Hearts Comforted (Colossians 2:1-2a)

Christianity is Christ.   Belief in Christ saves.  But it is belief in the Jesus of the Bible, the one and only true Christ.  The wrong thinking about Christ would destroy the churches of Colossae and Laodecia.  Paul is torn with concern over two churches he had never visited or seen.  He agonized (“conflict” in 2:1, “strive” in v. 29) over them.  Paul was saying that those churches did not know the anguish that he experienced over them because of the spiritual threats brought by the false teachers.

Paul loved the church, and so he loved these churches.  He had desires for them that would provide what they needed to overcome spiritual attack.  The first was that their hearts would be comforted.  When you read those words at the first part of v. 2, it sounds like what someone would need who was discouraged or depressed.  I don’t think that’s what it is at all.

The center of emotions in Hebrew culture were the “bowels.”  The “heart” is synonymous with the mind.  The word for “comfort” is often translated strengthened.  It’s a word, parakaleo, that is translated a number of ways, including “edify.”   It’s  compound Greek word that means literally:  “called along side of.”   That’s why it is translated a number of different ways.  Different situations demanded different types of help.  Sometimes it was comfort.  What helps are the words that are said to someone that will alleviate the need.

The problem of the false teachings about Christ was in the mind.  They weren’t thinking correctly.  Paul wanted their minds to be strengthened or built up in a way that would have them thinking the right way.  He desired that their minds might find it easy to say “no” to the false doctrine of the gnostics and ascetics.   He wanted their minds to be so full of the truth that they would easily see the counterfeits.  Then they could stand for the Lord without falling.