I want you to picture in your mind with me today a house that is located in Rome, built out of stone. In this house there are two men. One stands guard, dressed in military uniform, and the other sits in a room dressed rather shabbily. His face tells of the battles that he has endured. Although this may be a house that he is sitting in, yet this house is now his prison. I speak obviously of the Apostle Paul, who currently at this time is imprisoned in Rome. But another man suddenly enters the scene by the name of Epaphras, a man who was converted under the ministry of the Apostle Paul and is now ministering to the church and in the region of Colossae. You can see him sitting down. And along with the apostle Paul, he begins to open up and to tell him concerning the church there at Colossae. We find that really in the passage of Scripture that we read. In verse number 8 and verse 7, having spoke already of Epaphras. Verse number 8, who declared unto us your love in the Spirit. So Epaphras sits down and he begins to give his report to Paul on the church at Colossae. Paul's face displays different emotions. gladness, sorrow, concern, as he is told about the state of the church. After some time, the Apostle Paul, with all this in his mind, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, sits down to write the book of Colossians. Now, this has been a familiar practice down through church history. Whenever there has been difficulties in a church, whenever there has been a need to stand for truth, it has often been the practice of men to take pen to paper and to write a defense for the sake of the church. Spurgeon fought against theological liberalism with a sword in trial. Luther fought against the Roman Catholic Church with his 95 theses. And the Church Fathers fought against Arianism when they formulated the Nicene Creed. Now, we must understand that as the Apostle Paul sat down to write, the purpose of him writing this book, the book of Colossians, was in order to combat heresy. You see, as one man put it, the history of the church is a history of heresies. The history of the church is a history of heresies. And in every generation, beginning with the Apostle Paul, even up until now, there has been men who have come into the church and tried to corrupt the church through false teaching and false doctrine. One man said, where God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel close by. And the church's doctrine has always been under attack. And so there has always been a need to mount a defense. And this is what the apostle Paul is doing. He has heard the report of what is happening within the church, and we'll come to see more of that later on. And he's writing now in order to defend the church, in order to spread the truth. And that is how we always ought to combat error. We ought to stand for the truth. If you want to go against heresies today, if you want to be able to combat error within a congregation, within a denomination, you must take a stand for truth, and you must spread the truth, and you must preach the truth, and you must write the truth, and you must publish the truth in order that the truth might prevail. Today, I want to give an introduction to this book. We'll not really be dealing with verse 1 immediately. We're going to leave that for today and come to that tomorrow. And we're just going to lay out three very simple points that will hopefully lay a foundation for our study as we go forward. The three simple points are this. First of all, the penman of this epistle. Then secondly, the people this epistle addressed. And then thirdly, the purpose of this epistle. So notice with me, first of all, here in verse number one, the penman of this epistle. It begins with Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timotheus, our brother. Now, Paul here, at the very beginning of this letter, writes and signs his name. And this was common practice in that day and in that time. It was commonly done at the beginning, at the end. And Paul, in writing his name at the beginning, was identifying himself as the author of this book. Now, some so-called scholars today would like to question the appalling authorship of this book, as they like to do with many of his other writings. And they present to us three supposed problems that I would like to address. First of all, they present the problem of vocabulary. They present the problem of vocabulary. And they argue this, that there are words and phrases used in Colossians that are not used in Paul's other books. And so they say because they are not in common usage among the writings of the Apostle Paul, then it obviously points to Colossians having been written by someone else. Now, there is some irony within that argument. And the irony is this, that they do not even believe that Paul's other writings were written by him. These are the same men that will stand up and say that Ephesians was not written by Paul or Philippians was not written by Paul. And so what they're really doing is this, they're saying, we do not believe Colossians was written by Paul because it's different to Ephesians, but they do not even believe that he wrote Ephesians. So they don't have a standard or a foundation for that argument. R.C. Sproul, in his book, Knowing Scripture, demolishes this argument completely. When he was learning Dutch, he writes, he wrote out 6,000 different words from a theology book which he was studying. When he got to volume number two in