Introduction I, A Tale of 2 Cities
Colossians; Ephesians · Vern Peterman · Dec 28, 2003
Ephesians & Colossians, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/482623152914

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. And a nice, how do we say it? Invigorating morning. Yes. So we're going to begin today our study that we're calling A Tale of Two Cities. This is a study in Ephesians and Colossians. Two cities in which we have letters, of course, to them, and ministry of the New Testament era church. And Paul's letters. It may be a little unusual, and I know you've got to be asking yourself this question. What question am I thinking of?

You've got to be asking yourself this question, and that is, why in heaven would Vern want to study two books at once? What sense does that make? Now, you may be wondering, there's different possibilities as you consider that, because Vern's going cross-eyed.

That could be one reason. And that just happens to be what's happening. Two books at once. Or maybe you're thinking now that's not quite right, but it's close. It's actually Verne's problem with double vision is getting to him. Don't try to adjust too hard to the focus on that picture. Maybe you think, no, that's not it. That can't be it. There's another explanation for this.

I know what it is. What it is, is Mike is insisting on Ephesians. At the same time, Hal is saying, no, Colossians, Colossians, Ephesians, Colossians, Ephesians, Colossians. And Verne says, ah, I know Ephesians and Colossians. OK, now we resolve it. All right.

Now, all kidding aside, why would Verne want to study two books at once? Is this some brand of insanity or what? Well, there is a reason for it, believe it or not, and that's what we want to cover this morning. Why would we study two books at once? Well, let's start into it. First of all, there's similarities between the two books, the Ephesians and Colossians. And we'll want to take a look at some of those similarities. There's going to be more as we go through it, but just kind of to hit the high spots, here's a part of it.

First, they're both written by Paul in prison, both written by the same author, both written by the same author while that author is in prison. There's evidence just Weeping out of the pages of both of those books, that Paul is indeed in prison as he's writing.

They're both delivered by this guy named Tychicus. As a matter of fact, you don't read a lot about him, but what you do read about him in the New Testament, he's always going. If you want a gospel gopher, this guy is it. He's the gospel gopher. If you want a guy to take something somewhere, he'll take it.

And what's amazing, it doesn't matter how far it is. This was a trip of probably something on the order of three months. At least two and a half, maybe three months. So to say, here, take this to Colossae is no small request. But this guy says, hey, I'll go. So he's the gospel gopher. Something else.

Both books, although slightly different in emphasis, both books emphasize the person of Christ. Not the light touch. substantially. They both have a marvelous focus on the person of Christ, and we'll see the distinctions as well. But they do not leave the person of Christ as a secondary emphasis, instead come out boldly, just thundering in the first chapters in each one of them, emphasizing the person and the stature of Christ. There's also an emphasis in each of them of the believer's identification with Christ, not just in one or two verses, but multiple places in each. We'll be taking a look at those, of course. These are key things, key and essential growth truths for the believer. Both books bring those forward.

In each of the books, the first half of the book emphasizes our eternal position in Christ. In Ephesians, which is a six-chapter book, about the first three chapters, emphasizes our position in Christ. In Colossians, there are four chapters. The first two emphasize our position in Christ. So the division is about half in each case. Secondly, the second half in each of the books presents our present condition based on our position. And Ephesians does that in the last three chapters approximately, chapters four through six. And Colossians does it in the last two chapters, chapters three and four.

So there are similarities just right out of the chute. But that's not all. Something else I think is a neat pattern to note. I've been excited to discover this increasingly, more and more. And that is that the Bible has parallel books. Books that have similarities between them. And what we're discovering is this is just one of those sets of parallel books. One of them you're quite aware of, and a number of people have looked at, is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are of course parallel books.

Are they identical? No. They didn't just take the photocopy machine and start cranking. Instead, there's, however, a great deal between them that is similar in what they cover and what they address, and so there are things that are parallel between them. Romans and Galatians are books that are parallel books.

Differences? Yes, but also some key messages that are very similar. First and Second Timothy and Titus are also parallel books. Things that are in Titus are also mentioned in 1 Timothy and also, not to the same degree, but also in 2 Timothy. So those books are parallel books, books that work together and they confirm each other's message.

Genesis and Daniel and Revelation. Now we've had Sunday morning here. We've talked about Revelation, gone through that for over 15 months. Earlier on in our electives, Hal covered the book of Genesis. And what we find is this. Genesis is a parallel book to Revelation. Here's why. Whatever Genesis starts, Revelation finishes. You start off in the book of Genesis, the early chapters, what do you see? You see the Tree of Life. You get to the last book of the Bible, Revelation, the last chapters, what do you see? The Tree of Life and the Book of Life. Then you get into the book of Daniel, and there's also parallels and comparisons there. The book of Daniel also lays out a time frame and lays out God's plans for his people. Those get spelled out in further detail in the book of Revelation.

