If we are servants of Christ, our allegiance stays with him. This also means that we mirror the attitude and approach of Christ regardless of our circumstances. Paul extends this to both family and slave relationships in this passage (and it is unlikely that he supported slavery, that’s not the point of the verse), a model that the relationship we have with Christ impact all other relationships.

Paul gives the gist of what it is like to enter the process of becoming a disciple: “Know your creator, and be like him.” This is our lifelong challenge, because certainly we will never become completely like him until we reach perfection in the hereafter. But this shouldn’t discourage us, as God wishes us only to put ourselves in his hands and allow the work of the Spirit to be done.

Paul comes back to the language of his Pharisee years to once again explain our union with Christ. (If you think the Old Testament has no connection to the New, Paul would disagree!) Now he talks about the physical bond that the men of Abraham’s line had, a historical legacy of bonding to a promise made to them by their Creator. The Creator still forges a bond, but the flesh that was broken is his own. We are his, and he has proclaimed a very complete victory, ours to share.

Colossians was a church facing spiritual competition. The ancient world was often decorated with a myriad of gods, so the believers in that region may have just stacked Jesus up among them. Paul wants to steer them away from that direction. Jesus isn’t one more idol for your shelf, he’s not that easily contained. He is supreme, and you need not live apart from him any more.

Almost nothing is known of the apostle known as Bartholomew. This is kind of nice, really. We get the drama of Peter and Thomas, James and John. But not Bartholomew. He sort of slides through scripture unnoticed. I think this is actually good news for us. You don’t have to be the boisterous water-walker that Peter was, and you don’t have to have your own session with the crucified Christ like Thomas. You can be quiet and unassuming and still be equally as much an apostle as those who may be more vocal or flashy.

What is the secret of living with everything or nothing? Christ, who supplies all our needs. That’s easy when you have everything, but much more difficult on the other end. Paul already emptied himself of titles and notoriety in the name of Christ, and now he declares that material goods are equally useless when compared to his riches in Christ. How else could he make such a statement? Only when our material goods truly take second place to Christ can we say it ourselves.

Paul’s “press on” section of this passage is often used to emphasize the importance of not giving up as a Christian. Be careful not to lean too far into that idea, though. Paul isn’t in any way encouraging us to pat ourselves on the back. In fact, he’s pushing hard the other way. Everything is “garbage” compared to what Christ has done for us, and that includes Paul’s very impressive list of accolades. He said this specifically, which probably would have been a big deal for a prominent Jew at the time. Paul had literally laid it all aside because he found something more complete.

The ways in which the early church was connected are almost impossible for us to process. Paul, who clearly considers himself a pastor of this church, hasn’t been with them. People are moving back and forth, going and coming, as if they were neighbors. People who have been gone are being sent back, and Paul’s prize pupil is in the process of being sent to them. This is what it looks like when the church is more than one building full of people in one place, it’s a body that stretches throughout the countryside.

To learn to be humble and love one another, there is always no better example than Jesus himself. Paul, of course, realizes this. Even for this church that he addresses that he loves so much, he finds the need to remind them (and early in his letter) that loving one another should be the business of their section of the Kingdom.

If is often thought (and seems clear from verse 13) that Paul is writing Philippians from prison. When he says, “the privilege of suffering,” he knows what he’s talking about. But the suffering isn’t the point. We don’t become Christians because we love pain. Instead, suffering together brings us closer in community and closer to Christ, who also suffered. We shouldn’t seek pain out— it’s going to show up on its own— but we can build one another up and share one another’s burdens. This is the real-life business of the church.