Colossians - Saints in the Sticks

Last time’s post was looking to answer the question, “Who is the letter to the Colossians from?” This time I want to think about the people who received the letter.

         Who is the letter to the Colossians to?

The first part of the answer is easy – to some people in Colossae.

Where was Colossae then?

Well it was in the west of what we now call Turkey, what the Romans called Asia. It had previously been quite an important place, but by New Testament times it was dwarfed in importance by its two neighbours, Laodicea and Hierapolis. Colossae was a bit of a backwater in actual fact. It was not a particularly wealthy or influential place, and it was somewhere Paul had apparently never been, although he hoped to visit eventually. So it was like most places – unimportant to most people.

But evidently it wasn’t unimportant to God. In God’s plan and purpose the gospel had reached apparently insignificant Colossae. Chapter 1:7 suggests that it was a man called Epaphras who had taken the gospel there, and taught it to people in that town.

Isn’t it great that God is interested in “unimportant” places, and that he raises up people who are willing to take the gospel to “unimportant” places! Isn’t it encouraging that there’s a letter in the Bible written to the church in Colossae.

You won’t find Colossae on a modern map. In fact you wouldn’t even find Colossae on a 1900 year old map. History tells us that it was pretty much wiped out by an earthquake that must have taken place within just a few years of Paul writing this letter to the church there.

But even though Colossae didn’t matter much to the wider world, even though it wouldn’t even exist in just a few short years, God had put a church there. God inspired Paul to write to the church there.

God is interested in the backwaters. Ingleton, and the villages round about here are our home, but they’re in the sticks as far as most people are concerned. Just like many other places are too. But they matter to God, their people matter to God, just as much as people living in the headline grabbing cities matter. And because they matter to God, they should matter to us as his people. Nowhere is irrelevant and unimportant in God’s eyes.

So Paul has written his letter to some people in the backwater town of Colossae. But what else do we know about who he has written to?

They’re saints verse 2. What is a saint?

The understanding that most people have of what a saint is has ended up far removed from the truth as it’s found in the Bible. If you were to ask most people what the definition of a saint is, what do you think they’d say? An amazingly good person. A wonderfully kind and self giving person.

Well that’s not actually the biblical definition of a saint. It’s not surprising that most people think it is – but it isn’t.

The idea of a saint being an especially good person, a super Christian, is largely down to what the Roman Catholic Church has taught over the years. Every now and again they’ll take an example of some dead person from the past that they consider to have been a particularly outstanding Christian, and the Pope will announce them to be a saint.

It’s nonsense, because according to the Bible, every Christian, dead or living, is a saint. The fact that an individual is a saint is not based on how good they are. It’s based on what God has done for them. If you’re a Christian this morning, then as far as the Bible is concerned you’re a saint.

Let’s just think a little bit more about this word saint. What does it really mean?

Well the word “saint” is part of the same word group in the Bible as the word “sanctify”. That might not be very enlightening to be told that so let me try to explain a little further.

To sanctify means to take something or someone, to cleanse it, so that it can be declared to be holy, and then to set it apart as God’s special possession, for God’s special use.

So in the Old Testament for example, you would have sanctified items, as well as people. In other words inanimate objects that would be ceremonially cleansed, often using animal blood, or oil, or water. Having gone through this cleansing they were then declared to be holy, and set apart as God’s possession for God’s use. This had to be done with anything that would be used in God’s temple. It would even be done with a shovel for example that was used in the temple. It had to be sanctified.

When you get to the NT, the saints are those people who have been sanctified. They have been washed and cleansed in the blood, not of animals, but of the Lord Jesus Christ. They have been declared to be holy in God’s sight, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. They have been set apart as God’s special possession, his special people, who belong to him. And they have been set apart to serve him, to glorify him, for his use in his kingdom.

As Paul addresses the saints in Colossae, this is who he is speaking of. Those who are the cleansed, holy, set apart people of God who have been sanctified in order to serve him and glorify him with their whole being and their whole life. That is a saint – someone that God has qualified to be his cleansed, holy, set apart servant. It is a way of describing any and every true Christian. To speak of the saints in Colossae, as Paul does here, is to speak of the church in Colossae.

How can you recognise a saint?

Well that’s the second part of Paul’s description of the church at Colossae – they will be faithful in Christ Jesus.

Firstly, that means that their faith will be in Christ for their salvation. They will trust in Christ and Christ alone to make them a saint, to qualify them to be one of God’s people, one of God’s servants.

Secondly, they will also be faithful to Christ. Because they have been set apart in Christ, as God’s special possession, for God’s use, they will faithfully follow Christ, they will faithfully serve God. They’ll make mistakes of course, but they will seek to be what they now are – a saint, a servant of God. And if a person is not giving their life to serve the God to whom they now supposedly belong, if they’re speaking and behaving as if, “my life belongs to me not God”, then they’re probably not a saint at all.

Saints want to faithfully be what they are – cleansed, holy, set apart servants of Jesus.

Is that you? Is that your desire?

If it isn’t, then you still need to ask Jesus to save you and turn your life around so that you faithfully want to follow him and serve him. You’re not yet a saint!