Part 781 (1/2)

1:8. Who also hath manifested your love in the spirit.

1:9. Therefore we also, from the day that we heard it, cease not to pray for you and to beg that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding:

1:10. That you may walk worthy of G.o.d, in all things pleasing; being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of G.o.d:

1:11. Strengthened with all might according to the power of his glory, in all patience and longsuffering with joy,

1:12. Giving thanks to G.o.d the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light:

1:13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love,

1:14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins:

1:15. Who is the image of the invisible G.o.d, the firstborn of every creature:

The firstborn... That is, first begotten; as the Evangelist declares, the only begotten of his Father: hence, St. Chrisostom explains firstborn, not first created, as he was not created at all, but born of his Father before all ages; that is, coeval with the Father and with the Holy Ghost.

1:16. For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or princ.i.p.alities, or powers. All things were created by him and in him.

1:17. And he is before all: and by him all things consist.

1:18. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may hold the primacy:

1:19. Because in him, it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell:

1:20. And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth and the things that are in heaven.

1:21. And you, whereas you were some time alienated and enemies in mind in evil works:

1:22. Yet now he hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unspotted and blameless before him:

1:23. If so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven: whereof I Paul am made a minister.

1:24. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church:

Wanting... There is no want in the sufferings of Christ in himself as head: but many sufferings are still wanting, or are still to come, in his body the church, and his members the faithful.

1:25. Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of G.o.d, which is given me towards you, that I may fulfil the word of G.o.d:

1:26. The mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations, but now is manifested to his saints,

1:27. To whom G.o.d would make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ, in you the hope of glory.

1:28. Whom we preach, admonis.h.i.+ng every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

1:29. Wherein also I labour, striving according to his working which he worketh in me in power.

Colossians Chapter 2

He warns them against the impostures of the philosophers and the Jewish teachers, that would withdraw them from Christ.