Paul calls himself a servant of the church, using the same word for “servant” as in verse 23, Eph 3.2; for the cognate noun oikinomos see 1 Cor 4.1.) God appointed Paul to this position of trust for the benefit of the Colossians, for your good, that is, for their spiritual well being, their spiritual progress.

It is rare that one can translate literally who gave me this task to perform for tasks are not normally “given” but “assigned” or even “commanded.” One may, however, often translate “he appointed me for this work” or “he pointed me out to do this work.” The phrase for your good may be rendered as “in order to help you.”

It is likely that Paul sees the Colossians as representatives of the Gentiles as a whole, since Paul had not been involved with them. The particular task God gave him was that of fully proclaiming his message. The construction is unusual, since fully proclaiming (Revised Standard Version “make … fully known”) represents the Greek verb plēroō, which means “fill” or “fulfill.” The nearest parallel is Rom 15.19, where the verb has “the gospel of Christ” as object; see also Col 4.17, “finish the task.” It means to discharge fully, completely, the particular task, here defined as “(proclaiming) the word of God.” This implies not simply the geographical extension of the task, but the thoroughness with which it is done. Moffatt “a full presentation of God’s message,” New English Bible “to deliver his message in full.”

As already noted, the adverb fully may relate to the process of proclaiming and thus “complete my task of proclaiming,” or it may be related to the nature of the message so that one may translate “to proclaim the complete message,” or “to announce all the words of his message,” or “to proclaim all that he has said.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .