Colossians 1:18 · World English Bible
Colossians 1:18 Meaning He Is the Head of the Body
He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.
What does Colossians 1:18 mean?
The Church is a living body with Christ as its head, so belonging means being joined to a person, not enrolling in an organization. What flows from the head reaches every limb, and the grace in one member is the same life at work in all the rest.
From the Catholic reading below.
Colossians 1:18 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
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CATHOLIC
Catholic
The Church is a living body with Christ as its head, so belonging means being joined to a person, not enrolling in an organization. What flows from the head reaches every limb, and the grace in one member is the same life at work in all the rest.
First place over creation was already his as the eternal Son through whom all things were made. Rising first out of death sets him at the head of this body, the beginning of a new creation, and the life a Christian lives now is already being drawn from that risen source.
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Live Colossians 1:18 today
- Think of the person in your life you are most annoyed with right now and consider that your days are connected whether you like it or not. Let that change the first thing you say to them.
- Check on one person who has gone quiet, the friend who stopped replying, the relative who skipped the last two gatherings. A body knows when a part has gone numb.
- In the meeting where someone gets talked over, say their idea back out loud and give them the credit. Their win is not taken out of yours.
Whose good have I been treating as separate from my own?
The same truth in other traditions
Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1
We were made for each other as limbs of one body. Turning against another person is a hand working against the arm it is attached to.
Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita
One reality strings all beings together like beads on a single thread. What looks like separate lives is held by something continuous.
Sufism
The wave is not something other than the sea. It has its own shape for a moment and its whole life is borrowed water.
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