SIL Translator’s Notes on Colossians 2:3

2:3

in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge: This is a figure of speech. Here, wisdom and knowledge are like treasures that are hidden in Christ. There are two ways to understand this:

(1) Paul was referring to a Christian’s wisdom and knowledge. So this verse means that, just as treasure is valuable, so being wise and knowing God and God’s message is very valuable. Christ is the only one who can cause us to be wise and know God and his message.

(SSA)

(2) Paul was referring to God’s wisdom and knowledge. In this case the verse means that Christ is the only one who can cause people to know about God’s wisdom and knowledge, which are very valuable.

(Good News Translation, Revised English Bible; UBS Handbook Handbook).

The Display follows the first interpretation (1).

hidden: When Paul said that wisdom and knowledge were hidden in Christ, he did not mean that people could not get this wisdom and knowledge at all. Rather, he meant that it is in Christ and Christ alone that people can find these things. Only Christ can make people truly wise, only he reveals God’s plan to mankind.

© 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.

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