It is the unknown God that science is struggling with today: his name is Jesus of Nazareth.
By him are all things held together, and all power in the natural world comes from him.
A devotion introduction for November
Most of the letters that Paul wrote to the churches were written to those he had started himself. But he did not begin the church at Rome, nor did he begin the church at Colossae. It is not certain who started the Colossians church, but it is very likely a man mentioned in certain of Paul's other letters — Epaphroditus, or, since that was too long a name for even the Greeks to say, Epaphras. He is mentioned in this letter as being from Colossae, and is very likely the one who founded the church. Where he had heard the Gospel we do not know, but he had evidently taken it to his own home town and had begun to proclaim Christ. Out of that proclamation came the church at Colossae.
Epaphroditus had gone to Rome to see the Apostle Paul, who was then a prisoner, carrying with him reports of the church at Colossae. Another man also went to Rome to see Paul during his first imprisonment, and he too brought reports of the church at Colossae. So it was to these new Christians, who had never met the apostle face to face, that Paul wrote the letter from Rome.
This letter was written at about the same time as the letter to the Philippians, and it is very similar in its structure and content to the letter to the Ephesians. They were probably written at about the same time, during Paul's first imprisonment, and are therefore called the Prison Epistles of the Apostle Paul. The primary difference between Paul’s two letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians is that the Colossians had a problem, and it is on this problem that the apostle is primarily focusing. They were on the verge of losing their understanding of the power by which Christian life is lived. Therefore, this letter is Paul’s great proclamation and explanation of that power in the Christian's life through Christ, the resource for each individual.
