When Pastor David Jang (Olivet University) says, "There is an answer in Jesus," the sentence sounds less like a comforting slogan and more like a declaration that recalibrates the coordinates of faith. In an age where endless information pours out and even spirituality drifts into the realm of taste and consumption, the word "answer" can easily evoke something shallow-a quick fix. Yet the "answer" Pastor David Jang speaks of while opening Colossians is not a thin trick or technique, but a return to the Source that sustains existence.
This epistle Paul wrote from prison is not a piece that covers the world with optimistic sentiment. Rather, it is a spiritual diagnostic that precisely identifies why the church wavers, where believers lose the way, and where the starting point is for finding the way again. The church in Colossae was not a community Paul himself planted, nor does it frequently appear in the central narrative of Acts. Even so, this letter is unique in that it compresses into the most concentrated language the question the church must hold in every era-"Who is Jesus?"-and presents the very heart of Christology. For Pastor David Jang, Colossians is not merely an ancient document for one local church, but "the point of origin to which the church must return whenever its understanding of Jesus grows blurry."
Paul's passion in Colossians becomes even clearer when its historical setting is understood. The region around Colossae was a cultural sphere where Hellenistic philosophy and mystical religiosity flourished, while Jewish traditions of regulations and ritualism also remained strongly present. On one side, an "spirit-body dualism" erodes the faith of the church. The notion that the body is base and the spirit noble becomes, for some, a pretext to package indulgence as "spiritual freedom," and for others, a platform to boast of extreme asceticism as a "higher level." On the other side, Jewish rites-festivals and regulations, circumcision and dietary laws-tighten the chains again around the freedom of the gospel, turning grace into performance.
Pastor David Jang explains that although these currents appear opposite, they ultimately lead to the same trap. The trap is the insinuation that "Christ alone is not enough." The moment one adds philosophy on top of Jesus, adds tradition on top of Jesus, or adds experience on top of Jesus, Christ is no longer the center but an option. What Paul sought to correct first was precisely this religious impulse of "adding more."
That is why Colossians opens not with ethical guidelines, but with a majestic overture revealing the person and work of Jesus Christ. Paul does not introduce Jesus as a fine moral teacher or a spiritual guide. He proclaims Christ as the sovereign of creation, the completer of redemption, and the head of the church, declaring that "all the fullness of God" dwells in Him. The message of Colossians 1:19 and 2:9 converges into a clear confession: the fullness of deity dwells in Jesus. Pastor David Jang says that as he meditates on this passage, he recognizes anew that the language of the ecumenical councils-Nicaea and Chalcedon's confession of "true God, true man"-is not merely doctrinal phrasing, but breath that keeps the church alive.
If Jesus is not truly God, the cross is reduced to a tragic martyrdom. If Jesus is not truly human, the incarnation becomes myth and suffering becomes theater. Only when we hold fast to the full divinity and full humanity of Christ does salvation appear not as moral inspiration or psychological comfort, but as God's intervention that occurred in real history.
This is also why Pastor David Jang reads Colossians as an epistle of "great correction." He emphasizes that the letter does not remain merely a polemic against a particular heresy. Colossians is a letter that straightens the bones of faith-and that correction transforms the church's posture and the believer's whole way of walking. Just as the word "orthopedics" comes from an origin meaning "to set straight (ortho-)" or "to make upright," Paul sensed instinctively that when one's view of Christ is twisted, the joints of faith become misaligned. If doctrine is not mere information but a blueprint for life, then the distortion of doctrine is the distortion of life itself.
Pastor David Jang diagnoses that when theology remains an abstract concept, ethics hardens into moralism; and when moralism hardens, the community becomes vulnerable to the language of condemnation and comparison. Conversely, when the fullness of Christ stands at the center, surrounding thought, tradition, and experience find their rightful place. Philosophy, tradition, and experience can serve the richness of the gospel only when they do not trespass into Christ's place.
At this point, Pastor David Jang highly values the interpretive balance found in Colossians. Paul does not demonize philosophical reflection itself. While warning against "deceptive philosophy," he also says that the true treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. In other words, the seat of truth is not humanity's brilliant reasoning but Christ's revelation. Likewise, Paul does not command believers to discard Jewish zeal wholesale. Rather, he exposes its danger when tradition threatens gospel freedom and binds people again to chains of "achievement."
