Colossians

Colossians was probably written during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome. Philippians and Ephesians come from the same era and share many of the same themes.

Alongside the Gospel of John, the book of Colossians stresses the deity of Jesus to a great extent. Paul seems to have been writing to a church that was mixing elements of legalism, mysticism, and speculation that distracted from the preeminence of Jesus.

In the first chapter, Jesus is referred to as the "firstborn" meaning the preeminent heir who has authority. He is described in this way relative to the created world and to the church.

Jesus is also described here as holding all things together. This reminds us of the ongoing scientific search for what holds everything together from atoms to the universe.

Another phrase used to describe Jesus in the first chapter is " the head of the body, the church." The Greek word translated "head" literally meant head or source. According to scholars of ancient Greek, modern English connotations involving hierarchical power, as in "the head of our company," were not part of the term for Biblical and other writers around that time. Those writers use another word for that meaning, and that word is also used in the Bible to refer to Jesus.

Understanding these shades of meaning is important for understanding passages that apply the term translated "head" to people other than Jesus, such as when the Bible says the husband is the head of the wife.