The question I would ask you, what connection do you know of? Do you remember between the book of Acts and Colossians? When did Paul plant the church? When was he there? How did he go about things with regard to Colossians? And what chapter do we read about the planting of the church? Obviously I'm taking you up a blind alley with all these questions. But there is some connection between Colossians and Acts, and we need to explore that a little bit. It's not as conspicuous as, for instance, between Acts and Philippians, but it's still there. So what would you say? If you were asked in an essay question, please describe and discuss the connection between Colossians in the book of Acts. How would you write that in two or three eloquent Shakespearean sentences? Close attention to good content and eloquent speech. Not everybody at the same time. You're just inundating me with, what would you say? Where's the connection? Yes, please. Very good. Somebody is awake. Wonderful. I don't think he went to Colossian. Absolutely true. We read from Colossians that he has never met them face to face, and we don't find any direct reference in the book of Acts that he went to Colossian, such as we find that he went to Philippian. Okay, very good. That was a contrarial answer of denial, so what can we say? Are there connections? What do we find? Is there anything we find in the book of Acts that would give us some information beyond what we find in Colossians that you have read and learned by heart? Any other ideas? Let me give you a hint. Ephesus. Paul did go to Ephesus that he not. Remember 52, some of you circled it right, many of you circled 54, but you will always remember from now on, even though it may not be the absolute truth. I mean, these are approximate dates, but according to your professor, according to the outline, 52 Ephesus, and there's a frown here, yes, I know it could be different. Ephesus, what did he do in Ephesus? What did Paul do first three months and then for two years? Acts 19. Yes, he went to the synagogue and presented the message concerning the kingdom of God as it says in the Acts account. Two, the Jewish listeners and some of them were becoming resistant to him and actually giving Paul a difficult time. And at a certain stage, he moves over to the house of Tyrannus and there, daily as it says in the account, debates concerning the Christian faith for two years. Now, what do we read in this exact context? If you open your Bible to Acts 19, you see it in verse 10. The house of Tyrannus, this went on for two years, and now comes the piece of information that we need, that is significant for our study on Colossians. So that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in where? The province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. Now, if you are not exactly acquainted with the province of Asia, you can look in the maps in the back of your Bible, some of them are not really very descriptive. But if you have Asia Minor, this is a perfect representation of the western side of Turkey. Ephesus is here. This is Asia and Colossia is right here. Absolutely, I've measured that out before. So you have Ephesus here and you have Colossia here. So here, Paul Ministers, maybe it's a little further north, I think this is more precise. He Ministers in Ephesus so that the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. Now, why? They didn't have a megaphone in Ephesus that proclaimed a message like in our modern day Billy Graham ways. No, Ephesus was the commercial center. It was the cultural center of this entire region. And if you wanted to come from the hinterland to the main city, see the Artemis Temple, see some fancy games, do some good business, you came to Ephesus. And after having done your business, you may say, I'd like to hear some news. Watch some TV, read some newspaper. Well, the way you did that was to go to the house of tyrannos. That's where you got some news, maybe a new philosophy, maybe a new idea, maybe a new way of presenting an argument, debate, skills, etc. And there people would come, hear the gospel, come to Christ and go back into their regions. And so Luke gives us a summary statement on the way, the fact that the gospel spread into Asia. So this is Acts 1910, one of the verses connecting at least the region of Colosse with Paul's ministry. There's another verse in 1926. Paul is being accused for hindering the economic and superstitional establishment of the Artemis Temple cult because business is running low. It's not moving quite as well anymore. Too many people are turning to Christ away from the idols, away from the commercial and otherwise questionable industry of the Artemis Temple. And there it says in Acts 1926, and you see and hear how this fellow Paul, accusing him, has convinced and led a stray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. So there you have it, two references to the ministry of Paul from Ephesus into the hinterland, including Colosse. And so as Luke describes it, the word of God spread widely and grew in power and must have affected this region. There's another reference you can make in the book of Acts to a possible. Now this is not foolproof. What I've just told you, it's likely, it's an intelligent guess based on some evidence that the ministry of Paul from Ephesus reached Colosse. Colosse was not an absolutely insignificant little village. It was one of the major cities and I'll describe to you a little more about that. So it's a good guess, a good intelligent guess. There's another one, not explicit but again implicit how the gospel may have reached Colosse without Paul ever going there, who would remember from the book of Acts. Much earlier, then Paul's sojourn, Paul's stay in Ephesus itself. Yes, Barnabas? Okay, we can go further back. There is a reference to the journey to the travel across the region after the separation between