Colossians 1:1-8. Today we begin the book of Colossians. This is a letter to the church in a city called Colosse in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). For more about the letter the city and the author check out the “Intro to Colossians”. It is important to read the introductions because the books of the Bible were written at different times and places and for different reasons. Without the backgrounds it can be difficult and sometimes impossible to understand what you are reading.

Verses 1and 2 are a typical greeting for a letter in those days (about 62 AD). Verse 1 tells us it is from Paul and Timothy. Paul is the actual writer but he wants the readers to know that Timothy is there and at least agrees with what he is writing. Paul calls himself an “apostle”. The New Testament is written mostly in Greek and the Greek word here means “sent one”. In the New Testament the word is usually used in a technical way, sort of like a job title or “office”. Paul certainly was given the job of going and telling people, especially Gentiles or non-Jews, about Jesus. You can read more about Paul in “Paul: Sent One to the Gentiles”. The second “author” is Timothy. Timothy was a companion of Paul on some of his journeys around the Mediterranean world. He was from a town about 150 miles east of Colosse, Lystra. Timothy had become sort of a “right hand man” to Paul and was given many responsibilities. Here in verse 1 he is called “our brother”. Paul is comparing believer in Jesus to a family.

In verse 2 he tells us who the letter is to, “saints and faithful brothers in Christ who are at Colosse”. Saints is a word that mean holy or dedicated to a particular purpose. If you play soccer you might have a pair of cleats that you only use to play soccer in, they are holy, dedicated to playing soccer. These guys are special because they are part of God’s family. They are also faithful brothers they stick together for God. We also see that these people are “in Christ” and “in Colosse”. It’s interesting that “in colosse” is at the beginning of the verse in the original language. These people were in that physical location but they were a dedicated and faithful family “in Jesus”. Colosse may have been the city they lived in but Jesus is where they really lived. By the way the word Christ means “chosen one” in the Greek language it is equal to “Messiah” in the Old Testament. In this letter it is used technically to refer to Jesus the Chosen One; the Christ.

The second part of verse 2 is a typical blessing from Paul to the Colossians. Paul’s prayer to God is for the Colossians to have “grace and peace”. Grace is referring to a gift. In this case the gift is from God. In the New Testament the gift of God is a place in his forever family, forgiveness and payment for the wrongs we have done. This gift is “in Christ” and it is from “God our Father”. Again the family connection, the idea of a father is one of protection and provision.

Verse 3 begins the next part of Paul’s greeting, a prayer of thanks. In verse 3 Paul tells the Colossians that he is thankful to God for them. Again he uses the picture of a family, again calling God a father, this time of Jesus Christ. In verse 4 Paul tells us that he thankful because he has heard of the faith of the Colossian believers in Jesus and the love they have for “all the saints”. Evidently the way put the words together in the Greek language stresses the actions associated with their faith more than the object (Jesus) of it. Their belief in Jesus had caused them to go out and live differently especially in the lives of others.

Verse 5 tells us why that had this life changing belief, it was their hope. They knew they had a place in Heaven, Jesus had opened up eternity with God to them and that knowledge, that hope. Set them free to love God and others. They had heard about this “before” when they heard the “word of truth”; the “gospel” (the word translated “gospel” means good news). What they heard truly was good news, it gave them hope for all eternity and made their lives radically different.

In verse 6 we see that this truth wasn’t just some sort of “head knowledge” it was active in their lives and in the lives of people everywhere who had heard it. The language that Paul uses here is the language of reproduction. Bearing fruit is the kind of language that would be used to talk about having children. The idea of “increasing” has the idea of becoming mature. So the “gospel” was having children and they were growing up quite well. The Colossians were some of these “children”. At the end of verse 6 Paul returns to “good news” that they had heard and confirms what it was they had heard and understood. It was about the “grace” or free gift of God. Remember it was “in Jesus” and it was the fact that Jesus had dealt with the penalty for disobedience, death. The “gospel” is also true, something they could see because of their changed live and the changed lives of others.

