The letter that Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae
(The book in the Holy Bible called Colossians)
About this letter
Paul wrote this letter about 2,000 years ago, about 30 years after Jesus went back to heaven, and it is now in the Holy Bible.
God sent Paul to lots of countries and lots of towns to tell people about Jesus. Epafras heard Paul’s message, and he believed in Jesus. Then Epafras went to the town called Colossae, to tell the people there about Jesus. Colossae was in the country that is now called Turkey. About 1,100 years later some enemy soldiers broke Colossae down, and today there are just stones and rubbish at that place in Turkey.
At the time when Paul wrote this letter, the Roman people were the bosses over lots of nations. The Roman bosses didn’t like Paul telling people about Jesus, so they grabbed him and put him in jail. Epafras visited him there in jail and told him about the Christians at Colossae. He also told Paul that some people were teaching them lies. So Paul wrote this letter to the Christians at Colossae, to tell them the true message so that they would not believe those lying teachers. He was still in jail when he wrote this letter.
This letter has good messages for us today. We have to take notice of those messages that Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae.
1
1 I’m Paul, and this letter is from me. And Timothy is helping me write it too. God made me Jesus Christ’s special worker.
2 We are writing this letter to God’s people that live at Colossae. You joined up with Jesus Christ, and you keep on trusting him, so you are like brothers and sisters to us.
We are asking God our father to be good to you, and to make you feel happy and quiet inside yourselves.
People at Colossae believed the good news about Jesus
3-5 People tell us good things about you, so now, every time we pray for you, we always say thank you to God for you. He is the father of our leader Jesus Christ. You heard the true message about Jesus, and you believed it. Now you are really sure that God will give you the good things that he promised. You know that he is keeping them safe for you in heaven. So you keep on believing in Jesus Christ, and you keep on loving all God’s people. That is what people tell us about you.
6 And other people everywhere are hearing that same true message that you heard about Jesus. And they are believing in Jesus and doing good things too.
7 Epafras told you the message about Jesus. He works for Jesus Christ, just like we do, and we love him very much. You see, we couldn’t go and tell you the message about Jesus, but he went instead of us. He is a good man. You can always believe what he tells you.*
8 After that, Epafras came back here, and he told us about you. He said that the Holy Spirit now helps you to love everybody.
Paul prayed for the new Christians
9 Yes, Epafras told us about you, and so now we pray for you all the time. We ask God to help you to know what he wants you to do. And we pray that he will help you to understand spiritual things properly, and think about them properly. 10 Then you will live the way that our leader, Jesus, wants you to live, and you will do lots of good things that will make him happy. And you will know God better and better all the time.
11 And we ask God to use his great power to make you strong, so that you will stay strong for him and you will not give up. And if people give you trouble, we pray that you will not worry or get upset. And we ask him to make you happy all the time. 12 And we want you to always say thank you to God, our father. He brought you into his family so that you will get the good things that he promised to give to his people. Then you will live with him in his good place.
God’s son died to set us free
13-14 You know, the boss over the bad spirits always used to push us to do bad things. It’s like we were in a bad place, where he is the boss. But God sent his son, Jesus, to get us out of that place. He took the payback for us, so that now God will not punish us. He set us free from that bad boss, and now we belong to the family of God’s son. God loves his son Jesus very much.*
15-16 Nobody can see God. But God’s son, Jesus, is just like God, and he showed people what God is like. You see, Jesus was there with God a long time ago, and he worked with God to make everything. They made all the things in heaven, and all the things on the earth. They made the things we can see, and the things we can’t see. They made all the spirits, even the spirit bosses that we can’t see. God worked with his son to make everything, so that now everything has to respect God’s son. Jesus is God’s son, and he is the boss over everything. 17 He was there at first, before anything else, and now he holds everything together, everything everywhere, and he keeps it all working properly.
18 Jesus is the leader of all God’s people, and God’s people are the church. It’s like God’s people are a body, and Jesus is their head. He is the church’s leader. He was the first one to ever die and then come back to life and keep on living. So he is really great. He is greater than anyone else, and greater than anything else, anywhere.*
19 At the time when God’s son became a man, God lived in him properly. God was happy to live in him. 20 God used him to get everything to come back to himself. God’s son bled and died on the cross, so that now everything can stop being God’s enemies, and become God’s friends again. Some of those things are in heaven, and some of them are on the earth, but Jesus died on the cross, so that they can all come back to God.*
God is a friend of people that trust Jesus
21 And I’m talking about you too. At first you were not God’s friends. You were his enemies. You always thought in a bad way, and then you did bad things. 22 But God sent Jesus Christ to live as a man, in a human body, and then he let people kill Jesus’s body. When Jesus died, he took the payback for the bad things you did, so you can be friends with God. It’s like he washed you of those bad things, so you are properly good and clean inside. So at the time when God will judge everyone, he will see that you are clean and he will not blame you, he will say that you are not guilty.
23 If you stay strong, God will do that for you. You have to always remember the good news that you heard about Jesus, so that you keep on trusting him and know that he will save you. You see, God got his workers to tell people everywhere that Jesus died to save us. It is really good news. And I, Paul, am one of God’s workers now. My job is to tell people that good news.
Paul helped God’s people no matter what trouble he got
24 Yes, I tell people the message about Jesus. Some people don’t like it, and they give me trouble. But that doesn’t matter, that message helps people that believe it. You believe it, so it helps you. So I am happy, and I keep on telling it. You know that Jesus Christ got a lot of trouble. In the same way, I get a lot of trouble. But I want to keep on helping his people. They are the church. They are like the body of Jesus Christ. 25 And God gets me to work for his people, so I do this to help you. My job is to tell you God’s word, and help you understand it properly.
26 At first, God didn’t let anyone know what he planned to do. He kept that plan a secret for a really long time. But now he is showing it to his people. 27 God wants his people to know that plan. He planned to use Jesus to save people that are not Jews, as well as people that are Jews. And now he is doing that, so it is really great for people that are not Jews. Yes, Jesus Christ lives in you, and he lives in everybody that trusts him, so you can be sure that later on God will make you great.
28 So we tell everyone about Jesus Christ. We teach them to follow Jesus and do what he says. You see, God helped us to understand those things properly, and we want everyone to join up with Jesus Christ, and to become really good Christians. And God will see that they are really good. 29 So I work really hard to do that. It is hard work, but Jesus Christ gives me his power, and he makes me strong.
* 1:7 Colossians 4:12; Philemon 1:23 * 1:13-14 Ephesians 1:7 * 1:18 Ephesians 1:22-23 * 1:20 Ephesians 2:16