Series Summary:

Fear not! Grace and peace to you! Jesus is the MESSIAH! For everything was created by MESSIAH, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through MESSIAH and for MESSIAH. MESSIAH is before all things, and by MESSIAH all things hold together. MESSIAH is also the head of the body, the church. So, speak of the MESSIAH! #colossians #2024


Starter

What is something about The Messiah Jesus that seems like a mystery to you?

Pray

Father, we are asking that we may be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ****so that we may walk worthy of You, fully pleasing to You, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of You. ****May we be strengthened with all power, according to Your glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy ****giving thanks to the You who has enabled us to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. You has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son You love. We have redemption the forgiveness of sins because You are The is Messiah. Amen

Study Questions

Messiah is an anglicization of the Latin Messias, which is borrowed from the Greek Μεσσιας, an adaptation of the Aramaic meshiḥa (מְשִׁיחָא), a translation of the Hebrew mashiaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ), "the Anointed One”.

Christ derives from the Greek word χριστός (chrīstós), meaning literally "anointed one". The word is derived from the Greek verb χρίω (chrī́ō), meaning literally "to anoint." In the Greek Septuagint, χριστός was a semantic loan used to translate the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Mašhíaḥ, messiah).

“Changing the language of a word does not affect the meaning of the word. We call a bound and covered set of pages a “book.” In German, it becomes a buch. In Spanish, it is a libro; in French, a livre. The language changes, but the object itself does not.  In the same way, we can refer to Jesus as “Jesus,” “Yeshua,” or “YehSou” (Cantonese) without changing His nature. In any language, His name means “The Lord Is Salvation.”” www.gotquestions.org

The Lord Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus the Lord, Jesus Christ, Jesus, Christ, or Lord to the Hebrew, Christian, and even the worldly (Roman) understanding would have been understood to mean the guy who He and/or his followers think He is, God, the promised Messiah, the anointed one, who was named Yahweh saves (Jesus=Yeshua) who called himself Yahweh (I am-John 8:58).

READ: Colossians 3:14-17, 3:23-4:1, Exodus 6:6-8, 21:2-6

In talking about unity, oneness, and serving the Messiah, Paul lays out what it specifically looks like in relationships in the church (Col 3:8-22). These relationship guidelines are repeated in other places in the scriptures and unfortunately tend to be controversial in our day.

  1. What do the verses before and after the relational guidelines help us to understand about the mystery of doing relationships God’s way?
    1. How should that what is written before and after convict and motivate us?
  2. When we ignore these relationship guidelines or manipulate them for our benefit, what will be the results?
  3. One of our biggest problems is that we tend to not do a good job of separating the reality of how to do relationships in our local church, from other churches, and from the world. Why?

Words can change meaning over time. The swastika now has come to mean something terrible. However, it originally came from the Sanskrit words su, meaning "good", and asti, meaning "to be". It meant that something was good!

Master and slave meanings have changed over time. Because of chattel slavery, sex slavery, and other forms of unbiblical master and slave relationships, we tend to see the Bible use these words and recoil. Yet, we don’t tend to recoil from the fact that there are more slaves currently in the world at 46 million which is nearly 4 times the amount of slaves traded in the entire 300 year history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

All of the New Testament authors called themselves slaves (bond servants) of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that when we believe in Jesus we are making the choice to be purchased out of the bondage of our master sin and death to be set free to joyfully serve The Master Jesus forever. Slavery is not an option in our world, it is just who we make our masters until Jesus sets us free forever.

  1. What does the bible say about biblical masters and slaves in the verses we read earlier?