Several hundred years before Paul’s day, Colosse had been a leading city in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). It was located on the Lycus River and on the great east-west trade route leading from Ephesus on the Aegean Sea to the Euphrates River. By the first century a.d. Colosse was diminished to a second-rate market town, which had been surpassed long before in power and importance by the neighboring towns of Laodicea and Hierapolis.
What gave Colosse importance, however, was the fact that, during Paul’s three-year ministry in Ephesus, Epaphras had been converted and had carried the gospel to Colosse. The young church that resulted then became the target of heretical attack, which led to Epaphras’s visit to Paul in Rome and ultimately to the penning of the Colossian letter.