Parallel books. And finally, the one we're looking at here, Ephesians and Colossians. Are they identical? No. Is there a lot of parallel? Yes. And we'll see as we go on through here. By the way, these are not all of the parallel books. and there's some tremendous value in knowing which books are parallels. We'll see here in a little bit. So what's the value of the parallel books? I said they're valuable. The similarities confirm each other's message. If we see something in one book and then we see it in another, it confirms, yes indeed, that is what God's Word teaches.

It confirms the integrity of God's Word. What is amazing is to see something in one part of God's Word and then see it in another part of God's Word and see how well they dovetail and agree. The Bible is written by approximately 40 authors over roughly a 1,500-year period of time, and yet, with that span of personalities and time, they have one person inspiring all of it. The Holy Spirit has inspired every bit of its writing. and you see that come across. And that's why even some of these parallel books having different authors, the confirmation and the integrity of the message comes through. And these parallel books demonstrate that very well. Similarities will confirm.

Here's an example we brought up in Romans 3.28. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Real simple, succinct statement.

What did he say in Galatians 2.16? He says the same thing about three times in that one verse. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus. Statement one. Statement two. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Statement three. Since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified. Do you get the point? Real clear, isn't it? Abundantly clear.

What is said in Galatians 2.16 confirms Romans 3.28, and we see the integrity of God's Word. The message is consistent. There's a second value. Parallel books' differences provide complementary insights. One tells you something that the other doesn't, and between the two you get a fuller picture. Let's take a look at an example of that.

Here's 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 13, and that provides the qualifications for elders and deacons. 1 Timothy 3, 6, for example, says that an elder must not be a new convert, a novice. So far, so good. We turn over to Titus 1, 5 through 9, and there many parallel qualifications for elders are given, but not the deacons.

Deacons aren't mentioned. Furthermore, In Titus, there's no requirement given that a deacon must not be a new convert. When we begin comparing and studying, what we find is the church in Ephesus, where Tennessee is located, is a much more mature church where you do have the opportunity to pick elders who are more spiritually mature, and it's maturing to the place where it's very evident deacons are needed. The church that Titus is dealing with in Crete is a church that is less mature, and there's not yet a recognized need for deacons.

As a matter of fact, requiring that elders be spiritually mature is tough to come by. So what does he do? He has different requirements there, recognizing that there's different levels of maturities in the church. It gives us some complementary insights that the requirements here, and whether you need deacons or not, has to do with what's the level of maturity of the church. Now, what else?

We pointed out the fact that the two books show us the identification truths. And what you'll see here from Ephesians and Colossians is each of them have identification truths, but the ones with a capital T here are the ones that are explicitly taught. And what you find is, except for this one here raised, that Colossians teaches explicitly some different identification truths than Ephesians. So there's a different emphasis. Putting the two together, you get all five of the identification truths. That we have been crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and seated with Christ is taught between the two, Ephesians and Colossians, entirely. Not just implied, but explicitly taught between what's in the two books. Another, and this is a slightly different idea from just more information, This is the stereo view. Now, it's interesting.

I had a class when I was in engineering school that was how to read stereo photos, okay? And you have these stereo, you know, goggles that you put over the photo and you're able to read between those. You've seen something like that or the stereopticons that they used to have? Even got like 3D glasses you can put on for movies and things like that?

I have a problem. My left eye doesn't work, okay? So for me, I just have to take your word for it that it's 3D. I hate to tell you, but to me, I'll look flat as a postcard. Now, nonetheless, there is this concept of stereo view. You get a sense of depth, not just more information, but a sense of depth that comes from the complementary views. See the difference there? A unique perspective, and I think that's the key point, is perspective, not just more information, but information that gives me insight and understanding.

Example, Matthew provides a strongly Jewish perspective on Christ's first coming. Matthew quotes the Old Testament, which is of course distinctly Jewish, almost twice as many times as Mark and almost three times as many times as John. So here is Matthew, a very distinctly Jewish book. Now, John comes along and he doesn't quote the Old Testament anywhere near as much. we mentioned Matthew is almost three times as many quotes of the Old Testament.

