Friday of Epiphany 4 - Colossians 3:12-17

St. Paul’s sustained teaching through chapters 2 and 3 has been that because we are buried and raised with Christ in baptism, we are to keep our mind on things in heaven by taking off the Old Man and putting on the New Man which is Jesus Christ. The work that God began in baptism, and often before baptism, is a work that we must participate in by daily taking off the Old Man and putting on the New Man. In verses 8-10 of chapter 3 Paul tells us some ways to take off the Old Man, and in verses 12-17 he tells us some ways to put on the New Man.

This putting on the New Man is nothing less than putting on Jesus Christ Himself by faithfully receiving His grace. By doing these things, therefore, we will be able to keep our mind on things in heaven because by doing them we will in fact by participating the life of Jesus Christ.

It’s a good thing to keep in our hearts at all times Paul’s list of ways to put on Jesus Christ. It should be our practice to regularly meditate on such lists. Here is Paul’s list:

1. compassion and kindness
2. lowliness and meekness
3. longsuffering and forbearing one another
4. forgiving one another
5. love
6. peace
7. giving thanks
8. letting the Word of Christ dwell among you richly
9. teaching and admonishing one another
10. singing with grace in your heart to the Lord

Here is a full course agape feast for the soul. Since the last of these sometimes don’t get as much attention as the first, I’ll spend some time with them.

At the heart of the last 4 of these ways of putting on Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Our faithful response to the Word of God is, in large part, how these other means of putting on Christ will take place in our lives. “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.”

This is to be our starting point: the Word of God. The Word of God is to dwell among us richly. Writing a letter to an entire church, as St. Paul is doing, and remembering his teaching on teaching and church authority from his pastoral letters, we must always remember that our hearing and obeying the Word of God is a corporate task. Hearing and obeying the Word of God happens in the life of the Church. It is not primarily an individual responsibility but a corporate one.

We were called in one body to peace (verse 15), not just as individuals. It might help us to remember as well that in the 1st century, only the local Church as a whole would have had the Bible. Where, then, would the Colossians go to hear the Word of God, to teach and be taught, and to sing spirituals songs that edify? In the Church, of course!

For Christians to put on Jesus Christ, we must faithfully hear the Word of God as an entire Church, not just as random individuals going our own way. Paul assumes that this hearing of the Word is a corporate task because only if we have heard and shared the Word together will be able to teach and admonish one another. If I’m reading the Bible in the privacy of my own home, shunning all other teachers, and then I come to the Church and begin telling people what God has told me, my reception my rightfully be a little icy.

But what if we read the Scriptures together, as both the Jews and the early Christians did? What if we read them together so deeply and wisely that God equipped us by His Spirit to teach and admonish one another? Sadly, I don’t think that happens at many churches. In a lot of churches, even churches that cherish the Word of God, it goes in one ear of Christians and out the other. We don’t really expect that someone would dare to share its wisdom with us.

In other churches, the teaching is all self-directed. I read the Bible myself, determine its meaning myself, and apply it to myself. Such an individualistic way of reading the Bible is not new. It began after the time of the Enlightenment and really even after that, in the nineteenth century when Bibles and literacy were much more widespread.

What if a church really did make every effort to let the Word dwell among them richly? I can’t help but think that there is a parallel between the Word (meaning the Bible) dwelling among us here in Colossians and the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us of (John 1:14.) If we want to put on Jesus Christ, then let His Word dwell richly among you.

If we do this, then Jesus Himself, the Great Teacher and Master, will teach us. By letting the Word of God dwell richly among us, God will give His Son to us and equip us to teach and be taught, to admonish and be admonished. God is not usually in the business of speaking directly to men: instead, He comes most commonly through His Word and through His messengers. And when we hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Word of God together, amazing things begin to happen. Because we learn to hear God’s voice, He teaches us. And when He teaches us, we learn to teach others. And when we teach and admonish others, the work of disciplehip, which is the work of putting on Jesus Christ (a.k.a. “putting on the New Man), is done.

Something else amazing happens. We begin to speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Some commentators believe Paul is referring to the liturgical practices of the early church, and that’s what makes the most sense in this passage, especially given the corporate nature of the Psalms.

But it strikes me that perhaps our lives are to be characterized by an ever-present joy and spontaneous overflowing of thanksgiving that singing is never far from our hearts of lips. Even if such singing doesn’t take the outward form of song, it should be audible in our lives in a thousand other ways. The tender mercy we manifest, the bearing with one another, and the humility we live out should all be done with thanksgiving and singing in our hearts because whenever we do these things in the name of Christ, we are putting Him, the New Man, on.

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, and it will enrich your lives and the lives of the saints. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Prayer: Father, make Your Word dwell in us richly in all wisdom that we may be equipped to teach and admonish one another, sing with grace in our hearts, and do all things in the name of Jesus Christ with thanksgiving. Amen.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: Slowly meditate on each of these ways of putting on Jesus Christ and what each means. Then slowly meditate on how God is calling you to put each into effect in your life. This could be done in one long meditation or would make a great way to have a sustained meditation throughout the day.

© 2009 Fr. Charles Erlandson