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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Colossians 4:16 - 4:16
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Here St. Paul directs to the reading of this epistle themselves, which the Spirit of God had directed him to write unto them, Let this epistle be read amongst you. All holy scripture is to be read and perused by every private Christian; the same Spirit that did indite the scriptures, requires the reading and understanding of them.
And further, St. Paul desires this epistle, being read amongst the Colossians, should next be read in the church at Laodicea; who being their neighbours, received the same poison or errors from the false teachers, crept in amongst them, and consequently directed to some particular church or person, recorded in scripture, was of universal use to them, and may be now, to all particular persons and societies.
Much controversy has arisen in the church about this epistle from Laodicea; some have affirmed that it was written by St. Paul to the Laodiceans, but lost; from whence they would infer, that the canon of the scripture is not entire: But supposing it were so, yet it follows not but that we have all things necessary to salvation in the holy scriptures.
It is very probable that St. Paul himself, and several other apostles, wrote more epistles than are in the Bible: What then? We have what the wisdom of God thought fit to hand down to us, and what is sufficient to make the serious reader of it wise unto salvation. Surely Almighty God was not bound to bring down all that they wrote to us, but only what his own wisdom saw fit and necessary for us. Others understand it of an epistle from Laodicea to St. Paul, and that he answered it fully in this epistle to the Colossians, and sending it back, desired the Colossians might read it, for better clearing of some passages in this epistle to them.
Lastly, Some understand it of the epistle ot the Ephesians, Ephesus being the metropolis, or the chief city of Laodicea; and accordingly some called the epistle to the Ephesians, the epistle to the Laodiceans: The truth is, there is a very great affinity betwixt the epistle to the Ephesians, and this to the Colossians; the doctrines, exhortations, and many expressions are the very same; so that it is no wonder if he desired they should be both read at Colosse, to let them see that he wrote the same doctrine to other churches which he had done to them.