I. THE GOSPEL IS FRUITFUL. It is not a barren doctrine. It is a living truth that produces effects in the hearts of men which are made manifest through the influence of them on external conduct. It is fruitful in two ways.

1. In increase. The truth spreads like leaven; the mustard seed grows into a great tree; the two or three in an upper room multiply into the thousands of Pentecost and into the millions, the Churches of modern Christendom.

2. In good influences. The tree not only puts forth new shoots and so grows in size, it blossoms and bears fruit. The fruits of the gospel are the same graces as are elsewhere called "the fruits of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22, 23). Christianity makes happier and better men of us. These fruits are as visible as the fact of the numerical increase of the Church. All modern history bears witness to them, especially in the elevation of woman, the abolition of slavery, the recognition of national justice, the spread of a spirit of humanity, the creation of institutions of charity, and, better still, the doing of innumerable nameless deeds of kindness.

II. THE FIELD OF THE GOSPEL'S FRUITFULNESS IS THE WORLD. It was not preached in the whole world in St. Paul's day, nor is it even yet. But the process of bearing fruit throughout the world then began and still continues.

1. The fruit is seen in this world. The ripest fruit may not be perfected here, but if there is no fruit on earth there will be none in heaven. The gospel is first of all good news of peace on earth - it promises blessings for the present life (1 Timothy 4:8).

2. The gospel brings blessings to the whole earth. It is suited to all kinds of men, of all nations and in all ages, because it speaks to the common heart of mankind, offering the supply of universal wants and conferring graces that are universally good.

3. The gospel bears fruit throughout the world by first of all bearing fruit in the Church. "As it doth in you also." We can only enjoy the fruits of the gospel by entering the kingdom of Christ. The fruitfulness of the Church is the direct cause of the spread of Christianity throughout the world. Thus God is glorified in our fruitfulness (John 15:8).

III. THE SECRET OF THE GOSPEL'S FRUITFULNESS IS THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GRACE OF GOD OF WHICH IT IS THE DECLARATION.

1. The energy of fruit bearing resides in the grace of God. When men feel that grace they become new creatures. The constraining love of Christ works the miracle.

2. The receipt of this energy defends on the knowledge of Divine grace. It does not work by magic, but through an understanding of its truths. Therefore it is vain to pray for the increased fruitfulness of the gospel without also preaching the gospel.

3. A true understanding of the grace of God is necessary for its fruitfulness. It must be known "in truth." Perversions of the gospel hinder the fruitfulness of Christianity. The gospel tells of facts. Let us see those facts clearly separated from the errors and imaginations of human theology. - W.F.A.

I. In It's ADAPTATION AND ENTERPRISE. "Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world." The gospel, though first proclaimed to the Jews, was net confined to them. It reached and changed the Colossians. In them all races were represented. The world's greatest blessings are not indigenous; are not even sought; they are sent from above. Systems of philosophy lived only in the soil that produced them. Heresies are ethnic; truth is catholic. The success of Mohammedanism was of a different character, and effected by different means. It depended more on the scimitar than the Koran. Alexander, Sesostris, and others achieved similar conquests, and as rapidly, by the force of arms. The victories of the gospel were won by moral weapons.

II. IN ITS RESULTS. "Bringeth forth fruit and increaseth as it does also in you." The fruit-bearing denotes its inward and subjective influence on the soul and life; the increasing refers to its outward and diffusive influence as it makes progress in the world. The metaphor used by the apostle suggests that the gospel, as a tree, not only bears fruit, but grows, sending forth its roots more firmly and widely, and extending its branches in the air. We cannot monopolize that which is intended for the world. It is intensely practical, and aims at results corresponding with its character. The individual who is most spiritually fruitful will be most active.

III. IN THE MANNER OF ITS RECEPTION. "Since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth." Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. The mode of receiving the gospel is the same to all. It is apprehended by tim understanding, approved by the judgment. mad embraced by the affections. It is not enough that it falls on the ear like the strain of a seraphic melody, not enough that it enters the understanding as a clearly conceived, full-orbed truth, not enough that it ripples through the sphere of the emotions as an unspeakable ecstasy; unless, aided by the Divine Spirit, it be cordially embraced by the heart and conscience as the whole truth — the only truth that saves. It is in the gospel only that we "hear of the grace of God" — the good news that He has provided redemption and restoration for the race. Nature, with all its revelations, is dumb on this subject. Providence, with its vast repertory of mingled mystery and bounty, unfolds it not. It is only by believing the gospel that, like the Colossians, we can "know the grace of God in truth."

