3 We give praise to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, making prayer for you at all times,
First of all, I give praise to my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because news of your faith has gone into all the world. For God is my witness, whose servant I am in spirit in the good news of his Son, that you are at all times in my memory and in my prayers,
For this cause I go down on my knees before the Father, From whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, That in the wealth of his glory he would make you strong with power through his Spirit in your hearts; So that Christ may have his place in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and based in love, May have strength to see with all the saints how wide and long and high and deep it is, And to have knowledge of the love of Christ which is outside all knowledge, so that you may be made complete as God himself is complete.
And my prayer is that you may be increased more and more in knowledge and experience; So that you may give your approval to the best things; that you may be true and without wrongdoing till the day of Christ; Being full of the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Night and day requesting God again and again that we may see your face and make your faith complete. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus make a way for us to come to you; And the Lord give you increase of love in fullest measure to one another and to all men, even as our love to you; So that your hearts may be strong and free from all sin before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Colossians 1
Commentary on Colossians 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 1
We have here,
Col 1:1-2
Col 1:3-8
Here he proceeds to the body of the epistle, and begins with thanksgiving to God for what he had heard concerning them, though he had no personal acquaintance with them, and knew their state and character only by the reports of others.
Col 1:9-11
The apostle proceeds in these verses to pray for them. He heard that they were good, and he prayed that they might be better. He was constant in this prayer: We do not cease to pray for you. It may be he could hear of them but seldom, but he constantly prayed for them.-And desire that you may be filled with the knowledge, etc. Observe what it is that he begs of God for them,
Col 1:12-29
Here is a summary of the doctrine of the gospel concerning the great work of our redemption by Christ. It comes in here not as the matter of a sermon, but as the matter of a thanksgiving; for our salvation by Christ furnishes us with abundant matter of thanksgiving in every view of it: Giving thanks unto the Father, v. 12. He does not discourse of the work of redemption in the natural order of it; for then he would speak of the purchase of it first, and afterwards of the application of it. But here he inverts the order, because, in our sense and feeling of it, the application goes before the purchase. We first find the benefits of redemption in our hearts, and then are led by those streams to the original and fountain-head. The order and connection of the apostle's discourse may be considered in the following manner:-