Barnabas and Paul, Acts 16 and following. So there's a possibility there that ministry is happening in that region but that's rather faint, it's not very explicit. There's one more direct reference, not to Colosse but to the immediate region. It's Pentecost. It's early, it's Pentecost that we can make a connection to Colosse. Please turn with me to Acts 2 and there we read in verse 10 that people from fregea were there, people from fregea. Now if you look in your maps again, you see that in the map that depicts the journeys of Paul, Paul's missionary journeys, that fregea is a subarea of Asia. So if you have Asia here, this entire region, you can say that fregea is a subarea more specific than Asia and Colosse is in fregea. It's a fregean Colosse in the larger province of Asia. Now these were Jews who had come to the feast of Pentecost. They had heard the Gospel and many, as we know from the account in Acts 2, became Christians, became believers in Messiah Jesus, returned to their home countries and towns and obviously there spread the Gospel. So we have two intelligent guesses, while they both are not explicit references to the possible origin and beginning of a church in Colosse. One in Acts 2, 10 and the other two identical references in Acts 19, 10 and 1918 following. I think that's all we need to know in terms of the connection between the book of Acts and Colossians. What do we learn from Colossians itself? Who may have at least pastored the church at the time of Paul's writing of Colossians and perhaps founded it? Yes, yes, I probably mispronounce all of those names, I would say epipharas, but probably epipharas is right. I always mispronounce things. But so do you, you say hands bear, don't you? So tit for tat, same for say. So epipharas may have been a person who did come to Ephesus to meet with Paul and Paul may have discipled him and then he would have returned to Colosse. We don't know for sure. I think what I'm giving you are the two or three mosaics, stones that we have but they make a nice picture of how the church would have come into existence. And now we're moving to the larger section of background occasion and address seats. We need to go a little back to understand what is going on here. The reason why I'm taking you a little back in history, not only the history of the church in Colosse, but the city of Colosse and its development is because there are a lot of people that wonder what is really going on in Colosse. What's the problem? You know if you read Faleiman, you can track down the problem fairly well. If you read first Corinthians, you can track down the problem fairly well. If you read Galatians, you can track down the problem fairly well. But there's something that matter in the Colossian church. But what? What's the matter? And so to answer that question, I'll take you back a little bit unless you give us the final answer right now. Okay, there's a heresy, so you're quite right. But the question begins when you have to define what that heresy is. And so I need to take you back a little bit into the history here because once you understand the history and the composite nature of this particular situation, which may not be unique, but it is an explanation for the particular issues concerning the Colossian church, I think it will make a little more sense. So we're looking at background occasion and adversies and particularly the background. First, the background to Colosse itself. Let's go back a little bit. What do we find in the history of the city that is of particular significance? If we look at the geography in your maps, maybe you would find it, but it's not very conspicuous. You would see that there is a river flowing through Colosse the Lycos River. And this Lycos River empties into the Mander River. And I'm told that the Mander River particularly goes left and right and works its way through. I don't know if anybody has ever visited that region. I've never had the occasion to go there, but I'm told that this word mandering actually is connected, but I'm not sure I've not verified that. But anyway, that river manders into the Mediterranean Sea. We know that empties into that. So you have the fact that while Colosse is very much inland, it is hinterland. This is all sea, Mediterranean Sea. You have through the Lycos River and the Mander River, a sea connection, a waterway to Colosse. And that is one of the explanations why 500 BC, there is already historical documentation for the existence of the city of Colosse. Favoring this development is that at a certain stage, a west east and east west road was established connecting Persia with the Mediterranean Sea and Ephesus was an important point, certainly going over to Greece and then going over to Rome. The entire Mediterranean connection between Rome, Alexandria, Ephesus, Athens and a little further down Corrin, the harbor of Corrin. And then maybe Cesarrea, Philippi as the Roman government center of Palestine, those were important harbors and leading up to that development of the Roman Empire, there was this east west road. These two factors alone, sea connection or water connection, waterway and road, meant that as Colosse was growing throughout the centuries BC, that Colosse is developing into quite a favorable and formidable city, certainly not rivaling Ephesus, but being of quite some significance. Cesar means that as Colosse grows, much significance is attributed to it. First of all, you have the indigenous people, the Freedians living there in this city. But because of its strategic situation, and because of the political events, you have a big wave coming with Alexander the Great and the expansion of the Hellenistic world, the Greek Empire, and so around 300 BC, very roughly, actually earlier, but let's remember 300 BC, there's this influx of Hellenists, of Greek speaking people, Greek culture, Greek thinking, et cetera, that floods over