Colossians 1
EasyEnglish Bible
Paul and Timothy say ‘Hello’
1 This letter is from me, Paul. God chose me to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. Our friend Timothy is here with me while I write.
2 We are writing to you, God's own people who live in Colossae. You are like brothers and sisters to us because you continue to believe in Christ.
I pray that God, our Father, will continue to help you. I pray that he will give you peace in your minds.
Paul thanks God for the believers
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. 4 We thank God because people have told us good things about you. You continue to trust Christ Jesus. You also love all God's people. 5 You live like that because you hope to receive good things from God.[a] You know that God has prepared those good things for you. He is keeping them safe in heaven. You learned that when people first told you God's true message, his good news.
6 You have heard this good news, like people all over the world have heard it. It has caused good results among you since the time when you heard it first. At that time, you understood the true message about how kind God really is. As a result, God is blessing you more and more, like he blesses his people everywhere. 7 It was our good friend Epaphras who first told you this good news. Like us, he is Christ's servant. He serves Christ on our behalf. 8 He has told us about the love that God's Spirit has given to you.
Paul prays that they will know God more and more
9 Because of all that, we have not stopped praying for you, ever since the day that we heard about you. We ask God that his Spirit will make you truly wise. He will help you to know clearly what he wants you to do. You will understand his true message. 10 Then you will be able to live in a way that the Lord wants you to live. Everything that you do will please him. We pray that all these good things will have good results. We pray that you will know God better and better. 11 God rules from heaven with great power. We pray that he will make you strong with every kind of strength. Then, when troubles come, you can still be patient and strong. 12 You will be able to thank God, our Father, and be happy. God has prepared good things for his people to receive in heaven. Because God has included you among his people, you will also share those good things in the kingdom of light. 13 God has saved us from the dark kingdom where Satan rules.[b] He has brought us into the kingdom of his Son, whom he loves. 14 God's Son, Jesus, paid the price for our sins and made us free. Yes, God has forgiven us.[c]
Who God's Son, Jesus Christ, is
15 We cannot see God. But Jesus Christ shows us completely who God is. Even before God made anything, Jesus was already there as God's Son who rules everything. 16 When God created everything, it was his Son who did it. His Son made everything that is on earth and in heaven. He created everything that we can see, as well as the things that we cannot see. He made rulers and leaders. He made everything that has power and authority. God gave his Son the authority to create everything, so that his Son would receive praise. 17 God's Son was there before anything else was there. And now he causes everything to continue in its proper place. 18 The church is like Christ's body and he is its head.[d] He is where it all begins. As God's special Son, he was the first person who became alive again after death.[e] As a result, Christ is first and most important in all things.
19 God chose to put his nature in Christ completely. 20 He decided that Christ would die on the cross as a sacrifice. In that way, God would bring all things back to himself. Then everything could live in peace with God. That includes everything on the earth and everything in heaven.
21 As for you, you were far away from God at one time. You thought bad things and you did bad things. As a result, you were God's enemies. 22 But now you have become God's friends. This happened because Christ's human body died on the cross. As a result, God has brought you to himself. As you stand in front of him, you are completely good and clean inside. He sees nothing in you that is bad.
23 But you must continue to believe God's true message. Do not turn away from it. Continue to trust God, as you did when you first heard the good news. People have told this good news to everyone all over the world. And God has chosen me, Paul, as his servant to tell this good news.
Paul's work for Christ's people
24 At this time, I am suffering on your behalf, but I am still happy. Christ himself suffered on behalf of his people, the church. Now, while I live in my human body, I also suffer. I continue to receive the pain that Christ received, so that it may be complete.[f] In that way, I help the church, which is like Christ's own body.
25 I have become God's servant, so that I can help the church. God chose me to do that. He chose me to explain his message to you completely. 26 That message is a secret that God hid from everyone before now. He hid it from all the people who lived in past times. But now he has shown this secret to his people. 27 God wanted them to understand how great this secret is. It shows that God will bless people who live in all countries of the world. This secret message is that Christ lives in you. And because of that, you know that you will live with God in heaven one day.
28 That is why we tell everyone the message about Christ. God helps us to be very wise as we warn people and we teach them. We want every person who belongs to Christ to become complete, as God sees them. 29 That is why I work very hard. Christ works powerfully in me to make me strong for this difficult work.
Footnotes
- 1:5 In the Bible, to ‘hope’ means to trust God for what will happen. We wait to receive the good things that he has promised to give us. We know that we will live with Christ for ever. As believers we can be completely sure that these things will happen to us.
- 1:13 A place of light is a place where God rules. If we belong to God's kingdom, we live ‘in the light’. Any place where Satan rules is a dark place. Bad things happen in places like that.
- 1:14 Jesus made believers free from their sins when he died on the cross. God has forgiven us because Jesus died as a sacrifice on our behalf.
- 1:18 Christ gives his Spirit to those people who belong to him. He lives in his people because his Spirit is in them. They are united to him. They are like his body on earth.
- 1:18 Other people had become alive again after they died, but Jesus never died again. He became alive again to show us that we also will become alive again after death, if we believe in him. So he was the first and believers will follow him.
- 1:24 The Bible says that Christians will have troubles and pain. See Acts 14:22 and 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4. Christians, like Paul, sometimes suffer because they are helping other Christians. Paul does not mean that we have to do anything else to save ourselves. Christ suffered on our behalf. His death saves us completely, if we believe in him. We also suffer because we are his people.
Colossians 1
Modern English Version
Salutation
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ who are at Colosse:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thankfulness for the Colossians
3 We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you. 4 For we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints, 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you have already heard in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as it has in all the world, and brings forth fruit, as it has also in you, since the day you heard it and knew the grace of God in truth. 7 And you also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ for you, 8 who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
The Person and Work of Christ
9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing to all, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, 11 strengthened with all might according to His glorious power, enduring everything with perseverance and patience joyfully, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled us to be partakers in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of His dear Son, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of every creature. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they are thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell, 20 and to reconcile all things to Himself by Him, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him, I say—whether they are things in earth, or things in heaven.
21 And you, who were formerly alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight, 23 if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and are not removed from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Paul’s Ministry to the Church
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and fill up in my flesh that which is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church. 25 I have been made a servant of it according to the commission of God, which has been given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, 26 even the mystery which has been hidden from past ages and generations, but now is revealed to His saints. 27 To them God would make known what is the glorious riches of this mystery among the nations. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory, 28 whom we preach, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present them perfect in Christ Jesus. 29 In this I labor, striving according to His power, which effectively works in me.
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The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.