Pastor David Jang calls this balance not "the madness of exclusion," but "the restoration of the center." When the center is restored, discernment becomes possible; when discernment becomes possible, the church is not shaken by the provocations of its time. The same is true today as the church faces self-development narratives, psychological language, and spirituality trends. Useful tools can be employed-but first, the subject of salvation must be returned from human beings to God. The "fullness" Colossians speaks of is not the fullness of self-completion, but the fullness of Christ-and that fullness is given by grace.
Another reason Colossians shines uniquely is that Christology is immediately translated into the concrete reality of the universal (catholic) church. A gospel network formed around Ephesus; church planters like Epaphras established the Colossian church; and Paul's prison letters circulated among multiple congregations through couriers such as Tychicus. Pastor David Jang does not treat this as mere historical backdrop. He says this circulation structure in the early church reveals that "the gospel was not private property but the air of the community."
Though Paul was imprisoned, he did not isolate the churches. Through his letters, he made the churches conscious of one another, share each other's circumstances, and hold the truth together. This catholic sensibility is all the more urgent today, when churches compete as though they were "brands." Pastor David Jang warns that even when congregational isolationism seems to "grow" a church, in the long run it impoverishes the language of the gospel and shrinks the community's spiritual imagination. By contrast, the densely listed names in Colossians 4 remind us that the gospel ultimately spread through the faces of people. Faithful couriers, sweat-stained planters, co-laborers returning from failure, and believers who opened their homes as church space-this web of relationships is the reality of the church.
Among them, the restoration of Onesimus powerfully shows that gospel ethics is not an idea, but a force that changes structures. He was a runaway slave, with a past the community could struggle to trust-someone who could easily be erased by the social standards of that era. Yet Paul does not treat him as a "problem to be returned," but introduces him as a brother made new in the gospel. Pastor David Jang explains that this is not merely a personal rehabilitation story, but a window into how the gospel reconstitutes relational order.
The gospel is not a revolutionary slogan that instantly detonates institutions; it changes the heart of institutions by making people new and reweaving relationships. When Philemon and Colossians are read side by side, we see how doctrinal confession leads into the reconciliation of social relationships. The moment Onesimus is named "a beloved brother in the Lord," the master-slave relationship begins to be shaken-not as a simple hierarchy, but as a relationship redefined in Christ. Pastor David Jang warns that when the church loses this principle, it can harden into an organization that classifies and labels people rather than restoring them. But a church where the gospel is alive does not seal failure behind the stamp of a stigma; it welcomes repentance not as erasing the past, but as the beginning of new creation.
Even when Paul speaks of catholic solidarity, he does not miss that the engine of that solidarity is prayer. The exhortation, "Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving," shows that a spiritual network does not run merely on emotional bonds or institutional agreements. Pastor David Jang especially cherishes the scene where Paul asks prayer that "a door for the word" would be opened to him. Though confined in the closed space of prison, Paul's gaze is always turned toward an open door. That door is not merely a physical doorway, but a passage through which the gospel reaches people. When the church prays, it does not remain trapped within itself; it opens toward the world.
This logic remains valid even in today's digital age. In an era of poor transportation, letters circulated and bound churches together; today, a single message can cross borders. But speed does not guarantee depth. Pastor David Jang says that in an age of speed, "watchful prayer with thanksgiving" purifies the church's language and keeps missionary passion pure. Prayer becomes a brake that keeps zeal from turning into accusation, and keeps conviction from mutating into arrogance.
What is beautiful in the flow of Colossians is that Christology ultimately pours into ethics, and ethics is tested again in relationships. Paul organizes the believer's direction with the exhortation, "Seek the things that are above," then concretizes identity-change with the language of "putting off the old self and putting on the new." He then shows what the mark of this new self looks like-in the grain of everyday life. Husbands and wives, parents and children, slaves and masters-these relationships were the most realistic cross-sections of society at that time. What Paul wants here is not the justification of power, but the evangelizing of relationships.
Pastor David Jang urges readers to notice "balance" and "mutuality." Even as Paul speaks of submission, he demands love more strongly; even as he speaks of obedience, he pairs it with restraint-"do not provoke"-and even as he speaks of sincerity, he clarifies the responsibility of masters. The gospel is not a tool to reinforce one-sided domination; it is an order of grace that makes people human again. When the husband's love is demanded in the language of sacrifice, the family becomes not a space of domination but a school of service. The exhortation not to embitter children prevents faith from justifying violence under the name of discipline. The command for slaves to work "as for the Lord" is not a tool to romanticize oppression; it proclaims an inner freedom that refuses to surrender the soul to corruption even under oppression-while also being read on the premise that masters are urged toward justice and responsibility.
