it hard to read straight through Paul’s dense writing. Having learned that these letters cost a lot of money (parchment, scribe) and took a long time to compose, I understand why he’s trying to cram a lot into a little space. Now when I read I get a sense of someone just bursting to explain so much in just a few words. And I take comfort that even Peter found Paul’s writing hard (2 Peter 3:16). I have found a few things helpful when reading through the Colossians:

• I imagine the book being read/performed to the house church at Colossae (20 people or so?) by the person (Tychicus?) Paul explained the whole letter to. I would love to have heard Tychicus perform it. Would he have stopped at the end for Q&A? Would he have explained some of the details as they were working on writing the letter?.
• The Message version is easy to read through without stopping and going back over things. It gives the flow of what Paul is talking about. Its how I imagine Tychicus reading it to that small house church.
• The NLT helps because the sentences are shorter.
• If there is a sentence with a lot of commas or clauses (eg in NIV), I start by removing all the clauses, and then adding them back in one by one. For example, the first few steps of Col 1:3 would go like this, and I keep adding until I’m back at the original sentence:
  • We always thank God when we pray for you
  • We always thank God when we pray for you because we have heard of your faith and love
  • We always thank God when we pray for you because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people …
• I miss not being able to go through this with my home group due to summer break.

The meaning of gospel

“Gospel” is an older English word for “good news”. “Good news” would remind a first century Jew of God’s promises in Isaiah to send a Messiah because Isaiah uses the term. And “good news” was also used in the first century Roman world for the crowning or birthday of the emperor. So when Paul says “good news” he means something different than “good news, it will be sunny tomorrow”. Calling Jesus “good news” was provocative: the long awaited Messiah and the crowning of a new king. So “good news” becomes a shorthand way of referring to the story of the Messiah and the crowning of King Jesus. Since we live in a different time and culture, we miss this shorthand unless it is pointed out to us.

How to read the letters

I’ve been going through the Bible Project’s material on “how to read the new testament letters” again. Really helpful stuff. The short summary is in two five minute videos (here and here), and the long version is in ten one-hour podcasts (here – listen while you are driving or walking). The most helpful part for me?: The letters are an example to us how first century Christians in the Roman world were working out how to live like followers of Jesus in their context. So how they were working out the gospel in their context is an example for how we can work out how to live like followers of Jesus in our context.

The new world order

Paul talks about how Jesus changes everything, even the world order (Col 1:15+). That’s an extremely big claim. That’s why his strong advice and the rest of his letter make sense.

Two thousand years later and Jesus coming has had a huge impact on civilization (Tom Holland does a great job of describing this in Dominion). So for me, in 2024, when lots of change has already happened, its harder to feel just how radical the claim is that Jesus changes everything.

What’s a “change claim” I can relate to? I’ve started playing with ChatGPT and have some other minor involvements with generative AI and large language models. There is no doubt generative AI is going to change the world. Along with the energy transition, the world in 2035 will look very different than it does today. The scale of change will be bigger than the internet, the LED light bulb, the smart phone and social media combined. Most things (jobs, wars, education, media, truth and human relationships) are going to look different. That is a fun and scary thing to think about.

I have an easier time describing how generative AI is going to change the world than how Jesus changes (changed?, will change?) the world. Professional investors work hard to understand what the future will look like and invest money accordingly, To quote the great one, these investors “skate to where the puck is going to be“. The coming change is exactly why investors are now flocking the generative AI.

What if we think about the good news with the investor mindset — how does the good news change the world? It seems to me this is what Paul is exploring in his letter. Invest your life in things that really pay off. The good news changes what you do when you get up in the morning, how you think about emperor Nero, what you do with your time and money, what you value, how you treat other humans, even those who are under or above you in society …. the list goes on.

What if we ordered our lives by this good news?

We can make some guesses about what a generative AI world will look like. Some guesses will be right and some will be wrong. Part of the good news is we don’t have to guess. We know how it ends: heaven and earth will be re-united: God space and human space will again be one. God’s kingdom will be fully realized and there will be peace, no pain, and no death.