The Letter to the

COLOSSIANS

Scot McKnight

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

© 2018 Scot McKnight

All rights reserved

Published 2018

ISBN 978-0-8028-6798-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mcknight, Scot, author.

Title: The letter to the Colossians / Scot Mcknight.

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2018. | Series: The new international commentary on the New Testament | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017031037 | ISBN 9780802867988 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Colossians—Commentaries.

Classification: LCC BS2715.53 .M35 2018 | DDC 227/.7077—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017031037

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

The New International Commentary

on the

New Testament

General Editors

NED B. STONEHOUSE

(1946–1962)

F. F. BRUCE

(1962–1990)

GORDON D. FEE

(1990–2012)

JOEL B. GREEN

(2013–)

To my friend and colleague

Claude Mariottini,

who reminds me of what Paul said of Epaphras:

Ἐπαφρᾶς ὁ ἐξ ὑμῶν, δοῦλος Χριστοῦ [Ἰησοῦ],

πάντοτε ἀγωνιζόμενος ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐν ταῖς προσευχαῖς,

ἵνα σταθῆτε τέλειοι καὶ πεπληροφορημένοι ἐν παντὶ θελήματι τοῦ θεοῦ.

Almighty and everlasting God,

whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son,

the King of kings and Lord of lords:

Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth,

divided and enslaved by sin,

may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer

When a preacher opens the Bible and interprets the Word of God,

a mystery takes place, a miracle:

the grace of God,

who comes down from heaven into our midst and speaks to us,

knocks on our door,

asks questions,

warns us,

puts pressure on us,

alarms us,

threatens us,

and makes us joyful again and free and sure.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The ideal interpreter would be one who has entered

into that strange first-century world,

has felt its whole strangeness,

has sojourned in it until he has lived himself into it,

thinking and feeling as one of those to whom the Gospel first came;

and who will then return into our world,

and give to the truth he has discerned

a body out of the stuff of our own thought.

If there are other qualifications of which it is less fitting

to speak in an academic lecture,

I may be allowed to hint at them in a phrase familiar

to theologians—testimonium Spiritus Sancti internum.

C. H. Dodd

inaugural lecture at Cambridge, in F. ...