“Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints.”
Colossians 1:4
Bermuda, it was where I was born and spent the first twenty years of my life. We always said: “Tell a story in Somerset and by the time you arrive in St. George, 19 miles down the road, they will tell you that same story. Remember how they used to say, “Telephone, Telegraph, Tell a Woman, the three fastest means of communication.” Don’t get upset, it was just a joke. The truth is that gossip travels with lightening speed, especially when it is not the truth, or it is belittling of another.
When Paul wrote his letter to the Church at Colosse, he mentions the word “heard” numerous times. (Col. 1:4) “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints;”… 1:6 “even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth;” 1:9 “since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask… 1:23 “not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard”…
As one moves through this little Book of Colossians, what caught my attention was what the Apostle “heard”. We usually hear of garbage first, not of the positive development that has resulted from the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their faith in Christ resulted in the love that they had for all the saints.
Another note of praise is that the message of Christ, having penetrated their hearts, has been bearing fruit. You notice that this has taken place since the “day they heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth.”
Further, Paul, so moved by what he heard concerning them “has not ceased to pray for them… their knowledge, wisdom, walk, work”.
What a pleasure this was to Paul, having heard all these good things from Colosse, not negatives, but positives from what God had wrought!
ETCetera 