Prisoners often become writers. Think of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, Martin Luther King’s Letters from a Birmingham Jail, or Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. If you found yourself confined, what would you write? The Apostle Paul wrote the so-called Prison Epistles, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.
During his imprisonment, God’s Spirit inspired Paul to write some of our favorite letters in the Bible. Thankfully, we do not have to be imprisoned to find the solitude to write or to read. In Colossians, Paul writes powerful words of hope for people who are suffering. He connects his own pain with the pain our Savior Jesus endured.
After his famous, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” phrase, Paul clarified his mission in life. He wanted to proclaim Christ so that he might present all people complete in Christ. If we are looking for a life-verse or a mission statement for our lives, this one is powerful. The point of following Christ is not just to get into heaven but to get heaven into us. Alistair Begg recently said, “We must proclaim the gospel to ourselves every day.” When we focus our energy, all of our energy on Jesus, we discover that we grow up in Christ. This postures us perfectly to help others grow up in Christ.
As we read the first two chapters of Colossians today, focus on the words about Jesus. We were made by Jesus and for Jesus. What does Jesus want for us? Jesus doesn’t just want us to like him, but to so love him that we become like him. For this truth, Paul was willing to go to prison and to death because the life he found in Christ could never be taken away.
