Colossians 1:19-25

Amplified Bible

¹⁹For it pleased the Father for all the fullness [of deity—the sum total of His essence, all His perfection, powers, and attributes] to dwell [permanently] in Him (the Son), ²⁰and through [the intervention of] the Son to reconcile all things to Himself, making peace [with believers] through the blood of His cross; through Him, [I say,] whether things on earth or things in heaven.

²¹And although you were at one time estranged and alienated and hostile-minded [toward Him], participating in evil things, ²²yet Christ has now reconciled you [to God] in His ^[a]physical body through death, in order to present you before the Father holy and blameless and beyond reproach— ²³[and He will do this] if you continue in the faith, well-grounded and steadfast, and not shifting away from the [confident] hope [that is a result] of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed ^[b]in all creation under heaven, and of which [gospel] I, Paul, was made a minister.

²⁴Now I rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf. And with my own body I ^[c]supplement whatever is lacking [on our part] of Christ’s afflictions, on behalf of His body, which is the church. ²⁵In this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship which God entrusted to me for your sake, so that I might make the word of God fully known [among you]—

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Footnotes

Colossians 1:22 Lit body of flesh.
Colossians 1:23 Paul may be referring to the fact that the created world displays proof of the existence of an omnipotent, benevolent God (cf Rom 1:20), without whom there would be no possibility of salvation. Such a God is the foundation of the “good news.”
Colossians 1:24 I.e. since the church is Christ’s body, figuratively speaking, whatever the church suffers can be considered additional sufferings by Christ Himself, and all such suffering was ordained and destined by God; what is left to suffer in God’s plan is what is “lacking of Christ’s afflictions.” Paul, as a member of the church, was destined to suffer through persecution etc., thereby taking his share of the church body’s divinely-ordained suffering.