Pastor David Jang calls this ethic "a transformation of gospel values." The world says the strong take control; the gospel says the servant is the greatest. The world measures relationships by efficiency and performance; the gospel rewrites relationships in terms of love and responsibility. Thus Paul invites believers to live not merely as "good people" at work and at home, but as those who "belong to the Lord," saying, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord." Pastor David Jang cautions against a common misunderstanding: "as for the Lord" does not mean silently condoning a boss's injustice; it means refusing to hand your soul over to greed and cynicism in any situation-and at the same time it implies a parallel demand to those in authority to honor people under the same Lord's sovereignty. The gospel is not an order that silences one side; it is an order that places everyone before the Lord's judgment and grace.
Paul also exhorts, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts," and offers the community's inner grammar with, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." Pastor David Jang says these verses become a decisive key for dealing with conflicts in modern churches. No community is without differences of opinion. But when those differences harden into division, we must admit that the place where the peace of Christ should "rule" is being occupied by other emotions and interests. For the word to dwell richly does not mean stockpiling biblical information; it means the word reorganizes the direction of our language, judgments, and emotions. That is why Paul adds, "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt." Pastor David Jang invites readers to meditate on this in connection with the harshness of online culture. Speech without grace can kill people even while claiming to speak truth; speech without salt can sound kind yet blur the truth. When grace and salt come together, words perform healing and discernment at the same time. This forces us to face the reality that the dignity of faith is revealed not only inside a sanctuary but also in comments, messages, and everyday conversation.
The starting point of all these applications returns again to the question, "Who is Jesus?" If Paul had not established the person of Christ with clarity in chapter 1, the exhortations of chapters 3 and 4 would easily be misunderstood as moralism. The proposition Pastor David Jang repeatedly confirms through Colossians is clear: ethics without theology tires quickly; practice without doctrine hardens into a way of building self-righteousness, and the result is condemnation and division. But when Christology is alive, ethics becomes the fruit of grace. People do not become perfect by sheer willpower; they are made new as they are grafted into the fullness of Christ. Prayer is the way of that grafting, and thanksgiving is the posture it produces.
Pastor David Jang interprets Paul's exhortation, "Be watchful in thanksgiving," not as "be optimistic about reality," but as an invitation to "interpret reality through the gospel." Thanksgiving is not denying reality; it is the act of receiving reality's meaning anew in Christ. Even when circumstances do not immediately change, when the center changes, the way we read the world changes.
What Pastor David Jang's preaching leaves with readers is not the impression of intellectual display, but the clarity of direction. Even when he explains Hellenism and Hebraism, he does not forget that the entire discussion exists to protect "Jesus' place." Whether the church absorbs philosophy or rejects it, whether it preserves tradition or renews it, the criterion for every choice depends on who Christ is. This clarity is even more urgent today. Modern people consume "plausible stories" across countless contents, but truths that build the skeleton of life are rare. Spirituality is packaged as a commodity; faith is pushed into the realm of preference; churches are compared by numbers and images. In such a situation, Pastor David Jang places Colossians' Christology at the forefront to return the church to being a "community of confession." When confession grows vague, worship becomes performance and community becomes a hobby club. When confession stands firm, worship turns toward God, and community moves in the direction of giving life to one another. When the confession "There is an answer in Jesus" becomes the backbone of faith, the church preserves the essence without being swept away by trends.
To add one more scene to the context of this essay, we may recall Rembrandt's late masterpiece, The Return of the Prodigal Son. In the darkness, the father's two hands embrace the shoulders of the son who has returned, while to one side stands the older brother, unable to relinquish a face of judgment and distance. The painting is not merely an illustration of a Bible story; it translates the mystery of restoration into a human face. The road Onesimus had to walk back to Philemon-the gospel road that must begin again from the place where relationships collapsed-resembles that scene. When Pastor David Jang speaks of catholic solidarity and the power of reconciliation, we realize that Christ's church is ultimately a place that practices such "returning" and "receiving." And the ground of that receiving is not sentimental tolerance, but the fact of reconciliation already completed at the cross. The gospel truth-that the God who is full in Christ descended into the place of human wounds and failures to make new relationships possible-revives the community like a warm touch breaking through the darkness of the painting. The church must not only explain that touch in words; it must reenact it in reality.
