I wonder how the Christians in Colossae reacted to Paul’s challenging words of what we call, chapter two, of his letter to the Colossians. If theirs was anything like mine, it would be utter awe and wonder. J.B. Phillips wrote a little volume ‘Your God Is Too Small’ in which he argued our imagining of God usually falls far short of God’s actual majesty and mercy.

   I think Paul is suggesting that our imagining of Jesus Christ fails most times to reach the incredible overarching awe his due, because we fail to grasp his incredible majesty the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, ³ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (2:2,3).

   This incomprehensible majesty might tempt us to think of Christ as aloof, beyond human grasp; yet equally incomprehensible, this same Christ Jesus is closer to us than we dare to think:  As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your live in him,   ⁷ rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving (2:6)… If I may dare to paraphrase what Paul said of our lives in God, ‘in whom we live and have our being’, of Jesus it may be said ‘who in us lives and has his being’… Christ both within and beyond us.

   Take time to think about this, sit with it, wonder about it, allow this to overwhelm us… grow us:

‘Christ Jesus, the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God’ (2:19).