A unique series designed to bring detailed scholarship of the Scriptures and contemporary application together in one volume, explaining not only what the Bible means, but also how it speaks to us today.

This part of the NIV Application Commentary Series helps readers learn how the message of Colossians and Philemon can have the same powerful impact today that they did when Paul first wrote them.

In a culture saturated with powerful and insistent messages, we too easily place our trust in the immediate rather than in Christ. The right education, the right career, the right life partner - we put a lot of thought into 'getting it right.' That's not bad unless our faith begins and ends with our own efforts.

That was the lie that some in the church at Colosse had swallowed, 2,000 years ago. Seduced by false teachers, they had shifted their focus from Jesus to a system of human goodness. The apostle Paul wasn't about to let this dangerous heresy go unchallenged.

Whether overseeing the affairs of the church at large or intervening in personal conflicts - as between Philemon and his servant, Onesimus - Paul points unflinchingly to Christ as our foundation for living. Trusting in Jesus is our sole provision for righteousness before God. Walking in his character is our model for relating righteously with each other.

Revealing the links between the books of Colossians and Philemon and our own times, David E. Garland shows how Paul's letters to first-cenutry believers provide wisdom for living our twenty-first-century lives.