But John does provide a unique Jewish insight and that is it's apparent from reading John that John has connections with the Jewish Sanhedrin, that's the leaders of the Jews, that nobody else seems to have. He records uniquely the conversation with Nicodemus He records, uniquely, Eudemus defending Christ before the Sanhedrin, and the Sanhedrin basically condemning and shutting Nicodemus down. The plan to kill Christ is uniquely recorded by John. And finally, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea jointly burying Christ's body is uniquely recorded by John. John has some insights, even though his gospel is not as Jewish, some insights into the Jewish leadership that none of the other Gospels contain.

Together, we get a depth of view, a depth of understanding that we wouldn't have with just one. And finally, the last one is by stating the truth another way, we actually can end up with an inspired commentary on the other book. If you ever read commentaries and you compare another commentary, you say, well, boy, this one has a different view than that one. This guy's got this other opinion. What if you had an inspired commentary? Well, guess what? That's what you get. Because you'll get one saying on the same subject some different things that actually gives us some insights we wouldn't have otherwise, and we don't have to say, boy, I wonder if that's true. We can know it's true because it's God's inspired word. So we have an inspired commentary on portions of Scripture because of these parallel books. Let's take a look at an example. Here's Ephesians 5.18b and 19.

Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, "...be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord." And then he writes to the church at Colossae in 316, "...let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing." Now, let's take a look at something. To the Ephesians he says, "...be filled with the Spirit." What does he mean by that? What does he write to the Colossians? Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.

There's some insight. Or, he says, speaking to one another. What does he mean by speaking to one another? I thought we were singing. But look at what he writes to the Church of Colossae. That speaking is communicating with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. That's the character of the speaking. Now we've got inspired commentary. Now I know what that speaking means. See that? We're not done. Singing and making melody with your heart. To the Colossians he just said singing, but what did he say to the Ephesians? The singing and making melody comes from where? The heart.

It's great that we have the hymn books, but that's not where it needs to come from. And we get that insight and notice that it wasn't always as we looked at these two, and we'll look at them in more detail, It wasn't always just one book explaining the other, but they switched, didn't they? Each of them had an insight that the other didn't have, but between the two, we have a depth of understanding that we wouldn't gain with just one.

That's cool. That's neat. That's great stuff. I like that. Something else, and you've got this chart on your handout on the top of page one. There are similarities between the two books, and here's a listing of those primary passages where the books are similar.

What you see is a substantial listing, don't you? It turns out that Ephesians has 155 verses. About 75 of those have identical or similar verses in Colossians. So it means you've got pretty near rule of thumb about half the book of Ephesians has similar content in Colossians. Now that's a lot of similarity. Those are parallel books. Now, something to make note of. This is not in your handout.

I'll try to leave it up enough so that you can make some notes if you'd like. And that is, there are only a few verses where, between the two, the order is slightly switched. If you notice what Paul's done here, in writing the two, he hasn't just said, hey, I'll keep the same outline and just fill them in a little different. He's, in some cases, for distinct purposes that we'll see as we go on. shifted the verses slightly out of sequence from being in identical order. Isn't that interesting? He didn't just run the photocopying machine, did he? He thought very carefully through what do I need to say when so that it gets the right point across to the right audience. Very similar books, but definitely not identical.

Something else as we take a look at these here, we see that Ephesus and Colossae are on a network of Roman roads. These are Roman roads that were in place by 14 AD, so by the time Paul's writing this, additional roads had been built. We brought up in the past that Roman soldiers, you know, once they initially went and did all their battles, more time got into just kind of building infrastructure, so the soldiers turned into construction workers. They built enough Roman roads, and their order was, build roads that'll last forever, okay? They built enough roads to go around the globe twice, plus a few thousand miles left over. That's a lot of road. That's a lot of hard work because what they did is they would dig down deep and then build back up so that the solid top material would hold up and stay there no matter what they were digging through. Now, why do I bring this up? They were on the same network of Roman roads and connected with each other.

One of the things we pointed out almost a year ago now, as we started studying Philippians, is these cities were Roman colonies, okay? Philippi being one of them, and we kept bringing that up. And the same is true even of Corinth. These five cities, among these that were part of the New Testament ministry, were Roman colonies set up. Ephesus and Colossae are not. And we'll take a closer look at that as we go on. But that's something else that the two cities had in common, is that they were not Roman colonies.

Yes, there was some Roman influence, and we'll talk about that more as we go. But in understanding who is Paul writing to, he understands very well who he's writing to. And we'll see more detail as we proceed through that. Something else that the two shared, Greek language and culture, minimal Roman presence, and the influence of Jews. Now, something to clarify, when I say minimal Roman presence, I need to make a clarification here. When I say minimal Roman presence, that doesn't mean there weren't Roman soldiers there.

As a matter of fact, Ephesus had a substantial Roman garrison there. But because of the large population, probably somewhere around 250,000 people in Ephesus, the city was still overwhelmed, even though everybody saw Roman soldiers at different times.

The city was so overwhelmed by the Greek culture, overwhelmed by everything that came along with it. And so the Roman presence was secondary and certainly they were not a Roman colony. Both places we know that there were Jews, both Ephesus and Colossae. There was a Greek religious background. Each of them had an assortment of polytheistic religions.

You could pick and choose. Which one would you like? Which one would you like today? Mix and match. You like something eclectic? Go for it. They're happy with that. There's also Greek personal morals. The morals, particularly of men, were way outside of anything biblical.

So when Paul came in with the biblical teaching, what he taught, and especially we'll see shocking things in comparison to the culture when we get to Ephesians 5. It was entirely in contrast to the culture. As the people read it, they must have just been shaking their heads, stunned. And we'll see more and more of that as we go. What Paul came to teach to the churches wasn't a slight tweak to their culture. It was radical. It was shocking stuff. It was the sort of thing you almost have to take the book and put it down for a little bit to absorb it, because your head's just spinning with the changes. Radical, radical news.

Let's take a look at the time frame. Here Paul is converted just a few years after the ascension of Christ. And then here it is some 15 plus years later, he's making a second and third missionary journeys where he travels through Ephesus, but not through Colossae from any record that we have. And finally, here he is in prison, writing the books of Ephesians and Colossians. You've also got this on your handout so that you can track that as well. So this is after some period of time, especially having spent practically a decade since his initial journey into Ephesus.

Now something else, and this might be a bit of a surprise because the Bible doesn't mention it directly, but it's something real valuable for us to know. How many of you have heard of the Silk Road? You heard that? Okay. Ephesus and Colossae were both on roads that were part of the Silk Road network.

They were trading goods with the Orient. Now here you are over in China on this end, right? And then they would take over this network of roads, take those all the way over into Europe. And the trip from one end to the other would take about a year. We often think of Marco Polo kind of extending the connections over into China.

And in fact, they had already been there by New Testament times for over two centuries. later on broke down as Rome broke down and as the Muslim invasions came in and broke up the network. So actually the New Testament times, this was already a couple centuries plus old. It had already been in place. Now, why do I mention it?

Spiritual importance. They weren't just bringing silk over, they brought ideas. Not just silk, they brought Eastern ideas. Hinduism had begun about the same time as Moses was writing the law. Buddhism and Zoroastrianism had been established for five centuries or better each by the time the New Testament was being written. So what did they bring? They brought silk and spices from the East. They also brought in Eastern philosophy and religion. They brought in Hinduism. They brought in Buddhism. They brought in Zoroastrianism from the East. And as they brought those early versions of those religions in, those got mixed in, and so this idea that especially began to touch Colossae was syncretism.

The idea, hey, let's just kind of mix these things together. We'll take a little of this, and a little of that, and a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and voila, what do you have? The same philosophy that you see being perpetrated today, and that's true for you, but not for me. It's your truth, but not my truth. See? And so I'll take this and I'll take that because I like it, but I don't care for this other truth because that doesn't suit me. Sound familiar?

Same thing that was being taught, especially in Colossae. Now, we've seen a lot of parallels here, right? We've looked at parallels between the two books. And by the way, those lines are parallel. Don't mean to mess with your eyes. In spite of all the parallels, there are also differences between the books of Ephesians and Colossians. Let's take a look at some of those. Ephesians and Colossians are not mirror images, and so there are differences, and we want to look at those differences just the same. First is where Paul had been.

We know from Acts 20.31, Paul says explicitly, plus the rest of the account in Acts, He says, I've been with you a total of three years. That's to whom? That's to the elders at Ephesus. He says, I've been with you teaching the Word of God for three years. So we know explicitly that he spent a good portion of time there.

On the contrary, as far as we know or have any record, Paul had not been to Colossae. There was this believer who had been in Ephesus and went out from there to Laodicea and Hierapolis. Colossae and brought the gospel there and apparently was teaching those people as well. He had learned in Ephesus, bringing the gospel then into this area where Colossae was.

