God's New Revelations

The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Colossians

⭑ Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic ⭑

⮜ Back | Contents | Next ⮞

- Chapter 1 -

(Philippians 1:1–2; Philemon 1:1–3)
1
I, Paul, write this to the dear fellow believers in the city of Colossae. This is from Paul, whom God chose to send to you as an apostle of Messiah Jesus, and this letter is also from Timothy, our fellow believer joined to Messiah. We are sending this letter to all of you.
2
We send this letter to those God has set apart for himself, those who are faithful believers who belong to Messiah. We pray that God our Father will give you his kindness and peace.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

(1 Corinthians 1:4–9; Philippians 1:3–11)
3
We often thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, while we are praying for you.
4
We give God thanks because we have heard that you trust in Messiah Jesus and that you love all those whom God has set apart for himself.
5
You love our fellow believers because you confidently are waiting for the things God is reserving for you in heaven. You first heard about these things when you heard the true message, the good news about Messiah.
6
Believers are proclaiming this good news that you heard in Colossae to everyone in the world. It is just as it has worked in you also, from the first day you heard it and understood how truly kind God is. The good news is like a field planted with crops that are growing and will give a very large harvest.
7
Epaphras taught you the good news. We love him because he serves Messiah together with us and works for Messiah faithfully in our place.
8
He told us that you love all God’s people because God’s Spirit has empowered you to love God and others.
9
Since the time we heard about how you love, we have always been praying for you. We ask God to show you everything he wants you to do, and to make you wise so that you will understand what God’s Spirit is teaching you.
10
We pray that you will live in a way that will help others honor the Lord also, so that he will approve of you. We pray that you will grow to understand God more and do every good thing that he tells you to do.
11
We pray that God will strengthen you with all his mighty power, so that you will patiently endure every difficulty.
12
We pray that you will be rejoicing and thanking God our Father, because he has declared you worthy to be with the others whom he has set apart for himself; this is so he can give you all the things that he is keeping for you when you are with him in the light of his presence.
13
God our Father has rescued us from the evil that controlled us; he has made his Son, whom he loves, to rule over us now.
14
By means of his Son he has set us free from that evil; that is, he has forgiven our sins.

The Supremacy of the Son

(Hebrews 1:1–14)
15
When we know the Son, we know what God is like, even though we cannot see him. The Son has first place over everything that he has created.
16
For the Son created all things, as the Father desired him to do: Everything in the sky and everything on earth, everything that we can see and everything that we cannot see, such as angelic beings of all kinds and powers and authorities, all things exist because the Son created them because the Father wanted him to. And they exist for him.
17
The Son himself existed before anything else, and he holds everything together.
18
He rules all believers, the church, like a person’s head rules his body. He rules over the church because he started it. He was the first person to come back to life with a perfect body. So he is greater than every thing.
19
God the Father was pleased to make everything he is to live in Messiah.
20
It also pleased God to bring everything back to himself in peace through Jesus. God offered peace to all people and all things everywhere on earth and in heaven. He did this by causing the Son to die on the cross as a sacrifice, shedding his blood as he died.
21
Before you believed in Messiah, God considered you his enemies, and you were unfriendly to God because you thought evil thoughts and because you did evil deeds.
22
But now God has offered peace between yourselves and himself and has made you his friends. He did this when Jesus gave up his body and life for us by dying. This made it possible for us to belong to God; he finds nothing wrong in us now, nothing to blame us for.
23
But you must continue to trust Messiah completely; then you will be like a house that they built on solid rock. Do not for any reason stop believing in what God has promised to do for you in the good news that people all over the world have heard. This is the same good news that I, Paul, am serving God by proclaiming to people.

Paul’s Suffering for the Church

(2 Corinthians 11:16–33)
24
Now I rejoice that I am suffering for your benefit. Yes, in order to help the church, which is like Messiah’s body, I suffer things that must still happen.
25
God made me his servant and gave to me special work to do, which is to proclaim the full message of God to non-Jewish people like you.
26
From ancient times, for generations, God did not tell this good news, but now he has revealed this mystery to those whom he has set apart for himself.
27
It is to these people, Jews and non-Jews like yourselves just as much, that God planned to tell this wonderful secret. It is this: Messiah will live in you and make you confidently expect to share in God’s glory!
28
We are wisely warning and teaching every person about Messiah so that we might bring into God’s presence each one as knowing God completely, joined to Messiah.
29
It is to do this that I work my hardest, because Messiah is giving me strength.
Copyright © Door43 - licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
(Philippians 1:1–2; Philemon 1:1–3)
1
Paul, an apostle of Christ (a) Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2
to the saints and faithful brothers(b) in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

(1 Corinthians 1:4–9; Philippians 1:3–11)
3
We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
4
having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you have toward all the saints,
5
because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Good News
6
which has come to you, even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth,
7
even as you learned from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your (c) behalf,
8
who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
9
For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
10
that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,
11
strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy,
12
giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,
13
who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love,
14
in whom we have our redemption,(d) the forgiveness of our sins.

The Supremacy of the Son

(Hebrews 1:1–14)
15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16
For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and for him.
17
He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.
18
He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.
19
For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him,
20
and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
21
You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil deeds,
22
yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without defect and blameless before him,
23
if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, which is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made a servant.

Paul’s Suffering for the Church

(2 Corinthians 11:16–33)
24
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly,
25
of which I was made a servant according to the stewardship of God which was given me toward you to fulfill the word of God,
26
the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations. But now it has been revealed to his saints,
27
to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
28
We proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus;
29
for which I also labor, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily.

Footnotes

(a)1:1 “Christ” means “Anointed One”.
(b)1:2 The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”
(c)1:7 NU reads our
(d)1:14 TR adds “through his blood,”
⮜ Back | Contents | Next ⮞