Discovery BoxColossians 1:6 
Context1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel 1 is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing 2 among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.
Colossians 1:23-27
Context1:23 if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, 3 without shifting 4 from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has also been preached in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become its servant.
1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body – for the sake of his body, the church – what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. 1:25 I became a servant of the church according to the stewardship 5 from God – given to me for you – in order to complete 6 the word of God, 1:26 that is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints. 1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious 7 riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
1 tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.
3 tn BDAG 276 s.v. ἑδραῖος suggests “firm, steadfast.”
4 tn BDAG 639 s.v. μετακινέω suggests “without shifting from the hope” here.
5 tn BDAG 697 s.v. οἰκονομία 1.b renders the term here as “divine office.”
6 tn See BDAG 828 s.v. πληρόω 3. The idea here seems to be that the apostle wants to “complete the word of God” in that he wants to preach it to every person in the known world (cf. Rom 15:19). See P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC), 82.
7 tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”
