Colossians 2:5 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

For though I be absent in in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit: to prevent any surmise that his distance at Rome might take him off from minding of them at Colosse, he shows that the great affection he bare to them did oblige him to interest himself in all their concerns, ( the care of all the churches being incumbent on him, 2 Corinthians 11:28), and therefore that his bodily confinement at Rome did not hinder his presence with them in spirit. Not that we can conclude, that by some extraordinary operation of the Holy Ghost God gave him now and then a clear prospect of what they did, as he did to Elisha of Gehazi's behavior, 2 Kings 5:26; and to Ezekiel in Babylon of the secret actions of the Jews in Jerusalem; but that he was with them as with the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 5:3, when distant in body his thoughts and affections were exercised about them. Joying and beholding your order; as it follows there is moving of fears lest they shonld be insnared, so of joy understanding their order, i.e. their good estate, constitution, and consent in orderly walking and discipline, 1 Corinthians 14:10 1 Thessalonians 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 5:14. And the stedfastness of your faith in Christ; and the firmament of their faith in Christ, it being (if genuine) as firm as the firmament itself; stable as the heavens and heavenly bodies, keeping their constant stations and regular courses, and admitting nothing heterogeneous into them: all heavenly truths are as fixed stars in this orb. Seeing all grace, because Divine, hath an establishing proverty; so faith coming from the eternal mountains, all graces being connected in faith, which is a kind of firmament to them all, it comes to pass that faith, in actuating any true grace, gives a strength and further growth to every other grace.