Colossians 1v15-20 ("That's my king!")

I am currently in the throws of writing a talk on these 5 verse for a girls talk group at church. I say in the throws, because a talk on just 5 verses should be easy, simple, only take a few hours shouldn't it? The talk is only supposed to be 20 minutes after all...

HA! These verses are so amazing, so awe inspiring that despite several weeks of wrestling I have only just thought of points for my talk (which within the last 24 hours have already changed once)
so far:

Christ is:
Creator of all things
Sustains all things
All things of the fullness of God
Reconciler of all things

not great points i know, and apologies for those who believe all talks should have three alliterating points... try fitting these verses into three points! My original talk had between 20 and 25 points.

These are amazing verses, and I challenge you (and me) to learn them and mull over them for the next few weeks. Be amazed at who Christ is, and love and worship Him all the more!

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross." (ESV)

Profoundly in love. Subtle and perceptive in communication. Powerful in self-control. Committed to righteousness.

Whilst preparing for a one-to-one on Ruth 3, I came across this rather wonderful sermon by John Piper. A great call to purity and righteousness amid a culture that would rather do quite the opposite.



http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/45/447_Ruth_Strategic_Righteousness/

Love Christmas?

Then check out this film:

http://www.st-helens.org.uk/xmas/

Does Jesus have to be in every talk?

Ok I'm out for advice... Two different viewpoints - one says,
"The Old Testament is meaningless without Christ, so every talk, even those from Old Testament narratives have to contain Jesus"
OR
(as with Dale Ralph Davies) "The whole Old Testament bears witness to Christ; and, the Old Testament does not bear witness only to Christ."

Recently in the Sunday School I help lead we've been doing something known as "the ABC's of God" where we each week learn about different characteristics of God, for example, a "mini-series" - of God is the Creator, so has the right to do what He wants with His creation, God is Wise, so has the wisdom to do this, God does all things for His glory, culminated in God is Sovereign... But (shock horror to some) we didn't use Jesus to explain that God is the Creator... and we used the true story of Joseph to explain Wise... and the culmination of the three in Sovereign was again without mention of Jesus...

have we got it all wrong? Should we have put Jesus into every single lesson or should we stick as we are, explaining what we can learn about God from the Old Testament? Would we lose the richness and the beauty that God inspired the authors to put into the text if we forced it into a formulation that necessarily put Jesus into our talk?

I'd love your comments (any!)...