Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
Bearing Fruit in All the World
Colossians 1:6-8
6 which has come to you, even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth, · WEB
The gospel is described as a living thing that grows on its own — and it reached Colossae through a local man, not an apostle.
The gospel has come to you, as it is in all the world bearing fruit and growing. Two verbs of organic life, applied to a message. Paul does not say the gospel is being spread; he says it is bearing fruit and increasing, as though the growth were its own property rather than the missionaries' achievement.
The phrase in all the world is deliberate against the letter's occasion. Whatever was being taught in Colossae was local and specialized; the gospel is described as the thing already happening everywhere.
The hinge is since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth. Their whole standing dates from a hearing, and nothing has been added since.
Verses 7 and 8 name the man who brought it: Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf. He was one of them Colossians 4:12, and he had gone to Paul and come back. The church at Colossae was founded by a local convert rather than by an apostle, and Paul endorses the arrangement without qualification — it is Epaphras who reported your love in the Spirit.
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