which has reached you as it spreads over all the world with fruit and increase. Such has been your life from the day you learned to know what God's grace really is.

For I wish you knew how great my concern is for you, and for those of Laodicea, and for such as have never seen me in person:

For even though I am absent [from you] in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, delighted to see your good discipline [as you stand shoulder to shoulder and form a solid front] and to see the stability of your faith in Christ [your steadfast reliance on Him and your unwavering confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness].

Such things are only a shadow of what is to come and they have only symbolic value; but the substance [the reality of what is foreshadowed] belongs to Christ.

Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels cheat you out of the prize by rejoicing about what he has seen. Such a person is puffed up for no reason by his carnal mind.

Such a one does not keep his hold upon Christ, the Head, from whom the Body, in all its parts nourished and strengthened by its points of contact and its connections, grows with a divine growth.

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were still living in the world, do you submit to rules and regulations, such as,

To such ordinances as 'Do not handle, or taste, or touch'?

These practices indeed have the appearance [that popularly passes as that] of wisdom in self-made religion and mock humility and severe treatment of the body (asceticism), but are of no value against sinful indulgence [because they do not honor God].

let the things above, and not such worldly matters be the object of your thoughts.

So, put to death [i.e., stop practicing the desires of] your physical bodies [such as] sexual immorality, [moral] impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is [in reality] idolatry.

For the wrath of God will come [upon disobedient people] for practicing such things.

and in these [sinful things] you also once walked, when you were habitually living in them [without the knowledge of Christ].

But now you must also get rid of anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene speech, and all such sins.

[In this state] there cannot be [such distinctions as] Greek [i.e., Gentile] and Jew; circumcised people and non-circumcised people; barbarian and Scythian [Note: These last two words refer to foreigners whose language was unintelligible and who were uncivilized heathens], or slave and free person; but Christ is all [that is important] and [He is] in all [of His people].

Jesus, called Justus, also sends greeting. These three are Hebrew converts. They alone among such have worked loyally with me for the Kingdom of God--they are men who have been a comfort to me.