Colossians 3:5-17. In our last post we saw Paul trying to get the Colossian believers to focus on what is really important in our relationship with God. First is what Jesus has done for us, he has paid the price, fine, or penalty for our bad actions (sins, disobedience and rebellion toward God) and second Jesus has guaranteed that he will not only fix us spiritually but also physically. Jesus’ resurrection (the word in the original language means “to stand among”, to be back with the physically living) is proof that we can live again too, even after death (see Job 19:26, 1 Corinthians 15:51:52). Eternity with God is a gift from God, a gift we don’t earn but merely receive.   Those facts are the ones that should drive our lives; motivate us.

In today’s reading we see how, honoring God in some of our attitudes and actions.  In verses 5-11 we see several attitudes and actions that don’t really fit if we live God. In verse 5 we are told to “consider” the “members of our bodies dead” to certain things. Remember that the idea of death in the Bible is that of separation; also notice that this is something we need to “consider”. Our bodies are not “dead” to doing evil this is something we must choose and follow through on.

The first list is: Immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, and greed. The first word is used in the Bible for sexual activity with someone you are not married to, by the way, part of our English word pornography comes from this word. The second word is literally “without cleanness”. In the Bible the idea of “clean” often means that something is acceptable to God. This isn’t talking about washing hands but of our attitudes and actions, are they things that God would approve of? The third word “passion” has the idea of suffering in it. We might think of obsession or maybe even the feelings behind stalking. The passion can be for a thing or a person. The problem here is something becoming more important to us than God is. The fourth word “lust” usually deals with wanting something that is forbidden and in this case it is linked with the word evil. Some Bible experts think that “passion” is continual lust. The final word is a compound word that means “wanting to have more”. Paul tells us that a desire for more is the same as “idolatry”. That word means “to serve and image” (like an image of God or god). But the image doesn’t have to be an actual god (like one of the Hindu gods). It can be anything that we choose to serve with our lives. In fact here Paul is linking idolatry with thing that we want more and more of (this can include relationships too).

In verse 6 we see that these sorts of things bring punishment from God. The reason is because these attitudes and actions show that we care more about feelings and stuff than we do about God. The problem is if we don’t really want God then he won’t force us to be part of his eternal family. We need to be careful about what we are living for (Luke 12:15-21, see also Mark 8:36). In verses 7-8 we see that the believers in Colosse had once been outsiders with God, they had done these very things, but now they had a new relationship with God through Jesus. They were now “living” in Jesus where before they were “living” (connected with) in these old self-interested attitudes.

In verse 8 Paul tells them to take off theses old ways of living and gives them another list. Where the first list was more about attitude this second list is about actions, actions toward others. Again there are five things in the list. First Paul tells them to put aside “anger”. The word has the idea of “reaching for something” and of “desire”. What we see here is actions based on desire and emotion. The second word, wrath, is related to the word for lust in the first list. This word means anger, heat, passion or even describes a boiling pot. While it is similar to “anger” in this list it is more violent. Perhaps our word “mad” is better for “angry” and maybe we might use “furious” instead of “wrath”. Both have a lot of feelings involved but “wrath” seems to be more violent. Next comes “malice”. This word has the ideas of “evil”, “wicked”, and “harm” in it. This is evil directed at another person to their harm. Fourth is “”slander”. The King James Translations says “blaspheme”. That is a “transliteration” or borrowing of the word directly from the Greek language. In Greek the word is “blasphemos”. It is a compound word that means to “harm the fame”. The idea here is hurting someone’s reputation. Finally Paul told them to “put aside” abusive speech. The word actually means “dirty, shameful or dishonoring words”. They were to take these away from their mouths. There are a couple of possibilities for what this means exactly but we need to remember the first list. One issue in that list was the idea of “impurity” things that were not acceptable to God. In this case we might want to think if our words are word that would make God happy, are they words that would come out of Jesus’ mouth? If not then we should take them out of our mouths too.

In verses 9-10 Paul brings up a new action, lying. He tells them not to lie to each other since they have “laid aside” their old way of living and put on (the opposite of “laying aside”) a new “self” that is being made knew according to a true knowledge of “the image of the Creator”. Paul is saying, “Look you guys are being fixed up so people can get an idea of what God really truly looks like. Don’t you think it might be a good idea to actually be truthful yourselves?” That idea of representing God is actually behind all of the instructions Paul is giving them, it’s like he is saying, “You are children of God, act like it.”

In verse 11 Paul extends the idea of being in God’s image when he informs them that in God’s family there are no ethnic, religious, culture, or class differences. Jews and gentiles are different “people” groups, we might think tribes or nationalities.   Circumcised and uncircumcised deals with religious rituals. Barbarians and Scythians seem to be similar in how others looked at them but there were smaller differences. We might think of the differences between people from the south of the United States and people from the north. Or maybe Canadians and people from the USA. These are more “cultural” differences. Slave and freedman deal with “station” or “class”. In India some people wear a little dot on their forehead. The dots are different colors and represent how important you are in that culture. Paul is telling us that everyone is the same, we are equal to God whether rich or poor, worker or boss. Jesus is all and in all. It is important to notice that first part, it’s all about or by Jesus. Jesus is God and he is in us so we are all equal in his family. Tomorrow we will see that being “equal” doesn’t mean that we all are the same in respect to what Jesus has us do.

In verses 5-11 Paul basically said “don’t” now in verses 12-17 he is gong to say “do”. Like “don’t eat that, eat this” (of course he already told them it wasn’t about eating, really he is saying, “don’t act like that act like this”). In this section Paul starts out with another list of five, but he can’t seem to stop there.