that theology series, he found another 3,000 words that were not used in the first volume. Now, does that mean that there were different writers? Of course not. What does it mean? It means that on volume one, this theologian, who R.C. Sproul was studying, was dealing with a different subject, probably revelation, there in his first volume. And when he came to volume number two, perhaps he was dealing with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the difference in subject meant a difference in the usage of the terms, of phrases, and of words. And it's the same for the Apostle Paul. When he writes Ephesians, when he writes Colossians, when he writes Philippians, he's dealing with different subjects. He's writing to different people. And so it is the subject that is different, not the author. But secondly, they present the problem of doctrine. They present the problem of doctrine, and they argue that the teaching presented in the book of Colossians is far more advanced, is a lot deeper than in other epistles. They argue that he focuses on doctrinal issues that are not commonly focused on in other books. This is easily addressed in two parts. First of all, the Apostle Paul, as he grew, as he matured, even as a believer, would have grown in knowledge and in wisdom, and that, I believe, would have been reflected in his writings, even when he was inspired of the Holy Ghost. But secondly, in order to address these major heresies that were in the church at Colossae, Paul had to go deeper. Paul had to dig at a whole other level in order to weed out the heresy that was in the church. Lightfoot said concerning this, he said that new forms of error brings into prominence new aspects of truth. And that's what Paul was doing in Colossae. dealing with different people, dealing with different doctrinal issues. And so his writing in its depth and its style and what he dealt with would be different than that of his other epistles. But thirdly, they present the problem of heresy. They present the problem of heresy. And the argument is as follows. One of the main heresies that the apostle Paul deals with in the book of Colossians is what is known as Gnosticism. Now, Gnosticism comes in many forms. Gnosticism has many branches, and it has been adopted by different groups throughout the years. But at its very basic root elementary level, Gnostics believed that flesh was evil and all matter was evil. So everything in this material world was evil, and everything that was in the spiritual world was good. Now, this affected many of their beliefs with many different sects, especially concerning the resurrection, because it was the Gnostics who denied that Jesus Christ was bodily resurrected. They don't deny that he was resurrected, but whenever his apostles saw him, whenever those 500 people saw him, whenever that multitude looked upon him, or when Thomas was looking upon him, he was not in a bodily state. was only a resurrected spirit. He was like a ghost. But this argument simply falls flat, because they argue that this doctrine of Gnosticism, that it came after the apostle Paul, that Paul predated this doctrine, and therefore he could not have written against it in Colossians. But this argument falls flat. It has been proven time and time again from credible resources that Gnosticism existed not just in Paul's time, but actually prior to Paul's time. And so Paul was well-adapted at combating and writing against the doctrine and the heresy of Gnosticism. We must remember that man will always attack credibility of the Bible. They will try and do anything to seek to undermine the inspiration and the inerrancy of this book. And why is that? Because they hate God. They hate God, and therefore they hate His Word, and they will use any argument, they will use any defense in order to attack His Word. And so it is helpful for us, as we meet these people, to remember those three rebuttals. to the problem of vocabulary, to the problem of heresy, and also to the problem of doctrine. It's good for us to remember that. But I want you to notice with me, secondly, this afternoon, I want you to consider with me the people this epistle addressed, the people that this epistle addressed. And I want you to notice three things that will help us and build up a picture and an understanding of who Paul was writing this book to. First of all, we need to consider the establishment of the church. Paul had never been to the church at Colossae. He had never been there in the flesh. But he was instrumental in the planting of that church. You see, Paul, for a period of three and a half years, had ministered in a city around 120 or 130 miles away, which was the city of Ephesus. And as Paul ministered there in Ephesus for those three and a half years, commentators believe that it was at that time he met Epaphras. This young man that we mentioned at the beginning of our sermon. This young man that is mentioned here in verse number 7 and in verse number 8. It's here in Ephesus that Paul, we believe, met Epaphras. And it was during those years that Epaphras was saved and then trained by the apostle Paul. And then once he was saved, once he was trained, then he was sent out back home to his home region to preach the gospel. And it was primarily through the ministry of Epaphras that this church at Colossae was built up. What does that teach us? teaches us first of all that this church at Colossae was planted in a biblical fashion. Epaphras wasn't a maverick. He was a minister who was ordained to preach the word. Notice what it says there in verse number seven, as you also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ. Epaphras didn't simply say, well, do you know what? I'm saved now, and I'm going to go off and do my own thing. No, we believe he had been ordained, he had been sent, and he had been made a minister of the gospel. And this is important because the pattern that God has used to build his church has been with his ministers, not mavericks running about doing their own thing. 2 Timothy 2 verse 2 says, The same commit to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. God does not build His church. Well, He can, in spite of them, but the ordinary means that God uses for building His church is in the training of men to go out under the authority of the church and to preach the word to see churches planted. God has not called us to be mavericks. Epaphras wasn't. He was a minister ordained of God under the authority at that time of the apostles and of the church. And we need to pray today that God will give us such men. Even as you're at home today and you think about the future of your own church or your own denomination, You need to pray, God, send us men like Epaphras. God, bring young men into our congregation like Epaphras, who will be saved, who will be trained, and then sent out by the church to preach the Word. We must pray for that today. Not just that we'll have enough men to simply cover the pulpits that we have currently, but that God will give us men in order to expand and advance. Notice with me secondly, we've considered the establishment of the church there, but now the ethnicity of the church, the ethnicity of the church. The church body was largely made up of Gentiles. Even though there was a large population of Jews there in the city of Colossae at that time, yet I believe from what is laid out in the book of Colossae or in the book of Colossians, that the main body of the church would have been Gentile believers. Let me give you some reasons for that. Look with me there in verse number 27. It says, "...to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles." which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Here, Paul is directly speaking to the Gentiles, and he's saying, the hope of the gospel, this mystery, which has been progressively revealed over time, it was previously hidden, but now throughout redemptive history has been revealed over time. It's now been fully revealed to you, the Gentiles. And so there are verses all throughout this that are speaking primarily to the Gentiles. That's one reason. But secondly, there is a scarcity of Old Testament illusions. There's a scarcity of Old Testament illusions. Then thirdly, in chapter number 3, in verse 5, Paul distinctly addresses sins that were common among the Gentiles. "'Mortify therefore your members,' verse 5, which are upon the earth. fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." He's addressing sins here that were common practice among the Gentile community and in the Gentile world. But then the fourth reason why we believe that the ethnicity of this church was mainly Gentiles was because there's almost no mention of the need of reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, which was common in other epistles. So we believe that Paul is writing this book, if you want a picture in your mind, a congregation there in Colossae, and the vast majority of those believers being Gentiles, saved out of paganism, saved out of idolatry, and brought into the midst of the church of God. But thirdly, And this is where we really come to the heart of this book. I want you to notice the emergency in the church. Consider the establishment of the church, the ethnicity of the church, but here's the heart of this book. It is the emergency that was in the church. You see, although Epaphras had given what I believe was a good report on the spirituality of the church, we see that in verse number five. Paul commends them of their faith, their love, and their hope, which they have to all the saints. Yet Epaphras also gave an honest report. I believe he told the apostle Paul of the theological emergency and of the heresies that were creeping in to the church there. And although Paul doesn't give a complete explanation of what he understood to be happening in the church, Yet really, we can use this book to fill in the blanks as to what Epaphras told Paul that was happening. If you notice with me there in chapter number two, this is the main chapter. Really, when Paul begins to go on the offensive, he begins to be polemic. He begins to attack the heresy in the church. Notice there in chapter number two, we have a few main verses, verse 8, verse 16, verse 18, verse 21. And this false doctrine that was in the church has become known by the common title, the Colossian heresy. The Colossian heresy. It was made up of various other heresies, agnosticism and so on. But I want to show you there was four main components to the Colossian heresy. Notice with me, we'll step through them here in chapter number two. Verse number eight, there was humanism. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. There was humanism creeping into the church, the idea of secular philosophy and of secular wisdom. But then in verse number 16, Chapter number two, there was also legalism coming into the church. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. There were those within the church who were trying to bring them back under some of the Old Testament ceremonial laws. Then in verse number 18, there was mysticism creeping into the church. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility. pardon of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." There were those who were promoting in the church emotional experiences. There were those who were saying, you need to have visions. You must, if you really want to worship and have the full package of worship, then you need to be worshiping angels as well. And so they were pushing the agenda and the doctrine of mysticism. Then in verse number 21, the final component of this Colossian heresy was ascetitism. Ascetitism. We will, in probably the weeks to come, we will be going into what ascetitism and all these different things really were in a deeper fashion. But really ascetitism was living like a monk. It was withdrawing yourself from all of the material things of this world because, again, material things of this world were evil and sinful. And so they lived like monks. They withdrew themselves from the material things of this world. And these four features, humanism, legalism, mysticism, asceticism, Together, they combine and they give us what is known, as I've said, the Colossian heresy. And as we go through this book, Paul is trying to attack and defend the truth, and he is trying to promote the truth, but he is also trying to rid the church of this Colossian heresy. But finally, very briefly, I want you to consider with me the purpose of this epistle. We've considered the penman, the Apostle Paul. We've considered the people that were addressed. But finally, I want you to consider with me the purpose of this epistle. You may have somewhat already figured out why, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul would write this letter. It was primarily to defend the church against the Colossian heresy. But I want to expand that just some more. And I believe as you read through this book, there were three goals that the Apostle Paul wanted to achieve as he wrote this letter. First of all, he wanted to be personal. He begins with his name. He addresses them directly. He says to them that he's thanking God for them, and he's praying always for them. He wanted them to know that he had a personal interest, a personal love for them, and a personal care for them. He wanted the church to know, although they'd never met him in the flesh, that here was a man who loved them and who'd care over them. He wanted to be personal. But secondly, he wanted to promote holiness. He wanted to promote holiness. We read that chapter 3 in verse number 5, where we're to mortify the flesh. In verse number 7, we're not to walk in those things anymore, and we're to put off all the sins of the flesh. And Paul, I believe, was concerned and worried with heresy that was coming into the church. that this would then lead these believers to go back to their pagan vices, to go back to their old sins. And so he writes this book in order to promote holiness and godliness among the Lord's people. But then thirdly, he wanted to protect them from error. He wanted to be personal. He wanted to promote holiness, but he wanted to protect them from error. Bad theology hurts people. No truer statement has ever been made. Bad theology hurts people. You meet people, especially here in Canada and North America, who have been hurt, who have been not just mentally scarred, but physically or spiritually scarred because of bad theology, bad doctrine. Paul wanted to protect the flock. He wanted to be on guard. He wanted to, in a sense, put a protection around about them with the truth of God's Word by giving them the gospel. Paul wanted to protect them from error. And I have the same desire as I go through this book. I want to have a personal connection with those who are listening, that you'll grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want these Bible studies to be used to promote holiness at a time whenever we can be overcome with idleness in our lives because we're in confinement. We need to promote holiness. We also want to protect people from error. There's so much false teaching going around. And in conclusion, why do I want you to listen to these messages? This is those three points, but I'll leave the final address to Warren Wearsby. Why does the church need to hear the book of Colossians? Why does it need to understand the message of this book? Warren Wearsby said, the church today desperately needs the message of Colossians. We live in a day when religious toleration is interpreted to mean one religion is just as good as another. Some people try to take the best from various religious systems and manufacture their own private religion. To many people, Jesus Christ is only one of several great religious teachers with no more authority than they. He may be prominent, but he is certainly not preeminent. And ultimately, this is what this book comes down to. And we'll see this as we get into it. Who did they believe Jesus Christ to be? Was he simply a prominent teacher, or was he the preeminent son of the living God? How a church views the Lord Jesus Christ is really the acid test of their spirituality. And I pray that as we study this book, that we will come to learn the very heart of the heart of the message of this book, which is the preeminence of the person and the work of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.