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Summary
In today’s episode of the One Spiritual Journey podcast, we dive into Colossians 3 as Paul describes putting away the Old Self and putting on the New Self.
Podcast Transcript
Intro
Hi friend, I’m Brigette Henry. And you’re listening to the One Spiritual Journey podcast where I share stories from my spiritual journey and teach you how to walk closer with God on your spiritual journey. I’m so glad you’re here because that means you want a deeper relationship with God. In Colossians 1:28, Paul says,
“We proclaim Him warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”
And that’s my goal for this ministry: to help present you mature in Christ. So, grab your coffee, or your tea if you’re a tea addict like me, and let’s dive into today’s topic.
Part Two of the Colossians Series
Welcome to Part Three of the Colossians series. If you have not listened to parts one and two yet, I encourage you to go back and listen to them. There’s a lot of different themes and contexts that I talk about in the first two parts of this series, and you’re going to need those today as we go through Colossians 3:1-17.
Again, my goal with this series is to teach you what Paul was teaching the church at Colossae: how to live a life where Christ comes first. So, I want to start with a review of Colossians 2 and then we’ll jump into today’s passage.
Overview of Colossians 2
In Colossians 2, Paul starts by saying he’s struggling for the church, meaning he’s praying for them. He is struggling for them spiritually. He warns them not to be deceived by sound arguments or philosophy and what he calls “empty deceit based on human tradition. Then he explains how God has changed us. He says that we are “filled by Him”, meaning that we are complete in our identity in Christ. And he gives three illustrations to describe our identity in Christ.
The first is circumcision of the heart. Paul doesn’t actually use the word “heart”, but this is a concept that Paul talks about in other letters, and a concept that we find all the way throughout scripture. So he talks about circumcision, and then he talks about the significance of baptism, not as a work for salvation, but as a sign of salvation. And then he reminds the church in Colossae of the gospel. In verse 14 he says,
“He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.“
So he reminds them of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and reminds them who they are in Christ. And then he calls out “ascetic practices” and the “unspiritual mind”. He says, “such people are inflated by empty notions.” He dismisses laws created by man for salvation and says that they are of no value.
A Quick Note
We haven’t talked about this yet, but I wanted to remind you that Paul did not break up his letter into four chapters. The chapters that we have in our Bible were determined later. So, as we’re reading through these sections of Colossians, treat them like one whole letter. Treat the book like one whole letter because that’s how it would have been read to the church at Colossae.
Colossians 3
Last episode was really theology heavy. This one is a little lighter. In Colossians 2, Paul built a theological foundation for Christian living, and now, in Colossians 3, we’re going to talk about what Christian living really looks like. As a reminder, I will be reading in the CSB (Christian Standard Bible), and we are only going through the first 17 verses of chapter 3 today because Paul writes a lot of lists. Part Four of this series, as we go through chapter four, the content won’t be as heavy or as deep. So, we’re going to go through the last part of Colossians 3 during Part Four of this series.
Colossians 3:1-4
Today we’ll just be going through the first 17 verses and I’m going to start with verses 1-4:
“So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
Transition Words
Paul uses the word “so”, and that’s a transition word. Whenever we see a transition word like “therefore” or “so”, we always want to make sure that we look back so we understand the cause and effect that the author is implying here.
So, Paul was just talking about living as if we still belonged to the world. He was talking about submitting to “regulations”, man-made laws about what we can and cannot do.
Christian Liberty
Paul was touching on the idea of Christian liberty a little bit. And if you’re not familiar with that idea, it’s the concept that we have freedom in Christ to basically do whatever we want as long as it is not forbidden in scripture or we are convicted against it by the Holy Spirit inside of us. But, as human beings, there’s always the temptation to create rules for ourselves. And Paul says that those laws that we create for ourselves don’t save us and they don’t “curb self-indulgence”. He says we have freedom from the Law in Christ.
