Read Philippians 1:1–3 and Colossians 1:1, 2. How are the churches in Philippi and Colossae described, and what significance does the depiction have?
Paul’s typical greeting in his epistles calls Christians in those places “saints”; that is, through baptism they have been set apart as God’s special people, just as the people of Israel, through the practice of circumcision (Exod. 19:5, 6; compare 1 Pet. 2:9, 10), had been set apart as a “holy nation.” (This has utterly nothing to do with the Roman church’s practice of canonizing people as “saints.”)