Firs Paul comes back to a place he has visited a lot in this letter; he reminds them of their relationship to God, they are identified (chosen or picked out), purified or cleaned up (holy), and “huggified” (ok, ok, “Loved” by God, is that better?). Because God has forgiven us and brought us back into his family we should be forgiving too. The first word is “compassion” that mean to show “pity or mercy”. Second we should be “kind” to others (this word has the idea of moral usefulness, you might think “be a good influence or a Godly influence”). The third word is “humility”, the idea is the attitude of a servant. The forth word is “gentleness”, that one’s pretty understandable. Finally they were to be patient. This word is related to the word wrath in verse 8 and basically means “take a long time to boil over”.

Verse 13 seems to explain or give an example of this last attitude that they were supposed to put in their inner beings (hearts).   Some Bible experts think it gives two more attitudes though. In verse 13 Paul tells the Colossian believers to “bear with one another” and to “forgive” each other. The first idea is of “hanging in there even if it hurts” and the second has the idea of giving a gift freely. The second word “forgive” is related to the word “grace”, like in the free gift of Heaven that Jesus made available to everyone when he died on the cross. I guess you don’t get a better example of a gift than Heaven or more suffering to deliver it than the completely innocent God-man, Jesus, dying on a cross and having God the Father turn his back on him (even if only for a short time). That really is patient, bearing and forgiving. At the end of verse 13 Paul makes it clear that we are to live like this because of Jesus’ example.

John 3:16 tells us that the motive behind Jesus sacrifice was God’s love for us. Love has a way of motivating actions that bring people together. Evidently the Colossian church was having some problem coming together as a group. Paul wanted them to “love” each other and gave them concrete ideas and actions that they could put on to bring the group together, as well as things to avoid.

In verse 15 they needed to let peace be in their lives, peace that comes from knowing Jesus and letting him take control of their day to day lives. Peace would come just like hope did when they trusted Jesus for their eternity (Colossians 1:5, 23, 27). This peace was a part of being part of God’s forever family a family that included all the believers in Jesus there in Colosse. For all of this they needed to be thankful.

Verse 16-17 extend this idea of thankfulness for the group of believers that they were a part of. In verse 16 we see that they each had a part in encouraging the others. Their relationship with God was because of who Jesus is and what he has done. They learned about this through the true words about Jesus that they had learned. The truth about Jesus needed to live in them and through them (dwell in them), but it also needed to be expressed or told by them. They were to teach each other through “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”.

Some experts like to relate the first, psalm, with the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. Certainly that is a book of song in honor of and relating to God, it is part of the Bible and is useful for teaching and training (2 Timothy 3:16) but in 1 Corinthians 14:26 the word seems to be used for a new song by someone in that group. It is probably both, Psalms from that “book” and new Psalms from the hearts and lives of believers. The word “psalm” (the Greek word in Colossians) seems to be related to plucking a musical instrument. Many of the “Psalms” from that book were written by David, king of Israel, to express his experiences in living for God he played a stringed instrument and set his “Psalms” to music. His Psalms express the highs and lows of his life with God, his successes, his failures, and most of all God’s faithfulness and love.

The second word in verse 16 is “hymns”. This word contains the idea of celebration and the idea seems to praise or honor gods and heroes with this song. Of course we would only want to honor the one true God, Yahweh, our savior and hero.   The third word (actually two words) is “spiritual songs”. The word translated songs is “ode” from which we get the English word “ode” from. An ode is and extended song, a story about some one or something. In this case it is a “spiritual” ode. That could mean that it is from the “Spirit” meaning the Spirit of God but it probably is referring to our ‘spirit”. It is our story about our relationship with God, sort of like David’s (and others’) “Psalms”. At the end of the day what I think is important here is These are a musical celebration of who God is and what he is doing or has done in our lives and the lives of others. They come from the heart and are filled with thanks.

Today’s reading ends with an extension of this attitude of thanks. Paul tells his readers and us that all of our actions and words need to be in the “name of the Lord Jesus” and that they are expressions of our thanks to God.   “In the name” means we need to keep in mind who we are representing with our lives, we need to reflect the family that we are a part of (See “What’s in a Name?”). Notice that Paul uses the word ‘Lord” in connection to Jesus. We have a cool and wonderful relationship with God because of Jesus but we need to remember that he’s the boss.

In today’s reading there was a lot of “what” but in the background there has also been some of the “why”. The why is because we are supposed to be examples to the world. In verse 7 it seems like Paul is repeating himself when he talks about walking in our old evil ways when we lived in them. It’s almost like he wants us to focus on the fact that now we “live in Jesus”. Our new life need s to have new actions that show it. Also in verse 10 we are reminded that we are getting a makeover; a spiritual makeover that should show in our lives too. And this makeover reflects or shows God to the world. Jesus weaves in and out of this letter like a beautiful thread that Paul wants the world to see in the lives of the Colossians. Jesus is everywhere in this letter, saving and changing. We benefit from all he is and has done and we need to show that to the word. He is our hero that we celebrate, he our God that we honor, he is the savior in our odes, and he has been all that for generations past.

Thank you Jesus for getting me out of my old life. I know that I can slip back there and I need to put on the new life. I need to practice the new attitudes and let them change my actions. Thank you for not showing favoritism.   Thank you that Heaven’s door is open for anyone who will receive the gift you have offered (John 1:12). Help me share the song that is you with all that I meet. Make many more songs in their lives. Let the world be filled with Jesus music. Thank you God for all of it.