IV. IN THE METHOD OF ITS PROPAGATION.

1. It is propagated by preaching "as ye also learned," lit., "as ye were instructed," in the truth of the previous verse. Probably Epaphras first preached the gospel at Colosse and the neighbouring cities. Preaching is the Divinely-instituted means of disseminating the gospel. It cannot be superseded by any other agency. "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save."

2. It is propagated by men thoroughly qualified for the work.(1) The apostle recognized Epaphras as a co-labourer with himself. The preacher must labour as belonging to Christ, as dependent on Him, and as attached to Him. With all frankness, affection, and modesty, the great apostle acknowledges Epaphras as "a dear fellow-labourer." Envy and jealousy of the gifts and reputation of others are pernicious and unjustifiable.(2) The apostle recognized Epaphras as a faithful minister of Christ.(3) The apostle recognized Epaphras as a man of deep spiritual insight. "Who also declared unto us your love in the spirit." Love is the leading characteristic of the gospel. Lessons:

1. The universality of the gospel a strong evidence of the: Divine authorship.

2. Though all the world were to reject the gospel it would still be true.

3. To whomsoever the gospel comes, the imperative duty is to believe it.

(George Barlow.)

I. THE ADMIRABLE PROGRESS AND GREAT AND SUDDEN SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL.

1. The gospel had come to the Colossians, a people living in Phrygia, a province infamous for its abominations, whence had issued the mysteries and infernal devotions of Cybele, the most detestable of pagan idols, and in whose service were committed the most shameful horrors. Whence it appears that the knowledge of God's Word is a donation of mere grace, and not the payment of merit. The apostle tells them, not that they had come to the gospel, but it to them; to show us that it is God who comes to us, who prevents us by His grace, according to His good pleasure. The sick go to the physician; here the Physician of souls goes to the sick (Luke 19:10; Isaiah 65:1).

2. The gospel was come into all the world. This is not at all astonishing if the other apostles and evangelists laboured each according to his measure. We read of the extraordinary diffusion of the gospel in Justin, Clement, , and even Tacitus acknowledges that there was a very great multitude of Christians in Rome.

3. The apostle mentions this —(1) To confirm them the more in the faith of the gospel. Not that truth depends on its success; though all the world were against it that would be unshaken. Yet it is a consolation to the believer to see the extensive diffusion of his faith; and the more converts, the greater the confirmation.(a) It was not full thirty years since the crucifixion; how, then, could the doctrine of the Cross have made so great a way in so little time, surmounted so many obstacles, flown into so many places, if it were not Divine. What other system has accomplished so much.(b) Then it had no force of arms to advance it, or charms of eloquence and philosophy to commend it. Its missionaries were fishermen and artizans, without credit or experience, persecuted, derided, killed. Yet it spread everywhere.(2) Besides the confirmation of their faith the apostle designed to fortify them against the errors which were being sown in the Church.

II. ITS DIVINE EFFICACY.

1. It brings forth fruit — faith, love, etc. It is this energy of the gospel which Christ represents in Matthew 13. Wherever the gospel went it transformed (Isaiah 41:19; Isaiah 55:10, 11), and those whom it transformed used it to transform others.(1) It brought forth fruit instantly — not as nature. The moment the gospel is rightly received it produces fruit. Receive it then at once (Psalm 95:7, 8). One of the most pernicious artifices of the enemy is to induce men to defer conversion. You cannot be the Lord's too soon.(2) But if we are required to bear fruit at once, it follows not that we may soon after cease to do so, as certain trees which, if they are the first to flourish are the first to fade (Psalm 92:14).

