Colossians 1:1-29

Head of All

This passage is one of my favorites in all of scripture. Verses fifteen through twenty are a virtual anthem to the supremacy of Christ: the image of the invisible God and the first born over all creation.

All of God’s fulness dwells in Christ. This helps explain the term “only begotten son”. Jesus is God’s One and Only because everything is in Jesus. God cannot beget any more Sons because He put everything in Jesus. Fortunately, He can adopt sons and daughters. That is the message of the Gospel; an offer to be adopted as children of God. No wonder Paul later uses the well known phrase, “Christ in you the hope of glory.”

What I have found to be an extremely freeing revelation is the message that Christ is supposed to have the supremacy in everything. Our church has a theatre. It’s a real theatre. We basically only do secular plays because that is the audience we are trying to reach. We want the plays to have redemptive value (the message of the Bible is redemption) and we do pass out a card inviting the play goers to our services but otherwise it’s much like going to any good live theatre (only usually better). A lot of people don’t understand why we do this. They ask, “Is this a church or a theatre?” The answer is, “Yes.”

The arts are at least, and I would argue more, influential than politics or armies or sports. Think about it. Live theatre is one of the more powerful of the arts (in spite of the spectacle of the cinema) and the church has virtually abandoned it to the enemy except for pageants and skits. Nothing against pageants and skits but those are usually aimed at an already believing audience. Jesus is supposed to Head over everything so His body should manifest that. That is why we do “secular” plays and sponsor an art gallery. 

We invade the “secular” on their turf and basically on their terms and we carry the love and message of Christ. What a privilege!