The external evidences for the Pauline authorship of the Epistle are abundant. In the second century many church fathers had quoted part of this Epistle in their writings, e.g. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen. In addition, possible allusions to the Epistle are traceable in other primitive writers, e.g. Ignatius used the precise Greek of Col. 1:23 "settled in the faith"; Theophilus, of Antioch, in his apologetic work used the words of Col. 1:15 "Firstborn of all creation".
Until the last century, no serious question about Pauline authorship seems to have raised. The Epistle claims to be written by Paul in the opening (1:1). Obviously, Colossians are closely related to the widely accepted genius epistle Philemon. In both letters, greeting are send from Aristarchus, Mark, Epaphras, Luke, and Demas who were with Paul when he wrote (4:10-14; Philem. 23-24). However, modern scholars has widely disputed on the Pauline authorship. Their arguments are mainly based on three issues : language and style, theology, as well as similarity to Ephesians.
The date of writing of this Epistle depended on where Paul wrote it. Paul wrote this Epistle in prison (4:3, 10, 18). There are three possibilities, i.e., Caesarea, Ephesus and Rome. Moreover, Philemon and Colossians were written nearly the same time.
Paul had not been to Colossae before. The church was most probably found by one of the fruit of Paul's two years ministry in Ephesus, i.e. Epaphras. Colossae is a town on the bank of the river Lycus in south-east Asia Minor. It was neither a large nor important town, though it had formerly been both. The apostle had heard from Epaphras that some false teachers had come to this young church, so he wrote to refute their errors. The false teaching in Colossae are not precisely clear, though some scholars proposed the false teaching were uniquely Jewish. Evidently, it was a kind of syncretistic religion product. It was a blend of Jewish and Hellenistic teachings. Lightfoot further proposed this heresy was akin to the teaching of the Essenes. It was an embryo of the type of speculative thought which so much disturbed the Church of the second century, and was known as Gnosticism.
The heresy promoted a form of dualism. It embedded asceticism,
Judaism as well as Oriental Mysticism(2:20-23). They claimed that
God was apart from creation. The material realm was evil but
spiritual realm was Good. God did not create this material world
directly but through a lot of intermediate agents for example
angles(cf. 1:16). Therefore they need to worship God through
these intermediate agents (2:18a). Although they had Christ, but
He was just the beginning of their faith(2:19). Then the best
spiritual exercise was to ill-treat their physical body(2:23)
since it was a prison of their inner soul. Besides, special
spiritual knowledge(2:18b), circumcision(2:11) and Jewish
rituals(2:16,21) was a must for their salvation.
Firstly, Paul raised high Christology to refute such dualism(1:15-21). He emphasized that the supremacy of Christ over both material and spiritual realms(1:15-19). All things were created by Him and for Him(1:16). There were not necessary through other intermediate agents to access to God. Through Christ's blood on the cross, they were already reconciled with God(1:20-22). Besides, they did not need any mysterious knowledge for salvation, because all the mystery of God had manifested in Christ(1:26-27; 2:2-3). Their spiritual growth were wholly depended on their walk in Christ (2:6-7) rather than following persuasive argument(2:4) or human tradition(2:8). This body was not the prison of soul and inherently evil, on contrary, Christ manifested all the fullness of Deity dwelling in bodily form (2:9). They no longer needed to follow Jewish cumcision, since they had experienced a new cumcision in baptism (2:11-12). Furthermore, the laws of Judaism had no effective on them, since Christ had canceled out all of them on the cross (2:13-15). Any angels worshipping or Jewish rituals were not only not appropriate but would defraud their prizes(2:16-20). So the true spirituality was seeking to live out the life of Christ in them(3:1-4). In practices, they had to put off the old self(3:5-9), which was every evil walks of life, and put on the new self, which was being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of Christ(3:10). Love and thankfulness were the two main manifestations of this new life (3:11-17). Finally Paul directed the readers to live a submissive life in different positions(3:18-4:1), which also was one of the important fruit of true spiritual maturity.
The parallel between Colossians and Ephesians are observed. Most topics mentioned in Ephesians recurs in Colossians in one or another way. But there has no trace of a systematic expansion of the longer Epistle from the shorter. Colossians' main theme is to refute the false teaching, so large portion of the epistle are on the controversial issue with Judaism and other philosophies. On the other hand, Ephesians supposed to be an circulating letter for edifying the churches in Ephesus distinct, so more positive doctrines especially on the doctrine of church are mentioned. Interestly, one important topic appearing in Colossians does not appear in Ephesians, that is the presentation of the Son of God as cause and head of the whole created universe. On the other hand, the work of Holy Spirit appearing prominently in Ephesians does not appear in Colossians. The word "spirit" (pneuma) occurs only twice in Colossians (1:8;2:5); and in 2:5 the reference is probably not to the Holy Spirit but to the human spirit.
There had never been serious doubts that this letter are not a genuine writing of the apostle Paul. It is a private letter Paul wrote to Philemon, Apphia, Archippus and the church in their house (1-2). The date of authoring heavily depends on where Paul wrote this Epistle. Please refer to the part of Colossians.
Onesimus is a slave of Philemon, he probable ran away from Philemon and met Paul in the prison. As the case of Colossians, some suggested that Onesimus ran to either Ephesus or Rome. While he was in prison, he was converted by Paul. Now, Paul sent him back to Philemon and wrote this letter in order to ask Philemon to receive him as brother and did not punish him.
This is one private correspondence Paul left behind. Through this we can has a look on Paul's characters. His love, wisdom, humor, gentleness, tact and above all Christian and human maturity demonstrated in his daily life. Slave problem were serious in ancient Rome, although this Epistle not directly touched the topic, it give us direction to due slaves with love and teach us that in Christ we are one family. In addition, this epistle showed us how the earthly relationships were transformed by the theology behind.