Pastor David Jang recommends reading Colossians alongside the other prison epistles, where the message gains greater depth and dimension. If Ephesians emphasizes "the fullness of the church," offering a wide panorama of how the community as the body of Christ grows toward unity and maturity, Colossians places "the fullness of deity in Christ" at the front, fixing the starting point of every discussion on Christ Himself. If Philippians sings the power of the gospel in the emotional language of joy, and Philemon displays the reality of the gospel through the restoration of one person's relationship, Colossians provides the foundation supporting it all. Pastor David Jang points out that when this foundation weakens, the church's ministry and zeal can paradoxically work in a way that tires people and consumes the community. The source of fullness is not the church's passion, but Christ's being-and the clearer our gaze toward Christ's being, the more the church refrains from self-exaggeration, avoids hostility toward the world, and instead bears witness to the gospel with humble confidence. That confidence does not breed isolation; it produces solidarity.
The syncretism facing today's church has changed in form, but it strikingly resembles the tensions the Colossian church experienced. Words like "mindfulness" and "healing" are sometimes consumed as though they were the gospel's own language, and a kind of "spiritual DIY"-mixing spirituality and science, religion and psychology into a personally convenient blend-can become fashionable. Meanwhile, on the other side, under the banner of preserving tradition, rules, culture, and internal customs are treated as identical to the gospel, and others are easily excluded. Pastor David Jang says that in this reality, Colossians' question becomes sharp again: Jesus is not a piece that supplements our needs; He is the Lord who newly defines our existence. When Christ is pushed from the center, the church quickly falls into anxiety and overreaction. But when the fullness of Christ is at the center, the church receives the freedom to learn what is necessary and discard what must be discarded. This is not the freedom to merely adapt to the world, but the freedom to love the world while guarding the truth. Pastor David Jang tells believers, "Don't be deceived by the new, and don't be imprisoned by the old," fixing the standard on the fullness of Christ.
Therefore, Pastor David Jang proposes reading Colossians not as a book to finish in "one round of exposition," but as a book "a community must circulate and embody together." In personal meditation, hold fast to Christ's majesty and fullness in chapters 1 and 2; in chapter 3, examine concretely the life of the new self; and in chapter 4, train prayer, speech, and a missionary gaze. In small groups, share questions with one another; in the home, take the confession "Whatever you do, in the name of the Lord Jesus" as a sentence for the day; and as a church, revive catholic sensibility by sharing good news with other churches. Just as Paul connected churches through the circulation of letters, today's church can connect relationships through the circulation of the Word. In the end, the "answer in Jesus" Pastor David Jang speaks of expands beyond individual stability into the health of the community. A church that holds this answer does not lose the center amid the noise of the age; it is renewed again through the fullness of Christ.
Through this epistle, the reader practices not gathering more new information in order to find an "answer," but looking more deeply at the center of the gospel already given. This practice does not end in the mind; it breathes through prayer, is proven in relationships, and expands through service. As Pastor David Jang emphasizes, knowledge that truly knows Christ is completed only when it leads to a life that becomes like Christ. At the end of that path, even today, the fullness of Jesus Christ and the quiet newness of the community are waiting.
When Paul finally says, "Remember my chains," the sentence is not a lament seeking pity but a sign bearing witness to the freedom of the gospel. The body may be bound, but the gospel cannot be bound. The question Pastor David Jang holds onto from this verse and throws toward the church is ultimately the same: examine what the church is bound to. Are we bound to ideology, to tradition, to success, to approval? And the path to untying those bonds is to welcome Christ back to the center. Colossians is alive after two thousand years because human beings and churches repeatedly fall into the habit of setting up other centers. Therefore, what we need is not the excitement of novelty, but the restoration of the center. That restoration always returns to Jesus-Christ, true God and true man; Christ, head of the church and Lord of all things; Christ, Lord of reconciliation who re-stitches broken relationships. In Him, the church finds balance again, and life finds direction again. This is precisely why Pastor David Jang holds Colossians and preaches: because the confession "There is an answer in Jesus" is the simplest and yet deepest starting point for the church to begin living and moving again.
