Colossians 1:25-29 - Preaching & Discipleship
This post is part of a teaching series on the book of Colossians. All of the lessons in this series can be found here. In the first lesson we outlined the book. In each subsequent lesson we look at one small section of the outline and seek to answer five questions concerning the text.
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
We know from our outline, and our summary of this paragraph from last week, that this passage describes Paul’s ministry of preaching/teaching.
Last week we looked at verse 24 and the suffering that is inherent in the delivery of the Gospel. This week we’re looking at the actual delivery. As we read this paragraph we’ll notice four things about Paul’s teaching ministry.
- Paul’s appointment as a steward of the Gospel(25)
- The message he preached (25 - 28)
- The method he used (28)
- The goal he hoped to achieve (28 - 29)
