1:5a-b

the faith and love proceeding from the hope stored up for you in heaven, of which you have already heard: The Greek text does not include the words the faith and love in this verse, but begins “because of the hope” (see Revised Standard Version). The Berean Standard Bible has repeated the words faith and love from 1:4 to clarify the connection between 1:4 and 1:5. Paul was saying that the Colossian believers trusted in Christ Jesus and loved other Christians because of the hope they had.

hope: In English the word hope is more like a “wish.” When someone says, “I hope it doesn’t rain,” he means that he is uncertain: he doesn’t want it to rain, but he doesn’t know if it will or not. But this is not the biblical meaning of hope. The Greek word elpis, that the Berean Standard Bible translates hope, means “to confidently expect something to happen.”

Full Christian hope is this:

(a) Christ will descend from heaven.

(b) He will raise to life the Christians who have died, and he will gather them along with those who are still alive in order to bring them all together to meet him.

(c) All these believers will receive new bodies.

(d) God will accept them all as his perfect people.

(e) They all will live forever with God and Christ in heaven.

When Paul spoke about “the hope stored up for you in heaven,” he was referring to all these wonderful things that Christians are waiting for, the things that God has prepared for his people in heaven.

stored up: The Greek word apokeimai that the Berean Standard Bible translates stored up means, “to put away, store up,” like a farmer who stores grain in a barn so he can use it in the future. Paul was not saying that God had stored up literal “things” like money or food, but he was referring to the reward which God has for his people and which he is “keeping safe” for them. The UBS Handbook Handbook (page 11) suggests one way to translate this:

God is keeping safe for you in heaven the reward that you are confident that he will give you.

1:5c–6a

the word of truth, the gospel: Paul was not writing about two different things. The word of truth and the gospel refer to the same thing. Here is another way to translate this phrase:

the true message, which is the good news (Contemporary English Version)

the word of truth: This means the true message about Christ. In these verses, Paul began to emphasize that the message about Christ that the Colossians had originally been taught was the only true message about Christ. He emphasized this because some people in Colossae had begun to teach false things about Christ.

gospel: The Greek word euaggelion that the Berean Standard Bible translates gospel means “good news.” After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the first Christians soon began to use euaggelion to mean specifically “God’s message about Christ.” If you translate it using a general phrase like “good news,” check that the people who use your translation will understand that the term refers specifically to the message about Christ. See “gospel” in Key Biblical Terms and in the glossary.

that has come to you: Although this expression is actually part of 1:6, it is joined grammatically to 1:5.

In some languages, it is not possible to talk about news “coming” to a place or to people. If this is the case in your language, you can say something like:

the message that was first told to you
-or-
the message that was first brought to you

In this verse, Paul did not say who brought the gospel. In 1:7, Paul said that Epaphras taught them the gospel. However, Epaphras may not have been the only teacher who brought the gospel to Colossae. So if you need to say who brought the message in your translation, it is better to say something general like. For example:

people came and told you…

General Comment about 1:5a–6a

It may be helpful in your translation to change the order of the parts of 1:5a–6a. The Good News Translation has done that in this way:

When the true message, the good news, first came to you, you heard about the hope it offers. So your faith and love are based on what you hope for, which is kept safe for you in heaven.

Another way might be to say:

When people first came to you and told you the true message, the good news ⌊about Christ, you heard it and believed it⌋. Now you are expectantly waiting for the blessings that ⌊God⌋ has planned to give you in heaven. Because of this, ⌊you are trusting in Christ Jesus and love all God’s people⌋.

© 2001 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.