In verse 7-8 we see that the believers in Colosse originally learned about Jesus from a guy named Epaphras who was a faithful servant of Jesus. I think the mention of him being faithful is important. We see that it is not just words that communicate the good news about Jesus it is the change he makes in peoples lives too. In Matthew 5:16 Jesus told his followers to let their changed lives “shine before men” so that those men would in turn honor God with their lives.

Here in the very beginning of the book we see several things that hint at what might be going on in Colosse. First of all we need to understand that they were in a pretty good place with God. First of all they were part of God’s forever family, they were “in Jesus” and were “brothers”. This was their hope and it was building their faith. It was also affecting their actions, their faith or trust in the reality of what Jesus had done for them was growing and they were living and caring for others.   Their love (agape- a word for love in the Greek that has the idea of sacrifice) was for “all the saints”; they were caring for others without thinking about the cost.

A couple of groups of words seemed to show up quite a lot in the greeting. First was the idea of truth or facts. The gospel was something that they had heard and seen and experienced. The truth that they had taken hold of changed things; it had given hope and changed their lives. They had a new relationship with each other and with God. God was their “father” and they were his children. Later we will see they were being tempted with other ideas, ideas that claimed to give them a better relationship with God. Here in the beginning Paul wanted to make sure that they already had a great and real relationship with God.

God thank you for making it all so real and so simple. Thank you for giving me a sure place in your forever kingdom. Help me be faithful like the Colossians. Let me live each day in ways that draw others to you.

Lamentations 5:1-22. Today we come to the end of the book of Lamentations and the writings by Jeremiah. If you read the “Intro to Lamentations” you know that the book contains five poems. You also might remember that Hebrew poets like structure and patterns in their poetry and not necessarily rhymes. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters and the first four poems all have patterns that use the Hebrew alphabet, in order (basically). Notice that three of the first four poems all have 22 verses and one has 66 verses (3×22). For a more detailed description of the pattern check out the “Intro”. This last poem also has 22 verses but it does not use the “acrostic” pattern (the verses don’t follow use the Hebrew alphabet to create a pattern). Also if you were to read the first four poems in Hebrew you would notice a certain “meter” you might think of the “beat” of a song. This last poem doesn’t have that “beat” or “meter” either. Since the last poem has 22 verses it is obvious that Jeremiah was aware of the patterns he was following. The fact that this last poem is different probably has some meaning. One Bible expert suggested that it is “mixed up” to show the “chaos” in the lives of the people of Judah after God’s judgment. Let’s see if that is what we find in this poem.

In verse 1 we see that this poem is a prayer, Jeremiah is talking to God. In the prayer Jeremiah starts out by asking God to “remember” what has happened and see their “reproach, shame or disgrace”. What had happened to the Jewish people was very embarrassing.

In verse 2 Jeremiah talks about their inheritance. When we think of inheritance we might think of money or jewelry, maybe even a house. In the life of the Jewish people their inheritance was from God and it was the land promised to Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 12:1, 7, see also 15:7-18). The mention of houses in verse 2 doesn’t mean that they were thinking of just the houses it was a poetic way of referring to the land (technically it’s a figure of speech called synecdoche or sometimes merism where a part of something represents the whole thing).

In verse 3 the mention of widows and orphans may be an attempt to make God feel compassion for them. There were very specific rules in the Law that God gave to Moses for the Jews about how to treat widows and orphans. God wanted to make sure that they were not neglected. The funny thing is God doesn’t neglect anyone so it is kind of silly to try and “play” him this way. One time I was in a meeting where a representative of World Vision was speaking, looking for support. He talked a lot about women and children. I thought, “What about the men, dads and fathers? Don’t they need help too?” So I asked. The guy assured me they help men too, but people are more likely to give when they are thinking of starving women and children. Jeremiah was a man and was expressing things the way any human being would. It is interesting that in Jeremiah 5:28 we see that one of the ways the people of Judah were showing disrespect toward God was by mistreating widows and orphans. Now they were the ones being mistreated.