Something else is a practical point of concern. Ephesians addresses the present conditions of the believers called out from an immoral and pagan culture, especially we'll see that as we get into the last three chapters of Ephesians. And so there's a focus there as you look at the last three chapters upon their being called out from those conditions. However, Colossians is a little different focus. It addresses the false appeal that was being made to the believers there to practices that were rooted in this syncretistic idea where you just kind of put a bunch of religions and philosophies together, mix and match however you like, and these Syncretistic pagan philosophies and man-made religions were being put together, and Paul explicitly addresses those.

So a difference in focus between the two books that way. Christ and the Church. Ephesians focuses specifically on the Church as the body of Christ, and it addresses that. As a matter of fact, Paul uniquely uses that concept, that phrase. Colossians, however, comes along a little differently. It emphasizes Christ as the head of the body.

Similar? Yes. Identical? No. Different emphasis. Now, the believer's perspective. This is going to be real key as we go through the two books. It's different between them. Ephesians says, in Christ you have been seated with Christ and the heavenlies. That's the believer's perspective. That's where the believer is is told to be looking from. You're in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. One of the things I went through in my Bible as I went through this Ephesians passage, everywhere it says, in Christ, in him, in whom, all those places, it comes out powerfully. And then kind of the crescendo that he builds to from the depths of the beginning of chapter 2, he builds to this place of the believer being seated with Christ in the heavenly.

Now we get to Colossians, a different view. He says, your mind is set on things above where Christ is, who is your life. A focus on Christ as our life. A focus on, yes, we're living here, but our mind is set there. And the perspective here is valuable. It's again one of those places where we get the stereo view. Both of those are valuable understandings for the believer to have. That's one of the neat things as we look at the two books. The differences are wonderful, marvelous differences. Finally, as we look at this, we see that each of these books has a focus on Christ.

We've made that point before, and there's the similarity, but particularly how they focus upon Christ is a bit different. Ephesians presents Christ as enthroned in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power. He keeps coming back, as we pointed out before, to the riches of Christ. When we get to Colossians, he presents Christ as the preeminent head of all principality and power, and jointly with that, and it seems to be heading off particularly an error that has gotten itself seeded in Colossae, and that is painting Christ as the creator and sustainer of the universe. and zeroing in on that.

Between the two, are they identical? No. Is there a complementary message here? Most definitely, yes. And that's what we're putting together as we study through these two books side by side. We will be looking at most certainly these things, but the key focal point here is Christ. Each of the books just comes out instantly telling you about the marvelous blessings that we have in Christ. Paul writes in the book of Ephesians, and he just gets done writing in verse 3, you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ and the heavenlies, and it's like his pen all of a sudden turns into turbo mode.

Verses 3 through 14 is all one sentence in the Greek. It's like he doesn't know where to stop. Where do I put a period in there? It is, as we mentioned before, the first longest Greek sentence in all of Greek literature. The second longest Greek sentence in all of Greek literature is verses 15 through 23.

This pen gets going and all of a sudden it's like he hits Tesla with that thing. And what we're going to see as we get in here, his pen doesn't take off just by accident. It's because he's got such powerful, impacting, marvelous things to write that he can hardly contain it.

Now, as we know, Paul typically dictated his letters, and at times he would write, see what large letters I write, or I'm writing this with my own hand. He would dictate and then write some words with his own hand. You can imagine the person he's dictating to, wait a minute Paul, slow down! It's hard to get all this stuff down, and they're writing like crazy to try to get it all down.

But that's what Paul is wanting to convey, is what Christ has done, who Christ is, is so marvelous, so astounding, that our pen is just going to have to explode right here. We're going to have to break all limits to write down in one sentence even the beginning portion of what the Lord has done and who He is.

That's marvelous stuff. That's fantastic stuff. So as we look over the weeks ahead, as a matter of fact, as we look over the year ahead, assuming the Lord gives us the time, As we look over this time, we're going to be looking at these two books together. Marvelous books, because they're going to be spending, not right up front, they're going to be spending time later telling us, here's how it impacts your life. But we're going to be spending the first half of each of those books seeing who we are in Christ because of who He is and what He has done. And that's wonderful news. That's gospel. That's good news. Let's pray. Lord, indeed what marvelous and wonderful things you've done.

Lord, that we have been blessed so tremendously is hard for us to fathom. Even hard for the translators to bring across as they have to, for English purposes, put periods where in the Greek there are none. But Lord, that doesn't hamper the word that comes from your word and the message, and we thank you for that. And as we look into this opportunity here to study the depths of your word and to see the marvelous truths that you put there, we give you thanks, Lord. And Lord, we know that this is but the beginning, because eternity will not be sufficient to give you thanks. In glory and praise and honor, in Jesus' name, amen.