this region and certainly also takes on Colosse. About 130 BC, the Roman Empire comes to the rise. And what the Hellenistic expansion has done in the 300 BC now comes in a new way from by the Romans, and they take over that region and again flood the situation in Colosse with their particular hardware, steel, strategic military positions, legal spheres, and certainly for the development of streets and roads and connections and business, enterprise, et cetera. One thing I have not mentioned is that a date that we cannot quite verify anymore, a substantial Jewish contingency was moving into the city of Colosse. Now we know that with the Babylonian exile, which was went, roughly. Yes, oh boy, that's too specific, don't be so precise. Yes, 580, let's just say 600 BC, then we'll be all, okay, about that time Babylonian exile, there begins a dispersion of Jews from their homeland, and it's not only dispersion into Babylon, but there are other hints in other direction, Alexandra being a significant one in the South, and then Asia Minor actually into Greece and into the Italian peninsula and beyond. And so at a certain point we have historical verification and references that there were 11,000 male Jews living in Colosse. Now they were not all living among themselves, they had wives and children, it was just the certain ancient way of reckoning, sadly enough. And so you have to multiply that figure by about four or five to get the Jewish population in the town. So you have a substantial representation, Jewish representation in Colosse certainly around 100 BC and then on. Now there's something phenomenal that happens with Colosse and that's this. Historical references at the first century BC speak of a little town of Colosse, something must have happened. The wonderful rise of the city, it's a presentation as a major city, 300, 400 BC slowly shrinks down, troubles down to a little town. One of the reasons we can bring to the equation in the historical reconstruction is that slightly north of Colosse are the two cities of Herapolis and Laudicea. And somehow, while among the three Colosse is the oldest, Laudicean Herapolis come to the fore, come to the rise. There are wonderful hot and cold springs in Laudicea, there are major medical institutions in Herapolis, the bank system grows and even the road that originally went through Colosse is moved up north because these cities are just more significant. You can compare it to your own history in the United States to the building of railroads which certainly facilitated the growth of cities, towns and cities. As soon as roads were built to compete with the railroads and these roads happened to go different directions than the railroads, many cities, many towns became ghost towns. Now that's not quite what happened with Colosse, it's still how it's ground a little bit but it's certainly lost to Laudicean Herapolis in significance so that this little town of Colosse around 100 BC is explainable on those bases. So there's a decrease in economic life, economic growth, there's a decrease in being integrated in the commercial network of west and east. I understand at one point saying Louis was a much more a greater city than Chicago. Is that true? There was more leading, certainly ranked among the major cities in terms of freight and train connection. At the end of last century, beginning of this century I was surmised and now if I would ask you who is the leader, Chicago or St. Louis, you would have a clear answer. I think we can at least by analogy see what's happening in terms of centuries, in terms of decades, to the rise and growth and decrease of various cities. Something of that sort must have happened to Colosse. Colosse was a wonderful city in the sense of its natural resources. There was a very fertile ground, the connection with the river was wonderful, sometimes the river would go over its banks and fertilise the ground and knew so they would have vineyards, figs, olives, all kinds of different plants. One major development in Colosse was sheep, growing of sheep, the development of textiles and then there was a particular root, the Colossanos root, which was a purple root that you could use to produce purple cloth with. Colosse was famous for its purple cloth and a certain business lady who happened to do business in Philippi may very well have done business in Colosse and moved it over to Macedonia and then trade there. Her name would be Lydia, yes, so that's very likely she came from that region, not exactly from Colosse but it's very possible that she wouldn't have been involved in that very famous textile branch of textile industry there. Weavers obviously had a great trade in Colosse and so trade along the waterways and also initially along this main road that later on was moved further north would have been facilitated. When the Romans came obviously this became an important military fortress stabilising its hold in that region and besides that culturally science was growing at a certain point high point, then losing out to hereopolis and Laudicea the arts. And as I've mentioned various baths in this volcanic region, hot baths particularly circuses and theatre, particularly when the Romans came by that was emphasised you remember bread and games. That was the big game plan of the Romans and whatever was there set by the Greeks was emphasised and expanded by the Romans. You also know by now that Colosse would have come under various rulers, under various powers moving from one to the next but that is not the most significant element. I want to focus mostly now on the history of its philosophy and religious convictions because that's where the Christian faith is particularly hitting, not only but that is a very significant area. Well I have mentioned to you at least four but primarily three major sources for religious import. The Freggians, the indigenous would have brought