In verse 4 the Jews now had to pay for what was once free. While verse 2 sounds like it might be about the Jews in exile in Babylon, verse 3 may be about the ones left behind in Jerusalem. Although there would still be water and wood it was now controlled by the Babylonian government. Verse 5 would have to be about Jews living somewhere other than the city of Babylon, I’m sure Nebuchadnezzar kept tight control over his capital and the surrounding towns. The Jews in other parts of the empire, though, could very easily have been pushed from place to place finding no place to rest. What we see in these two verses is sad, constant struggle just to live, since the land that God gave them is described as a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27) and evidently the produce was very abundant (Numbers 13:23).

There is one more little piece of irony in verse 6. When God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants in Genesis 15 he told Abraham that his descendants would be slaves in a land that was not theirs for four hundred years first (Genesis 15:13-14). That land was Egypt. It’s almost like they had become slaves to Egypt again. Since it seems unlikely that people in Babylon would buy food from Egypt, verse 6 is probably about Jews who were living in other parts of the empire near either Egypt or Assyria, though a few may have still been in the area abound Jerusalem.

In verse 7 Jeremiah brings up the disobedient actions of the “fathers”. This is a reference to ancestors of the Jewish people. They are dead but the effects of their sins (disobedience and rebellion) are being felt by the people living in Jeremiah’s day. We want to be careful to understand that God does not punish people for the sins of other people (Ezekiel 18:20) but the effects of a person’s sins can be felt by others some times for a long time (Deuteronomy 5:9, but even here it seems like the grandchildren and great grandchildren aren’t completely innocent. Jeremiah on the other had suffered greatly because of the sin of those around him).

In verses 8-10 Jeremiah returns to the troubles of living as a conquered people. People who had once been their slaves were now ruling over them (maybe a reference to the Edomites who had been slaves of Israel in the past and now had possession of their fields) and they had to travel to find food, travel was always risky especially through the wilderness or desert area around Judah. Evidently starvation brings unpleasant feeling and verse 10 expresses something that most of us can only read about. Starvation does more than give a person hunger pains and cause weight loss. As starvation progresses the lack of proper nutrition gives rise to a large number of horrible side affects. In verse 10 Jeremiah uses the Hebrew word “kamar” and says it is in some way “like an oven”. Some translations say the skin is “hot like an oven” others say “glowing like an over”, “heated like an oven” and many say “black like an oven”. It is interesting that one of the side affects of starvation is it’s effects on the nerves of our outer parts. Eventually it can cause some paralysis but it can also cause nerve pain. Another side effect of starvation is a condition called Pellagra. I have seen pictures of Pellagra, it is not pretty and the skin becomes reddish or even darker. Starvation can also cause itchy hot red rashes. What ever “kamar” means it seems like Jeremiah knew what he was talking about.

Verses 11-13 tell more of the story of being a people without a real country (The Babylonian Empire was a mashed up mixture of a bunch of different kingdoms or nations (usually ethnic groups, families) held together by the raw power of Nebuchadnezzar and his army). The women were raped and mistreated, princes were hung up by their hands and executed, leaders (elders) were shown no respect, and children were force to do hard labor as slaves.

Verses 14-15 show us the psychological effects of being conquered and exiled. Elders (older people in the community) used to sit in the city gates where they were available to give advise and settle disputes. Now they were not there and had become pretty useless. Young people full of strength and energy would do a lot of the physical work but they would also enjoy the product of their work and spend at least some time celebrating (the music and the dancing). But now they were forced to be slaves and others took the products of their work. What should have been a joy to them was now a time of great sadness.

