Reading for June 20th

Read Colossians 1.24-2.19
In 1.24-2.19: A personal witness and a warning.
An autobiographical sketch describes the church's maturation (1.24-2.5) and leads to a warning against deviating from the truth (2.6-2.19).
In verse 24: A certain amount of suffering is assumed to be necessary (see 1 Thess 3.3) before the end can arrive.
Completing .. Christ's afflictions, any suffering brings the end sooner.
In verse 26-27: The mystery is Christ in you, the image of Christ growing in you.In verse 29: Toil, struggle, the effort to bring about the community's maturity.
See 1 Thess 2.9.
In 2.6: Live your lives, "conduct" your lives; see 1.10.
In verse 8-19: The warning: Although the heresy appears as wisdom because of it ascetic and ritualistic practices, Christ's death and resurrection are sufficient to bring the believers' lives into a new dominion.
In verse *: takes you captive, false teachers are like robbers or kidnappers.
In verse 11-12: putting off, buried with him in baptism, baptismal images joined with spiritual circumcision to describe entry into the new life (see Gal 3.27).
In verse 14: Record, a note or debt.
In verse 15: Disarmed. stripped of power.
Roman emperors led captives in public triumphal processions.
In verse 17: Shadow and substance,a familiar contrast in Greek thought (see Plato's Republic 514a-518b).
In verse 18: Angels' worship, worship offered to angels or worship offered by angels, probably the later.
Comments or Questions..