What Does Colossians 1:28 Mean?
Him we proclaim, placing every human in mind and teaching them in all wisdom, so that we may stand every human complete in Jesus the Anointed One.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:THE KEY
Here, “perfect” points toward fullness: wisdom-shaped teaching carries each person toward maturity in the Anointed One.
THE MEANING
Warning and teaching are held within wisdom and directed toward your maturity in the Anointed One. The verse names every person as the horizon of this work. Its “perfect” is the wholeness of a person brought toward fullness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that receiving warning means you have been rejected: warning and teaching are part of the movement toward maturity in the Anointed One.
THE ROOT
τέλειον
teleion
GROWS FROM
τελ- (tel-), the base of τέλος (telos)
End, goal, or intended completion.
“complete” in this verse is teleion. The word translated “perfect” belongs to a family that links reaching a goal with bringing something to completion. It describes a person moving toward fullness and maturity; the repeated “every man” makes that the stated horizon for each person.
ALSO GROWS
telos: End, outcome, or goal.
τέλος
It reveals the sense of direction carried by completion: a movement toward its intended end.
teleioō: Bring to completion or fulfill.
τελειόω
This verb shows completion as something brought about, illuminating the teaching’s aim in the verse.
teleiotēs: Maturity or completeness.
τελειότης
This noun makes visible the state of fullness toward which the word “perfect” points.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom-shaped instruction and endurance carry a person toward maturity.
Set before the wise one, and he grows yet wiser; make known to the aligned one, and he adds to what is taken in.until we all reach the oneness of trust and of the full knowing of the Son of God, to a full-grown man, to the measure of the height of the fullness of the Anointed One.But let the bearing up under have its complete work, that you may be complete and entire, with nothing left behind.THE THREAD
But let the bearing up under have its complete work, that you may be complete and entire, with nothing left behind.James uses the same completion word for the outcome of endurance: maturity and wholeness, with nothing lacking. Colossians shows warning and teaching in wisdom serving that same movement toward completion in the Anointed One.
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