mystery religions or not brought, they would have had it. It was the basic foundation for centuries long before Colosse even was established in Asia Minor the mystery religions. Then when the Greeks swept over in the Hellenicization, it would be a Hellenistic philosophy. I would call it Neo-Platonism, Stoicism and Epicureanism as I have mentioned before. So the Hellenistic movement would have definitely brought that and then at least one more and that is the migration of Jews. So Jewish faith, let's write it like that. I'm kind of emitting the Romans because as I have said the Romans bought bank machines and streets but not so much religious thought. It would be subsumed under number two particularly under the category of Stoicism that the Romans would have had some influence and some import. Now what does that mean? What does that mean to the composite nature as far as I'm convinced of the church in Colosse that would have come from these various backgrounds? Well let's reflect briefly. What is the character of the mystery religion in Asia Minor? It's a complex situation, complex issue but one common denominator would be that there is a great superstition and a great feat. And a great fear of the unknown. Because of that fear you would ban together and you would be initiated in secret groups, in secret mystery societies. And the basic pattern of these mystery societies would be that you are initiated into secrets and you better not divulge them. When Paul uses the word mystery in Colossians that the mystery has been revealed that is an oxymoron. If you think about it in terms of secret mystery religions because the very purpose of being initiated is for you to keep that secret, to keep its power but also because of your faithfulness to that societal group you must not fear any punishment. Neither from the group nor from the various demonic beings as far as I'm concerned but for there in their perspective there are various gods that they were associated with they would not have to fear them. So the matter of secrecy was very important and then there were various cults associated with the Artemis temple etc. Very prevalent was the Dionysius cult that was kind of a Mardi Gras, Exponent Ten, Orgy drinking, promiscuity of all kinds of sorts every spring. It was kind of a rhythm that they called death and resurrection some kind of coming back to life in the spring, the fertility cults being worshiped nearly. And so you have the sense of the society going through this time of just letting it all hang out and then again back into certain structure, societal structures. And it's amazing if you look at patterns of societies. I do not know very much about the African and the Asian societies but European and Western societies how much there is something of that sort. You call it different names but you have these spring festivities where you either try to expel the demonic powers from the medieval times or something of that sort is rhythm of going through spring. Something of that was certainly associated with the mystery religions. The fertility god as Kibili was particularly strongly emphasized and sabatsuus and all kinds of other gods that either were devoted to the moon or to fertility or to growing agriculturally their crop. This is good enough or bad enough whichever way you want to. Many Christians came from that background and convinced as I read Colossians and listened behind some of the references that Paul makes that some of this is there. Just a little interjection before we come to the next point. See the danger is and that is already on the pastoral side and we'll come to that little later. The danger is that after a time of euphoric term to the Lord, a joy about newfound salvation, a life in the Lord for a season of time, often there comes a time of slackening a time of being satisfied with what you have. You have heard enough about the Christian faith, you have heard enough about the work of Christ on your behalf and you're kind of looking for something new or something different. And I believe that's the stage the Colossian Church is at and at that stage many are tempted to go back to where they have come from. They are drawn by what they have left either because it's intellectually challenging or it appeals to some other area that we're going to discover here. This obviously would be the area of experiential elation, some real fast moving track, some excitement, some sense of involvement to be in the group etc. So some people I believe as Paul writes to the Colossians are in that camp and we'll go a little bit more into that but just so that you see there's a tendency of not going on with Christ for some reason and that's really the nerve center of Colossians. How can I encourage the Colossians to go on with Christ which they know they need which holds all the treasures but somehow they're being lured back into their old lives? I believe that is a phenomenon that we need to take seriously that we need to face and when you feel drawn back into something that you have come from as a Christian, it is usually an indication that the life in Christ needs to be re-opened, needs to be rediscovered, needs to be newly appropriated because I believe it is not the fault of Christ that we find ourselves in that kind of situation. So we can learn more from Colossians perhaps than any other letter of Paul if that's your problem, if that's the problem of a church. Somehow to go back to where you've come from, Hebrews is the other big letter that speaks particularly about the temptation of Jewish people to go back to Judaism after they have found Christ. The second area here is Hellenistic philosophy. I've already mentioned a few things I'll be rather brief, you've got such a good memory, you'll flip right back into the platonic understanding, the separation of mind and body and all those things that I've said and Paul's understanding