Eternal vs. Temporal Perspective
Now, looking at verses 1-4, what Paul’s really talking about is earthly things vs. the things above. And I like to say it’s eternal vs. temporal perspective. Eternal perspective is concerned with heavenly things, and doesn’t worry about temporary things, earthly things. In verses 3-4, it says,
“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.“
Paul is revisiting that idea of Baptism that we talked about in the last episode. It’s the idea of a spiritual death and eternal life. So, last episode I talked about, in baptism, as we are lowered into the water it’s symbolic of death, and as we are raised up again it’s like being raised to life. Being resurrected, spiritually resurrected.
So, in these four verses, what Paul is saying is we need to put things in perspective and focus on the eternal and stop worrying about all of these earthly things.
Colossians 3:5-9
Paul draws a line in this passage between the Old Self and the New Self. And he describes the Old Self and the results of the Old Self in verses 5-9. It says,
“Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient, and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. But now, put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices…”
So, again, we’re starting with a transition word. It starts with “therefore”, so we need to make sure that we look back and see what’s happening right before verses 5-9. We look back, and Paul says our mind should be focused on eternal things. We died, and our “life is hidden with Christ.” Christ will appear again, and we will be with Him in glory. Therefore, put these things to death. And he gives us this list: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, greed, which is idolatry.
Idolatry
Now let’s talk about idolatry. Throughout scripture, idolatry is considered a chief sin, because all sins are a form of idolatry. It’s looking for hope and comfort in something other than God. That’s idolatry. And so, this list, all of it, is idolatry.
I’m currently studying Revelation and idolatry is a constant theme in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 7, the 12 tribes of Israel are listed, but Dan and Ephraim are excluded. And scholars believe it’s because of their idolatry. In Judges 18, there’s a description of the tribe of Dan and how they turned to idol worship. And in 1 Kings 12, the people of Ephraim followed Jeroboam and worshiped idols. And so scholars believe the reason why they are not mentioned as part of the 12 tribes of Israel in Revelation 7 is because of their idolatry.
In Revelation 13, we have the two beasts: the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth. And it talks about worshiping the beast, and the mark of the beast. In Revelations 14 it says those who receive the mark of the beast will “drink the wine of God’s wrath.” And that’s so interesting to me because that’s so close to what it says in Colossians 3:6, where it says,
“Because of these, God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient.“
Because of that idolatry, “God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient”. The narrative has not changed. All throughout scripture, we are called to put off the Old Self, and put on the New Self. God is calling us to be changed from the inside out because of Christ.
“You Once Walked in These Things”
In verse 7 it says, “you once walked in these things.” This verse is so interesting to me because I think most of us would look at that list and say, I haven’t walked in sexual immorality or impurity or evil desire or even greed. But the reality is, in some ways, we have. We have walked in idolatry in some way, shape, or form, and God is asking us to put that off and put on the New Self, where we worship God for Who He is and what He has done for us.
“Lesser Sins”
In verses 8-9, it says that we should put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language and lying. This list is different than the first list that Paul gave us. And I think that we would call these “lesser sins”. I think we would count things like sexual immorality and greed and evil desire as “bigger sins” than anger or wrath or slander. But there’s a few things we need to understand about these lesser sins. They are like a gateway to the “bigger sins”.
God sees all sin as equal because all sin mars us. But there are “levels” of sin, I guess you could say. And Satan wants us to think that these “lesser sins” aren’t as serious, so they’re OK. But the reality is, they have serious implications because of the direction they lead us. When we catch ourselves in these “lesser sins”, it’s an opportunity for us to repent before our heart gets even farther away from God. It sounds like the Colossian church got rid of the first list, but not the second. And I think, often, we will do the same thing. We’ll get rid of the “big” sins, but we’ll keep some of those “lesser sins” around like filthy language or anger or slander or lying, like little white lies. And we do that because we think these things are OK, but Paul is saying, they’re not OK.
The Things We Say
The Enduring Word Commentary points out that all of the things mentioned in this second list can be related to what we say – anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language and lying – all related to what we say. The commentary compares this list to James 1:26 which says,
“If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself.”
There’s this idea of “bridling the tongue”, because sometimes, as Christians, our tongue is our sharpest weapon. And we need to be very careful about the things that we say.
