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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Colossians 1:29 - 1:29
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
29. εἰς ὃ. I.e. to present every man perfect in Christ.
καὶ, cf. Col 3:15. “Beside preaching with νουθεσία and διδαχή, I also sustain every form of κόπος (2Co 6:5) in the cause of the Gospel” (Ell.).
κοπιῶ. The singular may be used partly because St Paul is about to speak of his own work for the Colossians.
κοπιῶ means “toil” with the connotation of fatigue, which sometimes is over-mastering; cf. Joh 4:6; Rev 2:3; 1Ti 4:10, where it is connected with the metaphor of the arena. Cf. too Php 2:16. Compare also Ign. Polyc. § 6, συγκοπιᾶτε ἀλλήλοις, συναθλεῖτε, συντρέχετε, and the whole of the remarkable § 7 of “2 Clem.”
Apparently the labour is not primarily spiritual, but rather mental and bodily, the outcome of all kinds of effort.
ἀγωνιζόμενος. ἀγών (Col 2:1) was originally an assembly especially for seeing “sports,” then the arena or stadium, then the contest itself. ἀγωνίζομαι is to take part in such a contest. Both ἀγών and ἀγωνίζομαι are frequently used in a metaphorical sense by classical writers, but the fact that they were metaphors was never forgotten.
St Paul uses the verb literally in 1Co 9:25, and metaphorically in c. Col 4:12; 1Ti 6:12; 2Ti 4:7. Compare Sir 4:28, and a noble passage in 4Ma 17:11-15.
There is nothing in this verse or even in Col 2:1-2 to make us limit the exertions referred to under ἀγωνιζόμενος to prayer. Contrast Col 4:12; see also Rom 15:30.
κατὰ. The measure of his contending was His ἐνέργεια.
τὴν ἐνέργειαν αὐτοῦ, “His working.” ἐνέργεια is almost “force,” the active exercise of power.
In 2Th 2:9; 2Th 2:11 it is used of the working of fraud and of Satan, but elsewhere in the N.T. always in a good sense; Eph 4:16 of apparently individual believers; in Php 3:21 of Christ; in c. Col 2:12, Eph 1:19 (and probably Col 3:7), of God. Thus in all cases except Eph 4:16 the ἐνέργεια is considered supernatural, and even there this is implied. See further J. A. R. Ephesians, p. 242.
τὴν ἐνεργουμένην, “which is being made operative.” Always passive outside the N.T. and probably so within it, even in Gal 5:6, Jam 5:16, where see Mayor. For the meaning see 1Th 2:13, and J. A. R. Eph. pp. 241–247.
ἐν ἐμοὶ. Cf. Eph 3:20.
ἐν δυνάμει. Cf. note on ἐν πάσῃ δυνάμει, Col 1:11. Probably not merely adverbially (“mightily,” A.V., R.V., cf. Rom 1:4) but describing that in which the ἐνέργεια is exhibited; cf. the note on ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ, Col 1:28. It is not in fancy or in word but in power for whatever service he was guided to undertake; cf. 1Co 4:20; 1Th 1:5.