Parallel Bible results for "colossians 1"

Colossians 1

New Revised Standard NRS

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

2 To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

3 In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

4 for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,

5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel

6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.

7 This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,

8 and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

10 so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.

11 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully

12 giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,

14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;

16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.

17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

21 And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,

22 he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him—

23 provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.

24 I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

25 I became its servant according to God's commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known,

26 the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.

27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

28 It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

29 For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me.

The Message Bible MSG

1 I, Paul, have been sent on special assignment by Christ as part of God's master plan. Together with my friend Timothy,

2 I greet the Christians and stalwart followers of Christ who live in Colosse. May everything good from God our Father be yours!

3 Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can't quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you!

4 We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians.

5 The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope.

6 It's the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you've been hungry for more.

7 It's as vigorous in you now as when you learned it from our friend and close associate Epaphras. He is one reliable worker for Christ! I could always depend on him.

8 He's the one who told us how thoroughly love had been worked into your lives by the Spirit.

9 Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works.

10 We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work.

11 We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul - not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy,

12 thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

13 God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much,

14 the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.

15 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created.

16 For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels - everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.

17 He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.

18 And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

19 So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding.

20 Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe - people and things, animals and atoms - get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross.

21 You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got.

22 But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence.

23 You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message - just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.

24 I want you to know how glad I am that it's me sitting here in this jail and not you. There's a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world - the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share in the church's part of that suffering.

25 When I became a servant in this church, I experienced this suffering as a sheer gift, God's way of helping me serve you, laying out the whole truth.

26 This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open.

27 God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message.

28 We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.

29 That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.