Colossians 3:10-11
Now Paul transitions to talking about putting on the new man. Verse 10 starts in the middle of a sentence so it’s a little awkward but it says,
“and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”
Let’s start with verse 10. It says, “you are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of you Creator.” We are learning to see things the way He sees them. Let’s look back for a minute; we are learning to have an eternal perspective. Through Christ, we can see things through an eternal perspective.
In verse 11 it says, “in Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”
The early church broke barriers by allowing people of different ethnicities, social classes, financial situations and genders to live together in harmony and in unity with each other. To count each other as equally valued by God. Because our value comes from God, not earthly things. Again, we’re looking at that eternal vs. temporal perspective.
Galatians 3:28
Now, I want to just address this really quick. This is very similar to another verse that may be familiar to you and that’s Galatians 3:28 where Paul says,
“There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.“
In this verse in Galatians, Paul is saying the exact same thing. He’s saying, God values us all the same, and we should value each other, because we are all made in the image of God. And I want to remind you: everyone is made in the image of God. We are not all children of God, because that is dependent on whether or not we accept the free gift of salvation. But we are all made in the image of God.
Our Roles Don’t Change
This verse is used a lot to justify erasing gender or changing your own gender, but that interpretation is not supported by the context. And that’s why I wanted to bring Galatians 3:28 in here to clarify this verse, because it’s so similar to the verse we see in Colossians.
I also want to clarify that this verse doesn’t erase roles between genders or the roles of a slave or a free person, or that Jews and Greeks have to act like each other culturally. God made women for one role and men for another, and as we continue throughout Colossians, you’ll also see that Paul instructs slaves to obey their masters. Paul was not eliminating all of these roles, he is just communicating that God values us all the same and we should value each other.
This is a completely countercultural idea, that our value comes from God. It was then and it is now. But our identity and our value comes from God and the fact that we are made in His image.
Colossians 3:12-15
Now, verses 12-15 say,
“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful.”
So, if you’re not familiar with Paul’s letters, Paul is great at run-on sentences and just adding more in. And back then, letters were transcribed, meaning you had someone else write the letter for you. Can you imagine the person that was writing these letters for Paul? I mean, it would just be very difficult to follow him.
Put On…
But Paul starts by telling us who we are. He says three things: we are chosen, we are holy, and we are dearly loved. And then he gives us seven things that we need to put on. He tells us we need to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. Now let’s compare this list to the list Paul said to put away. Paul said to put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language and lying.
Significance of 6 and 7
There’s an irony of numbers here. I don’t know that Paul did this intentionally. But there are 7 things he tells us to put on and there are 6 things he tells us to put away. The number 7 is symbolic of divine completeness and the number 6 is symbolic of humanity and rebellion. I think it’s really interesting that the list of things to put on has 7 and the list of things to put away has 6.
A lot of these things speak for themselves. I think this list is an excellent opportunity for self-reflection. Like just sit down and look at these two lists and say, which one do I look like? Some days I look more like one list and some days I look more like the other. This is an excellent opportunity for self reflection and I encourage you to look at these two lists and ask yourself, which one do you look more like and how can you look more like the list of things that Paul tells us to put on?
It is also interesting that Paul says that we have to put away the first list before we put on the other. There’s an order to this. Sometimes I think we try to put on without putting away. We don’t get rid of things like anger and wrath and malice, and then we struggling being kind, and compassionate, and humble.
Put on Love
In verse 14 Paul says, “above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” So, I have this sign in my playroom that says, “in this house we laugh a lot, we try our best, we are patient most of the time…” you know, it’s one of those kinds of signs. But the last thing that it says is, “but above all, we love.” And the reason why I bought the sign is because of this verse. Paul gives us the huge list, this list of 7 things that we are supposed to put on, and then he says, “but above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
This verse reminded me of a few other verses, like 1 Peter 4:8 which says,
“love covers a multitude of sins.“
In 1 John 4:19, it says,
“We love because he first loved us.“
Including Paul, that’s three different disciples of Christ that emphasize love. We struggle to understand what love really is, but if we look at Christ, He shows us what love really looks like. And He calls us to love others the way that He loves.
