Colossians 2:2-3
…that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Paul had been laboring in prayer over a group of Christians he had never met face to face, describing it as a “great struggle.” Have you ever poured yourself out in prayer over someone you love? Perhaps it was (or is) a sick family member. Maybe it’s a wayward child who has chosen to live a prodigal life. There is a level of desperation we can experience when faced with difficult circumstances that drives us to the throne of God where we prostrate ourselves and cry out for His mercy and intervention. It appears that Paul had this level of care and concern for his brothers and sisters in Colossae.
Paul was facing a culture—both in Colossae and the Roman world in general— where many different ideas, coming from many different places were assaulting the truths of Christianity and attempting to deceive the church. There was not just one idea or heresy…there were many. Not much has changed in 1900 years. We live in a pluralistic, postmodern world. Today, our world would have us view everything as relative, including our theology. Just as in Colossae, there are many strands of heresy that compete for the minds and souls of Believers (especially younger ones). The message being proclaimed in the secular world, and sadly in many mainstream churches and denominations, is tolerance. All ideas have equal weight and truth, they say. However, much of the content of these beliefs are contrary to the gospel or outright deny its truth.
There are so many ideas and worldviews today in direct conflict with the truths of Christianity that to try and refute just one would not work. All must be refuted. None can be missed. That is a daunting task, to say the least, and not one that can be handled by one person at one time. Every believer has a place on this wall, just like the Christians in Colossae did, so Paul prayed for their encouragement, unity, and understanding. The word for encouragement was paraklein, which William Barclay explained as “enabling a person to meet some difficult situation with confidence and gallantry.” The attacks on Christianity in general and a Christian worldview specifically are varied and unrelenting. Sometimes they are overt and come right at you…but increasingly they are more subtle and enticing. We all need encouragement to stay alert and engaged.
If we aren’t unified as much as possible, how can we possibly stand against this onslaught? As the old saying goes, “United we stand and divided we fall.” But this unity cannot be coerced. It must be rooted in love—love for the Lord and love for one another. We can argue over Trump, masks, vaccines, and critical race theory…but for the true Body of Christ, we have to learn to agree to disagree on non-gospel issues while standing fixed on the essential doctrines of the faith. Or, as Augustine said, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
Finally, Paul knew that their unity came from not only love, but also from the truth, from both being knit together in love and growing in the understanding and knowledge of God’s truth. As followers of Christ grow in their knowledge of His truth, their thoughts about other issues will generally begin to converge, especially when it comes to essential doctrine. “The true wisdom Paul wanted them to know in Jesus would bring them together – indeed, knit them together in love – instead of dividing them the way that false wisdom did” (David Guzik).
As Paul prayed for the Colossians believers, let us pray in the same way for each other.
