Stating the Obvious

“I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicia, and for all who have not met me personally.”

                                                                                 Colossians 2:1

Struggles.  Life is filled with them.  The past two years, in particular, have been one for the record books in our family.  It has been the kind of season where one thing seems to explode onto another with no relief in sight.  You know, where it seems people want to avoid you for fear they might catch what you have.  

We all go through our struggling seasons where nothing seems to makes sense.  And we want it to make sense.  It needs to make sense.  We want it to fit into the categories that we are familiar with.  It doesn’t.  We are at a loss.  We give up trying to figure it out.  Then we decide to memorize the book of Colossians and there we discover Paul and a fresh perspective emerges. 

 

Paul struggled too.  Good to know.

In Colossians 2:1, Paul is telling us he is struggling.  Commentators do not agree about what precipitated this struggle and clearly there is great speculation regarding the matter.  It could be any one of the following. 

- Opposition (2 Cor 11:32-33)

- Legal conflicts (Phil 1:30)

- Sin (Hebrews 12:4)

- Prayer (Romans 15:30)

- The enemy (Eph 6:12)

- Hardships (2 Cor 11:23-28)

- False Doctrine (Col 2:1)

There are zero consensuses regarding what Paul is referring to when he says he is struggling.  While we might not know what the exact struggle was, we can isolate the why of the struggle by looking at Colossians 2:1 closely within both context and word usage.

1) Paul’s struggle was because of the Gospel. 

In case you haven’t picked up on this yet, I have this innate and annoying habit of stating the obvious.  I often feel like the kid calling out the Emperor’s evident nakedness in the classic children’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes.  I sometimes find myself scratching my head in amazement and wondering, “Am I the only one who see’s this”.  Such is the case with the “struggle” that the scholars in my commentaries are “discussing”.  Um hello!  Reminder alert! Paul is in prison folks.  I don’t know about you, but if I was in prison, that would be pretty high on my list of “Struggles That I Would Really Like To Be Delivered From Lord.”  Just sayin.

More important, let’s remember why Paul is in prison.  Ephesians 3:1 tells us that he was in prison because of the Gospel. 

“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles –“

Because of Paul’s zeal to bring the Gospel to the Gentiles, he was now a jailed man.  Sharing the Gospel is risky business.  Living the Gospel is riskier still.  When our focus is set on living for God and we are resolute about sharing the Good News, you can be certain that struggles will abound. Count on it!  Paul wasn’t inoculated from them and neither will we. 

Isaiah 59:15 tells us that “Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.” If we are following Christ, we can be sure that there is a target on our backs.  We have become that prey.  The enemies of God take it seriously and so should we.  So we have struggles.

2) Paul’s struggle was for others.

“I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicia, and for all who have not met me personally.”

                                                            Colossians 2:1 (emphasis mine)

Whenever I face struggles, I tend to become so self-focused.  And you?  I tend to spend way too much time thinking about how to find solutions for the difficulty of the day.  This is why Paul is my hero, he didn’t.  He clearly knew and understood that sometimes his struggles were for others.  As I already mentioned, Paul’s struggle came because of his proclamation of the Gospel but there is something else Paul knew.  Read what he wrote in his letter to the Philippians.

“Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.”

                                                                        Philippians 1:14

There is nothing like watching a strong believer stand for Christ in the tests of adversity that causes us to want to do the same.  Whenever I read or hear about another believer who stands firm in the faith without wavering in spite of unrelenting circumstances, it causes me to have courage.  There is such invaluable strength supplied with that kind of testimony.  Paul chose not to be daunted nor defeated by the difficulties and struggles that came his way.  He knew that even in those, God’s word could not be chained. 

I don’t know about you, but when I am in a struggle or in the midst of a two year season of compounding difficulties, my natural “go to” response is never “I must be suffering because I am living for God” or “I know my struggle is meant to encourage other believers because I am just that awesome.”  I don’t ever really look at my life as bringing any imminent threat to the kingdom of darkness.  But according to scripture, it does.  We are a letter from Christ.  We are lights in the darkness.  We’ve become a prey. We always triumph.  We always win.  The enemy is defeated.  Amen. 

         “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”

                                                               2 Corinthians 4:8-10