that the man is divided vertically, not horizontally. Vertically meaning you can have a spiritual mind and a spiritually inclined body or you can have a fleshly mind and a fleshly body. There's not the dichotomy between mind and body, there's the question of do you live, consecrated to God or do you live consecrated to your own drives, your own flesh, etc. That's the issue, that's the question. Well where the Christians that have their heritage in Hellenism come from is a neoplatonic thought. They still believe somehow in their gut that what they do ethically and morally really doesn't matter so much because that's all physical, that's all body. Really what you need to have is that you need to be able to say in clean Orthodox terms that you believe in Christ and Him alone, that you can confess all the things about Christ but how you live, it's not that important, that'll fade away anyway. Now I'm making a caricature again but some people from the outside or the inside of the church are challenged in this way. And then as you remember Stoicism and Epicureanism was perhaps the most fashionable movement from Hellenism at the time of the founding of the church in Colosseum, I would say so. Emphasized by the Roman Empire that picked Stoicism as the most interesting of the philosophical schools partially because it served its purpose. It's military, organizational, managerial and suppressive system of subjugating foreign countries. So you have this, you have the sense of going, being tempted to go back to patterns of thought that were long established, hundreds of years old. And so you go back as a young Christian who is slowly maturing and you talk with your father who is a professor in one of the schools in Colosseum and he is basing his thought on centuries of tradition. And it's the establishment, that's the school of thought. You need to translate that to our Western thought and the establishments of the legal institutions, the establishments of Ivy League schools. They just stand there monolithically, they have an endowment of so many hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars, they can give you a fat scholarship if you've got the brains. You know, there's something monolithic about it even if in its walls a philosophy is being taught a mindset that totally undermines human existence in God's creation. It's not the question. Monolithic establishment, Paul refers to that when he speaks about the philosophies of men, empty philosophies of men and the traditions of men. Are there something attractive about that? You belong to something, you're in. So again, I would say don't underestimate the lure of this whole part of the heritage of some Christians in Colosseum and then the Jewish faith is the third major element that I see. And I know some of you are nearly dozing off because I've gone already at least five minutes beyond the first break that by now you're conditioned to need. It's just like a nap that you need so you need this break and I'm quite aware of it. I'll just go on another 40 minutes and then you'll get the break. The Jewish aspect and this is a difficult area really especially for Asia Minor. Because we have one account, a very strange one for Asia Minor where we know of a priestess, a Jewish priestess in a mystery cultist who is also a priest of a synagogue. A very strange hybrid and mixture between Jewish faith and mystery religions and some people aduse that source and say see, it's really not pure Jewish faith that you find in Asia Minor. I would say that's an extreme obviously you can do such a case but as a rule I would say the synagogue in Asia Minor as an institution. And I'm pretty sure there was a synagogue in Colosseum on account of the numbers accounted for and recorded for a Jewish presence there would be havens of reading scripture, would be nearly a ghetto of Jewish life, of Jewish education, and listening to the book of Moses, listening to scriptures, remembering their roots, going for pilgrimages, back to Jerusalem such as Pentecost etc etc. I think that's more the pattern and then what I've mentioned first would be the exception. So I think it is more informed to say that the Jewish presence in Colosseum was along the lines of other places namely a place where the word of God was taken seriously. But in the sense of Palestinian Judaism as well in the diaspora Judaism that the basic line was we must learn the word of God and keep the word of God and then we will be acceptable before God. So what we have studied on Galatians, what we have studied on Romans would also apply here. Perhaps in modified ways perhaps with some groups within the Jewish contingency to be more connected either with Hellenism or mystery religions there may be some mixture there but I think as a basic understanding that would be it. So for those Jewish Christians in Colosseum, the temptation would be to say with their association with their family members, with their uncles and aunts, why don't you come back and get along. I really know where now it's this new group, it has a history of 30 years, there's no connection to the past, no connection to our roots come back. So while I believe the early church in Colosseum was a wonderful mosaic of representatives of different traditions, different backgrounds, different convictions all coming to the point of finding salvation in Christ. Now as this church grows some of these loyalties, some of these connections come to the fore. And they threaten, they threaten the peace of the church but they also threaten the individuals and their allegiances and their connection with Christ and I believe that is really the beginning of the explanation for the situation in Colosseum and the explanation for a definition of what the heresy is about. Well, you will have to take a break first and then I will divulge the secret of what tripartite element of the heresy was in Colosseum.