In verse 7 Jeremiah mentioned the “sins of the fathers” and the fact that some of the trouble in their lives was the “fallout” from that. In verse 16 Jeremiah says the “crown has fallen from our heads” this may be a reference to the honored position and life of ease of a king, the Jews were “God’s people” and did have a favored position. In Psalm 103:1-5, though, David is praising God for his goodness and care. In those verses David tells us that Yahweh (LORD) forgives all iniquities (twistedness, sins), heals diseases, buys back our life from destruction, crowns us (the same word in v. 16) us with lovingkindness (hesed, faithfulness to his promise to care for us) and tender mercy; a word Jeremiah used earlier (Lamentations 3:22, 32) that relates to the love of a mother for her infant child and he “satisfies the mouth with good things so that the young can soar like eagles”. Although the crown of God “hesed” cannot be destroyed (Remember Lamentations 3:23 “Yahweh’s hesed never ceases his compassion never fails) but sometimes we move outside of his love and protection; we drop the ball (or crown rather). There are conditions and rules for his promises. Jeremiah tells us in the end of verse 16 what has caused the “crown to slip”, they had sinned.

In verses 17-18 Jeremiah tells God that the ultimate sadness relates to “Mount Zion”. The “darkened eyes” could mean that they were hiding their eyes in shame. Mount Zion could refer to the whole city or just the part where the Temple had been. In any case the city that was to be a monument to the goodness and reality of Yahweh had to display his faithfulness and purity in another way; in judgment. Now the city was the home for the desert creatures.

Verses 19-22 returns to the nature of God and contain both hope and respect. Jeremiah confesses that Yahweh is the undisputed ruler of the universe, his throne lasts forever. Earthly kings sit on a throne for their own generation and then someone else takes over, God’s throne is his forever. In verse 20 Jeremiah wants to know if God is going to forget them forever. This is poetic language asking if god has given up on them. The reason is the judgment has lasted so long (and in Jeremiah’s life it wasn’t even half over). Jeremiah asks god in a very personal way (using his personal name Yahweh) to fix them to make things like they had been.

Jeremiah ends the poem very respectfully. The problem had been rebellion; a total disregard for what God wanted. In verse 22 Jeremiah shows total respect and obedience by telling God that he wants to be fixed but understands if God has totally rejected the Jewish people and is completely displeased wit them. We might say “done with you”.

I think that Jeremiah didn’t use the “beat” or “meter” in this poem because the “music had died” to quote an old song from the 70’s (see verse 15). I think he didn’t follow the alphabetic structure because their world was completely mixed up. Everything was wrong and bad and it was because of sin. Jeremiah had hope, not much, but hope. Because he knew that Yahweh is a God who keeps his promises and his lovingkindness (hesed) to a thousand generations to those who love and obey him (Deuteronomy 7:9). So there it is God is there, loving, forgiving, waiting for us to turn back. But for those who don’t there is only darkness and complete sadness for all eternity. Doesn’t seem like a hard choice. What makes it hard is our stubborn self-loving will. I want to “do it my way”, to quote another old song. It can also be hard because those who love God do get caught up in the chaos that sin causes in our world. Jeremiah certainly suffered for loving and following God. And Jesus told his followers that they should expect trouble (Mark 13:13; John 16:2). People take risks all the time for all sorts of things, most of which don’t last. What does last is Jesus and the kingdom he is building, a kingdom of people who love him and want to be with him. We have the privilege of showing that kingdom to people through our obedient lives and with loving words. Do you want eternity with God, let him know, tell him so, and then show it by submitting your will to him. He will restore and renew like in the olden days; the days in the garden of Eden where we lived with him face to face. Jesus has vanquished the sting of death by paying the price for our sins, he will reversed the effects of and turn your mourning into dancing (Psalm 30:11).

God I’m not much of a dancer but I’m sure you can teach me. I do know about joy and happiness and look forward to learning about how big they can be. I look forward to spending eternity with you; learning about you, being amazed each moment by your greatness. Thank you for your love and faithfulness and the opportunity to know you forever. Help me honor you today and find peace in the fact that you will lead me home to heaven.