Texts in Conversation
Colossians echoes wisdom traditions like Sirach that connect the fear of God with the promise of reward. Sirach uses the hope of reward to teach endurance, and Colossians uses similar language to teach endurance in good works.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 2:8
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
6 Put your trust in him, and he will help you. Make your ways straight, and set your hope on him. 7 All you who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy. Don’t turn aside, lest you fall. 8 All you who fear the Lord, put your trust in him, and your reward will not fail. 9 All you who fear the Lord, hope for good things, and for eternal gladness and mercy.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Colossians 3:25
New Testament
23 Whatever you are doing, work at it with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not for people, 24 because you know that you will receive your inheritance from the Lord as the reward. Serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the one who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there are no exceptions.
Date: 80–85 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Colossians contains no explicit quotations and few allusions to the Old Testament. The most distinct Old Testament echoes occur in Colossians 3. The claim that Christ is “ seated at the right hand of God ” (3:1) clearly alludes to Psalm 110:1, the most frequent intertext in the New Testament (see, e.g., Hay 1973). Additionally, talk of a new nature's “being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” in 3:10 is “an unavoidable allusion to Genesis 1:26f.” (Wolter 1993:180). Furthermore, the call for slaves to fear the Lord (3:22) and the assertion that there is no partiality (with God [3:25]) cohere with Old Testament texts such as Deuteronomy 10:20, Proverbs 1:7; 3:7, and Ecclesiastes 5:7 in the first instance (compare Sirach 1:11–30; 2:7–9) and Deuteronomy 10:17 in the second (compare Sirach 35:15). Interestingly, 2 Chronicles 19:7 conjoins fear of the Lord on the one hand with the Lord's impartiality on the other ..."
Troy W. Martin and Todd D. Still, “Colossians,” in The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, ed. David E. Aune, The Blackwell Companions to Religion (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 495.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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