Colossians 1 starts with Paul giving some encouragement to his audience. But who are they?

Paul’s readers in Colossians

Colossae was part of a major trading route in the Lycus valley, named after a river in Phrygia in Anatolia. This is now modern-day Turkey. It was famous at the time for manufacturing woollen fabrics.

There had Jewish exiles living in the area for around 600 years. However, the Jewish population was bulked up a couple of centuries before Christ’s birth. It happened when Antiochus the Great, the Greek ruler of the Seleucid Empire, sent 2,000 Jewish families from Babylonia to the area.

The Babylonian Jews had the reputation of having God on their side. The bible scholar F.F. Bruce, referring to 2 Maccabees 8, wrote:

Judas Maccabaeus is said to have encouraged his troops on one occasion, when they were threatened by a much superior Seleucid army, by reminding them of “the battle with the Galatians that took place in Babylonia, when 8,000 Jews in all went into the affair, with 2,000 Macedonians; and when the Macedonians were hard pressed, the 8,000, by the help that came to them from heaven, destroyed 120,000 and took much booty.”

The gospel was swiftly brought to Phrygia after the death of Jesus. Jews from the area helped fund the temple in Jerusalem. In Acts 2, when Pentecost takes place, there are Jews from Phrygia who experience gifts of the Holy Spirit. Later, in Acts 16, Paul travels through the region of Phrygia, but not Colossae specifically.

N.T. Wright says that the letter to the Colossians “is written, it appears, to a young church. Paul has been informed of its existence by Epaphras, himself from Colossae, who seems to have been converted under Paul in Ephesus and to have returned home to spread the word.

The gospel is bearing fruit

In the letter, Paul connects the faith and love he’s heard that the Colossae Christians are showing with the bigger picture of how Christianity is spreading. He writes:

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people – the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world – just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Sometimes as Christians, particularly in the UK, we can miss the full picture of the growth of Christianity. But, in fact, as Paul does in his letter, when we look out what’s happening globally, it’s exciting!

According to research from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the number of Christians in the world is bigger than ever before.

Believers in Christianity are set to reach 3.2bn by 2050, up from 2.6bn last year and just 1.2bn in 1970.

Just 19 years ago, Richard Dawkins launched a high-profile book, The God Delusion. It was a key moment in the so-called New Atheism movement, when atheism turned up on best-seller lists. But within a decade the movement fizzled out.

Aaron Earls of Lifeway Research says:

While Christianity and other religions are growing around the world, the global atheist population is falling. The current growth trend for atheism is -0.12%, with their number falling from 147 million in 2020 to 146 million in 2024. Atheism peaked around 1970 with 165 million people.

Meanwhile, agnostics are barely growing with a 0.09% growth, climbing from 744 million in 2020 to 756 million this year. Within the next decades, agnosticism is also projected to decline.

So, just as Paul encourages the Colossians by pointing out that “the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world”, we can also take encouragement from the blessing that the gospel is giving to increasing numbers of people.

The consequence of the gospel

Paul then turns what he and others are praying for. The Colossians have received the blessing of God’s grace. But Paul knows that Christianity isn’t just a theoretical acknowledgement that God exists. Rather, Paul wants them to live with…

…the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects—bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. [Colossians 1:9-12 (NET)]

So the Colossians have already received the fruit of the gospel (“the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world”) but here he wants them to receive the understanding that the Holy Spirit gives to change their lives.

Christianity is not a Tesco Clubcard, a commitment-free loyalty card that we can put in our wallet and forget about. It’s an invitation to play our part in God’s plan.