Readings
- Exodus 25:1–22
- Colossians 3:1–17
- Matthew 4:18–25
- Psalms: 30, 32; 42, 43
Colossians 3:1–17
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all!
Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Notes
Verse 1 opens with a "therefore." As preachers like to say: when you see a therefore, make sure you see what the therefore is there for. Yesterday Paul finished his takedown of legalism: don't let anyone condemn you over food or calendar; the cross has stripped the powers; "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" is foolishness. Therefore: now what?
The therefore is the pivot from theology to ethics. Or, more precisely, from one frame for ethics to another. Verse 2 sharpens the contrast: "set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth." On its own this can sound like a call to disembodied otherworldliness. In context, it isn't. The "things above" are being contrasted specifically with the stoicheia, the elemental principles the false teachers were obsessing over. Above here means more like higher than, greater than — the way we say Beyoncé is above Taylor Swift, or Jordan is above Curry. Don't fixate on what you ate; fixate on the more important thing.
Then verse 3, which I love. "You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." That recurring drumbeat from 1 Peter and from the rest of Colossians: what is true of Christ is true of us. We are hidden where he is hidden. Verse 4 completes the thought: what is hidden does not stay hidden. "When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." His revelation is ours.
Verse 5 introduces another therefore. This is where the rhetorical structure of the letter really clicks. Because your life is already hidden with Christ in God — already, not pending, not earned — therefore your life starts to take on a particular shape. The order matters enormously. Paul is not saying change your behavior so that you can have these spiritual experiences. He is saying you are already in union with the divine; therefore your life will look like this. Transformation, not self-abasement. Notice too that the word for "died" in verse 3 (apothnēskō) is different from the word for "put to death" in verse 5 (nekroō). Verse 5's verb is sharper, closer to necrotize, render permanently dead.
The vices in verse 5 — sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed — are all variations on the theme that lands on the final word: greed (pleonexia), the impulse to grab what is not yours.
Verse 6 says the wrath of God is coming on "the sons of disobedience" (the literal phrase behind NRSVue's "those who are disobedient"). Paul is not lumping in everyone who has ever made a mistake. The Hebraism sons of describes people whose deepest identity is shaped by the thing named—disobedience as the family business, so to speak.
Verse 8 moves to a second list. Where verse 5 is mostly about what we do with our bodies and desires, verse 8 is about what we do to each other: anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech. These are the sins of relationship, the ones that wreck a community.
Verses 9–10. Now the metaphor turns to clothing. Paul tells the Colossians to "strip off the old self with its practices" and "clothe yourselves with the new self." The verb behind strip off is apekdyomai — (and here is something I had not noticed until today!) it is the same verb Paul used in 2:15, where Christ "stripped off" the rulers and authorities. Christ stripped the powers; we strip off the old self. Whatever happens to us in Christ has already happened to him. The pattern keeps holding. (For the Narnia readers: this is exactly the scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Aslan tears off Eustace's dragon skin. Eustace cannot peel it off himself; Christ does the peeling.)
The "new self" is being "renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator." Imago Dei language. Paul is not saying we are becoming something we never were; he is saying we are being restored to what has always been true of us.
Verse 11 is a redo of Galatians 3:28: "no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free." The new creation collapses the demographic categories the old age weaponized. Paul adds barbarian and Scythian — language meant to evoke the absolute outsider — to make sure no one is too foreign to be inside the all that Christ now is.
Verse 12 brings yet another therefore. The whole logic of the chapter has been building toward this: since Christ is who chapters 1–2 said he is; since your life is hidden with him in God; since the old self has been stripped off; therefore clothe yourselves with this. And then we get another verb cascade running through verses 12–17 — which, as you may have noticed by now, is my favorite kind of list. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience. Wear them.
Verse 13. Bear with one another and forgive one another. The model is explicit: "just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." Forgiveness as imitation of Christ.
Verse 14 is the line that stitches the whole letter together. We learned back in 1:17 that Christ "holds all things together." Now in 3:14 we are told that love "binds everything together in perfect harmony." Christ holds all things together; love binds all things together. Coincidence? I think not!
Verse 15. "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." The verb behind "rule" is brabeuō — originally to act as umpire or to render the decision in a contest. Let Christ's peace be the umpire, the one who calls the play. And then: be thankful. Eucharistia again.
Verse 16. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." The verb is enoikeō, from en (in) + oikeō (to dwell, make a home). Closely related in feel to John 15's abide in me, and I in you. And then the priesthood of all believers shows up explicitly in the line that follows: teach and admonish one another. Not pastors to laypeople. The whole community is responsible for the formation of the whole community. And sing.
Verse 17. "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus." There is no compartmentalized Christian life. Word and deed; everything is liturgy.
Questions for reflection
Paul's whole ethical argument runs in one direction: union first, behavior second. You are already in Christ; therefore your life takes this shape. Where in your life have you reversed that order — trying to earn through behavior what is already given?
What old-self clothes are you still wearing out of habit? What new-self clothes are folded up, still in the drawer?
