New Daily Study Bible: The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians. William Barclay

      COLOSSIANS

       Introduction to the Letter to the Colossians

       Christian Greetings (1:1)

       The Double Commitment (1:2–8)

       The Essence of the Gospel (1:2–8) (contd)

       The Essence of Prayer’s Request (1:9–11)

       The Three Great Gifts (1:9–11) (contd)

       Prayer’s Great Thanksgiving (1:12–14)

       The Total Adequacy of Jesus Christ (1:15–23)

       1. The Mistaken Thinkers (1:15–23) (contd)

       2. What Jesus Christ is in Himself (1:15–23) (contd)

       3. What Jesus Christ is to Creation (1:15–23) (contd)

       4. What Jesus Christ is to the Church (1:15–23) (contd)

       5. What Jesus Christ is to All Things (1:15–23) (contd)

       6. The Aim and Obligation of Reconciliation (1:15–23) (contd)

       The Privilege and the Task (1:24–9)

       Love’s Struggle (2:1)

       The Marks of the Faithful Church (1) (2:2–7)

       The Marks of the Faithful Church (2) (2:2–7) (contd)

       Additions to Christ (2:8–23)

       Traditions and the Stars (2:8–10)

       True Circumcision (2:11–12)

       Triumphant Forgiveness (2:13–15)

       Going Backwards (2:16–23)

       The Risen Life (3:1–4)

       Christ Our Life (3:1–4) (contd)

       The Things which Lie in the Past (3:5–9a)

       The Things which must be Left Behind (3:5–9a) (contd)

       The Universality of Christianity (3:9b–13)

       The Garments of Christian Grace (3:9b–13) (contd)

       The Perfect Bond (3:14–17)

       The Personal Relationships of Christians (3:18–4:1)

       The Mutual Obligation (3:18–4:1) (contd)

       Christian Relationships at Work (3:18–4:1) (contd)

       The Christian’s Prayer (4:2–4)

       Christians and the World (4:5–6)

       Faithful Companions (4:7–11)

       More Names of Honour (4:12–15)

       The Mystery of the Laodicaean Letter (4:16)

       The Closing Blessing (4:17–18)

      1 THESSALONIANS

       Introduction to the Letters to the Thessalonians

       Love’s Introduction (1)

       Paul on his Defence (2:1–12)

       The Errors of the Jews (2:13–16)

       Our Glory and Our Joy (2:17–20)

       The Pastor and the Flock (3:1–10)

       Everything is from God (3:11–13)

       The Summons to Purity (4:1–8)

       The Necessity of the Day’s Work (4:9–12)

       Concerning Those who have Died (4:13–18)

       Like a Thief in the Night (5:1–11)

       Advice to a Church (5:12–22)

       The Grace of Christ be with You (5:23–8)

      2 THESSALONIANS

       Lift up Your Hearts (1)

       The Lawless One (2:1–12)

       God’s Demand and our Effort (2:13–17)

       A Final Word (3:1–5)

       Discipline in Love for One Another (3:6–18)

      SERIES FOREWORD

      (by Ronnie Barclay)

      My father always had a great love for the English language and its literature. As a student at the University of Glasgow, he won a prize in the English class – and I have no doubt that he could have become a Professor of English instead of Divinity and Biblical Criticism. In a pre-computer age, he had a mind like a computer that could store vast numbers of quotations, illustrations, anecdotes and allusions; and, more remarkably still, he could retrieve them at will. The editor of this revision has, where necessary, corrected and attributed the vast majority of these quotations with considerable skill and has enhanced our pleasure as we read quotations from Plato to T. S. Eliot.

      There is another very welcome improvement in the new text. My mother was one of five sisters, and my grandmother was a commanding figure as the Presbyterian minister’s wife in a small village in Ayrshire in Scotland. She ran that small community very efficiently, and I always felt that my father, surrounded by so many women, was more than somewhat overawed by it all! I am sure that this is the reason why his use of English tended to be dominated by the words ‘man’, ‘men’ and so on, with the result that it sounded very male-orientated. Once again, the editor has very skilfully improved my father’s English and made the text much more readable for all of us by amending the often one-sided language.

      It is a well-known fact that William Barclay wrote at breakneck speed and never corrected anything once it was on paper – he took great pride in mentioning this at every possible opportunity! This revision, in removing repetition and correcting the inevitable errors that had slipped through, has produced a text free from all the tell-tale signs of very rapid writing. It is with great pleasure that I commend this revision to readers old and new in the certainty that William Barclay speaks even more clearly to us all with his wonderful appeal in this new version of his much-loved Daily Study Bible.

      Ronnie Barclay

      Bedfordshire

      2001

      GENERAL INTRODUCTION

      (by William Barclay, from the 1975 edition)

      The Daily Study Bible series has always had one aim – to convey the results of scholarship to the ordinary reader. A. S. Peake delighted in the saying that he was a ‘theological middle-man’, and I would be happy if the same could be said of me in regard to these volumes. And yet the primary aim of the series has never been academic. It could be summed up in the famous words of Richard of Chichester’s prayer – to enable men and women ‘to know Jesus Christ more clearly, to love him more dearly, and to follow him more nearly’.

      It is all of twenty years since the first volume of The Daily Study Bible was published. The series was the brain-child