Human history is stained with bloodshed, triggered by a range of disparity: caste, culture, color, creed, and class. The world has not fully recovered from the pain inflicted through racial conflicts: apartheid, holocaust, the civil rights movement; and religious conflicts: crusades and jihad. When Jesus entered history, the situation was not different. Along with the cruel domination of foreign powers, slavery and racial discrimination stratified human society. Jesus’ life and ministry assured hope for the world not just in terms of individual salvation (a reduction of current evangelism) but the restoration of the vexed human societies. Paul’s profound understanding of this core purpose of the gospel is well reflected in his epistles. While the phrase ‘in Christ’ (en Christo) frequently occurs in the Pauline epistles, one of his rare assertions, “Christ in you (plural) the hope of glory” (Col 1:27) is introduced as a mystery unraveled (1:26). It is an assurance of Christ’s presence among the Gentile community of Colossae. He discloses to Colossians a reality that is central to God’s plan.

Christ’s followers faced fierce persecution from its twin enemies, the Jews and the Romans, at its inception. Envisaging extinction of the movement, both groups strived hard for its destruction, only to witness its exponential growth and spread in a short span of time. Saul, one of the arch-rivals of the movement, met the risen Lord at the heights of his pursuit of wiping out the movement from the face of the earth. This encounter not only caused a radical shift in his understanding of God and His intervention in history but also reframed his worldview with a fresh perspective on God’s economy (oikonomian, administration) (Col 1:25 cf Eph 1:10; 3:2, 3:9). Paul’s epistles to Ephesians and Colossians wrote from prison, present Christ as an agent of reconciliation of stratified human societies (Col. 1:20, 22 cf. Eph 1:10; 2:14-16), something that Paul, the Pharisaic-Jew, could not comprehend prior to his conversion. Therefore, the key to reconciliation today is to perceive Christ in every individual and community, which is God’s plan hidden for ages for many like Paul, but now revealed through Christ. The glory of God will not manifest until the Church submits to God’s economy (administration). God calls the Church to be the agent of change in a broken world.