Kolose 1:18

1:18 He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn ¹  from among the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things. ² 

Kolose 1:24

1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body – for the sake of his body, the church – what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.

Kolose 4:15-16

4:15 Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters ³  who are in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church that meets in her ⁴  house. ⁵  4:16 And after ⁶  you have read this letter, have it read ⁷  to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea ⁸  as well.

[1:18]  ¹ tn See the note on the term “firstborn” in 1:15. Here the reference to Jesus as the “firstborn from among the dead” seems to be arguing for a chronological priority, i.e., Jesus was the first to rise from the dead.

[1:18]  ² tn Grk “in order that he may become in all things, himself, first.”

[4:15]  ³ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[4:15]  ⁴ tc If the name Nympha is accented with a circumflex on the ultima (Νυμφᾶν, Numfan), then it refers to a man; if it receives an acute accent on the penult (Νύμφαν), the reference is to a woman. Scribes that considered Nympha to be a man’s name had the corresponding masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ here (autou, “his”; so D [F G] Ψ Ï), while those who saw Nympha as a woman read the feminine αὐτῆς here (auth", “her”; B 0278 6 1739^[*^] 1881 sa). Several mss (א A C P 075 33 81 104 326 1175 2464 bo) have αὐτῶν (autwn, “their”), perhaps because of indecisiveness on the gender of Nympha, perhaps because they included ἀδελφούς (adelfou", here translated “brothers and sisters”) as part of the referent. (Perhaps because accents were not part of the original text, scribes were particularly confused here.) The harder reading is certainly αὐτῆς, and thus Nympha should be considered a woman.

[4:15]  ⁵ tn Grk “the church in her house.” The meaning is that Paul sends greetings to the church that meets at Nympha’s house.

[4:16]  ⁶ tn Grk “when.”

[4:16]  ⁷ tn The construction beginning with the imperative ποιήσατε ἵνα…ἀναγνωσθῇ (poihsate Jina…anagnwsqh) should be translated as “have it read” where the conjunction ἵνα functions to mark off its clause as the direct object of the imperative ποιήσατε. The content of the clause (“reading the letter”) is what Paul commands with the imperative ποιήσατε. Thus the translation “have it read” has been used here.

[4:16]  ⁸ sn This letter is otherwise unknown, but some have suggested that it is the letter known today as Ephesians.