2. The faith of the gospel is "the knowledge of the grace of God," because it is not possible to enjoy this heavenly doctrine if the man has not received the mercy it offers in Jesus Christ. This grace is the heart and substance of the gospel. When Paul says that they "beard and knew the grace of God in truth," he means either —(1) That they received it in sincerity, without hypocrisy; or(2) That it was delivered to them pure, and without mixture of Pharisaical superstition or philosophical vanity; or(3) So as it is declared in the gospel, not on error and fictions, as in the false religions; nor in shadow or figure as in the law, but nakedly and simply as it is in itself. Of these three expositions the first is commendatory of the Colossians, the second of Epaphras, the third of the gospel itself.

(J. Daille.)

The following statement, a conjectural but probable representation of the progressive increase of Christians in the world, is attributed to Sharon Turner: 1st century, 500,000; 2nd, 2,000,000; 3rd, 5,000,000; 4th, 10,000,000; 5th, 15,000,000; 6th, 20,000,000; 7th, 24,000,000; 8th, 30,000,000; 9th, 40,000,000; 10th, 50,000,000; llth, 70,000,000; 12th, 80,000,000; 13th, 75,000,000; 14th, 80,000,000; 15th, 100,000,000; 16th, 125,000,000; 17th, 155,000,000; 18th, 200,000,000. Although this is only a mere approximation, and a very loose one, to the actual facts, yet it is interesting and instructive. With the exception of the thirteenth century (tenebrosum, as the late Dr. Miller called it), the progress of the truth has been ever onward. From every defeat it has arisen afresh, and what has never been the ease in any other system, religious, social, or intellectual, has revived anew from the ashes of its own inward corruptions. In this nineteenth century, the Christian population of the world cannot be far from three hundred millions; and its progress now is more rapid than in any period since the apostolic age. What imagination can forecast the conquests of the next fifty years! The leaven is working in every land. The old empires of idolatry and superstition are effete, and ready to vanish; while new Christian empires are born almost in a day. Every new discovery in nature, or invention in art, helps to speed the gospel. Trade, commerce, revolution, exploration, all prepare the way and herald the approach of the heralds of the cross.

(Dr. Haven.)

Colossians, Epaphras, Paul, Thessalonians, Timotheus, TimothyColossae, PhilippiBearing, Bringeth, Constantly, Ears, Forth, Fruit, Giving, God's, Grace, Growing, Increase, Increasing, Indeed, Present, Reached, Really, Remains, Spread, Truth, Understood, Yielding, Yourselves1. After salutation Paul thanks God for the Colossians' faith;
7. confirms the doctrine of Epaphras;
9. prays further for their increase in grace;
14. describes the supremacy of Christ;
21. encourages them to receive Jesus Christ, and commends his own ministry.

Colossians 1:6

     5932   response
     6666   grace
     7027   church, purpose
     8255   fruit, spiritual
     8348   spiritual growth, nature of
     8443   growth

Colossians 1:3-6

     6671   grace, and Christian life

Colossians 1:5-6

     1690   word of God
     8316   orthodoxy, in NT

Colossians 1:5-7

     2420   gospel

February 11. "Strengthened with all Might unto all Patience" (Col. I. 11).
"Strengthened with all might unto all patience" (Col. i. 11). The apostle prays for the Colossians, that they may be "strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." It is one thing to endure and show the strain on every muscle of your face, and seem to say with every wrinkle, "Why does not somebody sympathize with me?" It is another to endure the cross, "despising the shame" for the joy set before us. There are some trees in the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 18. "Christ in You" (Col. I. 27).
"Christ in you" (Col. i. 27). How great the difference between the old and the new way of deliverance! One touch of Christ is worth a lifetime of struggling. A sufferer in one of our hospitals was in danger of losing his sight from a small piece of broken needle that had entered his eye. Operation after operation had only irritated it, and driven the foreign substance farther still into the delicate nerves of the sensitive organ. At length a skilful young physician thought of a new expedient. He …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Twenty Fourth Sunday after Trinity Prayer and Spiritual Knowledge.
Text: Colossians 1, 3-14. 3 We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'All Power'
'Strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy.'--COL. i. 11 (R.V.). There is a wonderful rush and fervour in the prayers of Paul. No parts of his letters are so lofty, so impassioned, so full of his soul, as when he rises from speaking of God to men to speaking to God for men. We have him here setting forth his loving desires for the Colossian Christians in a prayer of remarkable fulness and sweep. Broadly taken, it is for their perfecting …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Thankful for Inheritance
'Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.'--COL. i. 12 (R.V.) It is interesting to notice how much the thought of inheritance seems to have been filling the Apostle's mind during his writing of Ephesians and Colossians. Its recurrence is one of the points of contact between them. For example, in Ephesians, we read, 'In whom also were made a heritage' (i. 11); 'An earnest of our inheritance' (i. 14); 'His inheritance in the saints' …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Saints, Believers, Brethren
' . . . The saints and faithful brethren in Christ.'--COL. i. 2. 'The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,' says the Acts of the Apostles. It was a name given by outsiders, and like most of the instances where a sect, or school, or party is labelled with the name of its founder, it was given in scorn. It hit and yet missed its mark. The early believers were Christians, that is, Christ's men, but they were not merely a group of followers of a man, like many other groups of whom the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Christian Endeavour
'I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.'--COL. i. 29. I have chosen this text principally because it brings together the two subjects which are naturally before us to-day. All 'Western Christendom,' as it is called, is to-day commemorating the Pentecostal gift. My text speaks about that power that 'worketh in us mightily.' True, the Apostle is speaking in reference to the fiery energy and persistent toil which characterised him in proclaiming Christ, that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Gospel-Hope
'The hope of the Gospel.'--COL. i. 5. 'God never sends mouths but He sends meat to feed them,' says the old proverb. And yet it seems as if that were scarcely true in regard to that strange faculty called Hope. It may well be a question whether on the whole it has given us more pleasure than pain. How seldom it has been a true prophet! How perpetually its pictures have been too highly coloured! It has cast illusions over the future, colouring the far-off hills with glorious purple which, reached, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Next Performance is Mainly Directed against Faith in the Church...
The next performance is mainly directed against faith in the Church, as a society of Divine origin. "The Rev. Henry Bristow Wilson, B.D., Vicar of Great Staughton, Hunts," claims that a National Church shall be regarded as a purely secular Institution,--the spontaneous development of the State. "If all priests and ministers of religion could at one moment be swept from the face of the Earth, they would soon be reproduced [76] ." The Church is concerned with Ethics, not with Divinity. It should therefore …
John William Burgon—Inspiration and Interpretation

All Fulness in Christ
The text is a great deep, we cannot explore it, but we will voyage over its surface joyously, the Holy Spirit giving us a favorable wind. Here are plenteous provisions far exceeding, those of Solomon, though at the sight of that royal profusion, Sheba's queen felt that there was no more spirit in her, and declared that the half had not been told to her. It may give some sort of order to our thoughts if they fall under four heads. What is here spoken of--"all fullness." Where is it placed--"in him," …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Thankful Service.
(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.) COL. i. 12. "Giving thanks." In one of our northern coal-pits there was a little boy employed in a lonely and dangerous part of the mine. One day a visitor to the coal-pit asked the boy about his work, and the child answered, "Yes, it is very lonely here, but I pick up the little bits of candle thrown away by the colliers, and join them together, and when I get a light I sing." My brothers, every day of our lives we are picking up blessings which the loving …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Twenty-Third Day for the Holy Spirit in Your Own Work
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Holy Spirit in your own Work "I labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily."--COL. i. 29. You have your own special work; make it a work of intercession. Paul laboured, striving according to the working of God in him. Remember, God is not only the Creator, but the Great Workman, who worketh all in all. You can only do your work in His strength, by Him working in you through the Spirit. Intercede much for those among whom you work, till God gives …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Knowledge and Obedience.
"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father."--COL. i. 9-12. The Epistles …
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

The Inheritance.
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.--Ep. to the Colossians i. 12. To have a share in any earthly inheritance, is to diminish the share of the other inheritors. In the inheritance of the saints, that which each has, goes to increase the possession of the rest. Hear what Dante puts in the mouth of his guide, as they pass through Purgatory:-- Perche s'appuntano i vostri desiri Dove per compagnia parte si scema, Invidia muove …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

The Disciple, -- Master, if Thou Wouldst Make a Special Manifestation of Thyself to The...
The Disciple,--Master, if Thou wouldst make a special manifestation of Thyself to the world, men would no longer doubt the existence of God and Thy own divinity, but all would believe and enter on the path of righteousness. The Master,--1. My son, the inner state of every man I know well, and to each heart in accordance with its needs I make Myself known; and for bringing men into the way of righteousness there is no better means than the manifestation of Myself. For man I became man that he might …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

Victory Found
AT THE close of this little volume it seems fitting to recount again a wonderful personal experience, narrated in The Sunday School Times of December 7, 1918. I do not remember the time when I did not have in some degree a love for the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour. When not quite twelve years of age, at a revival meeting, I publicly accepted and confessed Christ as my Lord and Master. From that time there grew up in my heart a deep yearning to know Christ in a more real way, for he seemed so unreal, …
Rosalind Goforth—How I Know God Answers Prayer

section 3
But we will go back from this glimpse of God's ultimate purpose for us, to watch the process by which it is reached, so far as we can trace it in the ripening of the little annuals. The figure will not give us all the steps by which God gets His way in the intricacies of a human soul: we shall see no hint in it of the cleansing and filling that is needed in sinful man before he can follow the path of the plant. It shows us some of the Divine principles of the new life rather than a set sequence of …
I. Lilias Trotter—Parables of the Christ-life

Christ and Man in the Atonement
OUR conception of the relations subsisting between God and man, of the manner in which these relations are affected by sin, and particularly of the Scripture doctrine of the connection between sin and death, must determine, to a great extent, our attitude to the Atonement. The Atonement, as the New Testament presents it, assumes the connection of sin and death. Apart from some sense and recognition of such connection, the mediation of forgiveness through the death of Christ can only appear an arbitrary, …
James Denney—The Death of Christ

The Mystical Union with Immanuel.
"Christ in you the hope of glory." --Col. i. 27. The union of believers with Christ their Head is not effected by instilling a divine-human life-tincture into the soul. There is no divine-human life. There is a most holy Person, who unites in Himself the divine and the human life; but both natures continue unmixed, unblended, each retaining its own properties. And since there is no divine-human life in Jesus, He can not instil it into us. We do heartily acknowledge that there is a certain conformity …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

A Preliminary Discourse to Catechising
'If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' - Col 1:23. Intending next Lord's day to enter upon the work of catechising, it will not be amiss to give you a preliminary discourse, to show you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the grounds of religion. If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' I. It is the duty of Christians to be settled in the doctrine of faith. II. The best way for Christians to be settled is to be well grounded. I. It is the duty of Christians …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Fourthly; all the [Credenda, Or] Doctrines, which the True, Simple, and Uncorrupted Christian Religion Teaches,
(that is, not only those plain doctrines which it requires to be believed as fundamental and of necessity to eternal salvation, but even all the doctrines which it teaches as matters of truth,) are, though indeed many of them not discoverable by bare reason unassisted with revelation; yet, when discovered by revelation, apparently most agreeable to sound unprejudiced reason, have every one of them a natural tendency, and a direct and powerful influence to reform men's minds, and correct their manners, …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly
WE shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things. 1. God's attributes work for good to the godly. (1). God's power works for good. It is a glorious power (Col. i. 11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect. God's power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. "Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii. 27). What upheld Daniel in the lion's den? …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Of Love to God
I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children's bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Rise of the Assyrian Empire
PHOENICIA AND THE NORTHERN NATIONS AFTER THE DEATH OP RAMSES III.--THE FIRST ASSYRIAN EMPIRE: TIGLATH-PILESUR I.--THE ARAMAEANS AND THE KHATI. The continuance of Egyptian influence over Syrian civilization after the death of Ramses III.--Egyptian myths in Phoenicia: Osiris and Isis at Byblos--Horus, Thot, and the origin of the Egyptian alphabet--The tombs at Arvad and the Kabr-Hiram; Egyptian designs in Phoenician glass and goldsmiths'work--Commerce with Egypt, the withdrawal of Phoenician colonies …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 6

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