Colossians 1:28 Commentary and Bible Study

What are the components of our witness? First of all, warning every man. You may just think that the apostle means that he warns against catastrophe. Perhaps he warns them of hell, that is a good thing to do, and a thing which is not done enough these days. Perhaps he warns them of wrath, those would be good things and vital to have in your testimony, in your preaching. But that is not actually what he means here. When he says, ‘warning every man,’ he uses the ‘call near’ word, which is normally translated in our King James Version, admonishing every man. Though warning is good and vital, the word is a gentler word – admonishing every man. That is the sense. Counselling, if you like, every man. Persuading, that is a big word in the book of Acts and the epistles. It comes from the idea of placing in mind, put things in people’s minds. Things they have not thought about, things they have got all wrong, things they do not value or think about. This is the persuading part of the gospel. The apostle will come to teaching, the doctrines of the gospel, the facts of the gospel, but here he is talking more generally. What do you put people in mind of? One thing the apostle would put in their minds when preaching to Gentiles was that they were all idolaters. They had multiple gods and there was a kind of universalism reigned. Each city had their distinctive gods, but they also shared many of the same gods. As long as you make your sacrifices and appease the gods and buy their favour, then you will have good fortune. Superstition reigned and there was a kind of universalism among the polytheists. No, the apostle warned, there is only one true God, and if you have got a local god of your own, an idol, a deity, a god of your own manufacture, you are lost, you are outside. There can only be one Creator, one true and living God, one way of salvation, one with whom we have to do, and we have to seek him.And then we have to put in people’s mind the foolishness of offending God who holds the keys of eternity. We have to convince people somehow of the foolishness of materialism and shutting themselves in to a narrow little life lived for things which fade away and decay and perish, and to have no relationship with the living God.Then we have to convince people of the sinfulness of sin and the power of sin, the progressive nature of sin, and we have to convince them of the terrible state of a lost condition before God and dying that way. We must persuade them of the kindness of Christ and what he has done and the wonder of the love of God. ‘And teaching’ – another component of real evangelism is teaching.