Colossians 1:6 - Exposition

That is come unto you, even as also (it is) in all the world, bearing fruit and increasing, as in you also ( Romans 1:8 ; 1 Thessalonians 1:8 ; 2 Corinthians 2:14 ; Acts if. 47; Acts 5:14 ; Acts 6:7 ; Acts 9:31 ; Acts 11:21 ; Acts 12:24 ; Acts 19:20 ). The words, "and increasing," are added to the text on the testimony, all but unanimous, of the older witnesses. Their propriety is manifest; for the success of the gospel at Colossae was a gratifying evidence, both of its inherent fruitfulness, and of its rapid progress in the Gentile world. Stationary at Rome (see Introduction, § 3), and with his messengers coming and going, and news reaching him from time to time of the advance of the Christian cause, the strong expression, "in all the world," is natural to St. Paul. From Rome "all the world" is surveyed, just as what takes place at Rome seems to resound "in all the world" ( Romans 1:8 ). Bearing fruit (verb in middle voice, implying inherent energy) precedes growing—the first "describing the inner working," the second" the outward extension of the gospel" (Lightfoot). For "bearing fruit," comp. Ephesians 5:9 ; Galatians 5:22 ; Philippians 1:11 ; John 15:8 , John 15:16 : and for "growing," 2 Thessalonians 3:1 ; Matthew 13:31-33 ; and parallel passages; see also Matthew 13:11 . In the last clause the expression "doubles back upon itself" in a fashion characteristic of St. Paul, whose sentences grow and change their form like living things while he indites them (comp. Colossians 3:13 ; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-8 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:1 , R.V.): the coming of the gospel to Colossae suggests the thought of its advent in the world, and this gives place to the fuller idea of its fruitfulness and expansion, which in turn is evidenced by its effect at Colossae. Since the day that ye heard (it), and knew well the grace of God in truth ( Matthew 13:5 ; Colossians 2:6 , Colossians 2:7 ; Ephesians 1:13 ; Ephesians 4:21 ; 1 Thessalonians 2:1 , 1 Thessalonians 2:2 , 1 Thessalonians 2:13 ; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 ; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 ; 2 Corinthians 1:19 ; Galatians 1:6 , Galatians 1:11 ; Galatians 3:1-3 ; 2 Timothy 3:14 ). For their progress had been continuous (comp. Philippians 1:5 ). Meyer and Ellicott, with the A.V., better maintain the connection of thought in understanding "the gospel" as object of "heard." The verb ἐπέγνωτε , knew well, with ἐπίγνωσις ( Matthew 13:9 , etc.), belongs specially to the vocabulary of this group of Epistles. Knowledge, in 1 Corinthians, is denoted by the simple gnosis. But this word became at an early time the watchword of the heretical Gnostics ; and the false teachers of Colossae pretended to an intellectual superiority, asserted, we may imagine, in much the same way (comp. Colossians 2:2-4 , Colossians 2:8 , Colossians 2:23 ). The apostle now prefers the more precise and distinctive epignosis ( επίγινώσκω ), meaning" accurate" or" advanced knowledge" (see Lightfoot here, and on verse 9). "To hear the gospel" is "to know well the grace of God" ( Acts 20:24 ; Romans 3:21-26 ; 2Co 5:20—6:1; John 1:17 ); the full knowledge of which "in truth" (verse 5; Ephesians 4:14 , Ephesians 4:15 , Ephesians 4:20-24 ) would preserve the Colossians from knowledge falsely so called.