“Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit , as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:”
My Notes
What Does Colossians 1:6 Mean?
Colossians 1:6 describes the gospel as a living, organic force: "Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth." Paul pictures the gospel as a seed that, once planted, grows and produces fruit wherever it lands — Colossae, Rome, Jerusalem, the whole world.
The phrase "bringeth forth fruit" — karpophoroumenon — uses the present tense: the gospel is continuously bearing fruit. It hasn't stopped. It didn't produce a one-time crop and go dormant. It's an ongoing, self-propagating force. And it's doing the same thing everywhere — in the Colossians and "in all the world." The gospel doesn't adapt its nature to different cultures. It bears the same fruit universally.
"Since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth" — Paul pinpoints the moment of germination. There was a specific day when the Colossians heard the gospel and genuinely understood (epegnōte — fully recognized) God's grace. Not as theory. "In truth" — alētheia. They grasped the real thing, not a counterfeit. And from that day forward, the fruit hasn't stopped coming.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Can you trace it back — the day you truly heard the gospel, not just as information but as grace? What was that moment like?
- 2.What fruit has the gospel produced in your life that you know you didn't generate yourself?
- 3.Does it encourage you to know that the same gospel growing in you is bearing fruit all over the world? Why or why not?
- 4.Paul says the gospel 'bringeth forth fruit' continuously. Are there areas where you've stopped expecting it to grow? What might God still be producing?
Devotional
The gospel is not a set of ideas you agree with. It's a seed that, once it lands in your life, starts producing things that weren't there before.
Paul describes it like a vine that can't stop growing. From the day you heard it — really heard it, not just absorbed religious information but genuinely recognized God's grace — something started bearing fruit in you. Patience you didn't have before. Compassion you didn't manufacture. A capacity for forgiveness that surprises even you. That's the gospel doing what it does.
The phrase "as it is in all the world" is a quiet reminder that your story isn't isolated. The same seed that's growing in you is growing in someone on the other side of the planet. The same gospel producing fruit in your living room is producing fruit in a house church in a country you'll never visit. You're part of a global harvest, not a private garden.
"Since the day ye heard" — Paul invites you to trace it back. There was a day. A moment. Someone said something, or you read something, or something broke open inside you, and you knew. Not intellectually. Truly. You recognized grace as grace, and your life started growing in a direction it hadn't been moving before. That day still matters. The fruit it started is still coming.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Which is come unto you,.... That is, the Gospel, which came to them from God, from heaven, from Christ, out of…
Which is come unto you - It has not been confined to the Jews, or limited to the narrow country where it was first…
Which is come unto you - The doctrine of the Gospel is represented as a traveler, whose object it is to visit the whole…
Here he proceeds to the body of the epistle, and begins with thanksgiving to God for what he had heard concerning them,…
is come unto you Lit., "is present to you;" but the A.V. and R.V. are idiomatically right.
as it is in all the world;…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture