COLOSSIANS & PHILEMON

Verse by Verse

GRANT R. OSBORNE

Colossians & Philemon: Verse by Verse

Osborne New Testament Commentaries

Copyright 2016 Grant R. Osborne

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

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Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are the author’s translation or from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Print ISBN 9781577997368

Digital ISBN 9781577997375

Lexham Editorial Team: Abby Salinger, David Bomar, Elliot Ritzema, Justin Marr, Scott Hausman

Cover Design: Christine Gerhart

Back Cover Design: Brittany Schrock

Contents

Series Preface

COLOSSIANS

Introduction to Colossians

1:1–14 Greeting and Prologue: The Power of the Gospel in the Church

1:15–2:23 The Preeminence of Christ in Christian Doctrine

3:1–4:1 The Preeminence of Christ in Christian Living

4:2–18 Concluding Thoughts

PHILEMON

Introduction to Philemon

Letter opening

1–7 The Love and Faith of Philemon

8–20 Letter body

21–25 Letter Closing

Glossary

Bibliography

Subject and Author Index

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Literature

Series preface

There are two authors of every biblical book: the human author who penned the words, and the divine Author who revealed and inspired every word. While God did not dictate the words to the biblical writers, he did guide their minds so that they wrote their own words under the influence of the Holy Spirit. If Christians really believed what they said when they called the Bible “the word of God,” a lot more would be engaged in serious Bible study. As divine revelation, the Bible deserves, indeed demands, to be studied deeply.

This means that when we study the Bible, we should not be satisfied with a cursory reading in which we insert our own meanings into the text. Instead, we must always ask what God intended to say in every passage. But Bible study should not be a tedious duty we have to perform. It is a sacred privilege and a joy. The deep meaning of any text is a buried treasure; all the riches are waiting under the surface. If we learned there was gold deep under our backyard, nothing would stop us from getting the tools we needed to dig it out. Similarly, in serious Bible study all the treasures and riches of God are waiting to be dug up for our benefit.

This series of commentaries on the New Testament is intended to supply these tools and help the Christian understand more deeply the God-intended meaning of the Bible. Each volume walks the reader verse-by-verse through a book with the goal of opening up for us what God led Matthew or Paul or John to say to their readers. My goal in this series is to make sense of the historical and literary background of these ancient works, to supply the information ...