Unity in the Church
Paul also mentions unity in this verse. And this takes us back to Colossians 2:2 when it says, “I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love.” I mentioned that phrase, “joined together in love”, is a reference to unity. It means he wants the church to be unified. Paul is very concerned with the unity of the church. And I think if we think about how different denominations and church groups work together, and don’t work together, we can understand why unity is so important to Paul.
And even here, just like Colossians 2:2, Paul again lumps love and unity together. There is so much unrest between churches and denominations. And that’s because of a lack of love for each other. Paul emphasizes love among believes because he realizes we need to love each other. Sometimes it’s easier to love people outside of the church than it is to love people that are in a different church.
I have lived in areas where the churches serve together. Where each church recognizes that they have different gifts, but they are all part of the same body, and so each individual church body serves the community in a different way. And each of those churches communicates with each other to make sure that all of the needs of the community are being served by the body of Christ in that area. Even if those gifts and that serving comes from different churches. And it is a beautiful thing. God desires that kind of unity among believers. That doesn’t mean that we have to agree on everything, but He is still calling for unity and love even if we don’t agree.
Peace and Gratitude
Verse 15 says, “And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful.” Paul just keeps adding things on. He loves the word “and”! I like this quote by F.B. Meyer in the Enduring Word Commentary. It says that the Greek word for “rule” means “arbitrate”:
“Whenever there is a doubtful issue to be decided and by one course your peace may be disturbed, whilst by another it may be maintained, choose the things that make for peace, whether for yourselves or for others.”
Now, he is not saying that we should embrace sin to keep peace. But sometimes between two parties there are disagreements and Paul says, choose the way of peace!
I find this interesting that Paul mentioned this right after he talked about unity in the churches. He is reminding them that they need to choose peace with each other. And then he says, “and be thankful.” We talked about gratitude in the book of Colossians in the previous episode, and I’ll talk about it a little bit more in a minute, but right now I just want to point out that Paul mentions “gratitude” three times between verses 15-17. I think Paul takes gratitude very seriously, and considering how often he was beaten and thrown in jail and under house arrest and questioned for his faith, I think we need to respect and appreciate his perspective on gratitude. There’s clearly something there.
Colossians 3:16-17
Alright, we’ve made it to the last two verses, verses 16-17:
“Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Let the Word of Christ Dwell Richly Among You
So in verse 16 there are three things that Paul instructs the church at Colossae to do. Number one, he says, “let the word of Christ dwell richly among you.” This kind of has a double meaning. I’m not sure if Paul intended that. But “word” refers to Christ, like in John 1 it says,
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
It’s talking about Christ. And “word” also refers to the “word of God”, the Bible or the things that Christ shared while He was on earth. So it kind of has a double meaning there when it says, “let the word of Christ dwell richly among you”, it can be referring to the “word” that Christ gave us, meaning the lessons and the teaching that God gave us through Christ. Or, it can mean Christ living in you. As I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast episode, in Colossians 2 it says that we are “filled by Him”, filled by Christ, and that makes us complete. So not only do we have the word of God and the teachings of God, but we also have Christ Himself living in us.
It also says “dwell richly” here and that is not a passive thing. We should be dwelling on the truth of Christ so deeply, so richly that it changes us from the inside out. That it compels us to put away the Old Self and put on the New Self.
Teaching and Admonishing One Another in All Wisdom
The second thing it says is:
“in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another.”
Now, in the ESV, this is written a little differently so it’s easier to see these three points. And it words it like “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” So basically, as a result of Christ and His word dwelling in us, we should teach and admonish one another with wisdom. We get that wisdom through Christ and His word. And because Christ and His word dwell in us, when they dwell richly in us, it will compel us to teach and admonish one another.
Worshiping with Gratitude in Your Hearts
And number three, Paul goes on and says,
“through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs…with gratitude in your hearts.”
The Enduring Word Commentary suggests that this refers to something like spontaneous worship. Basically, because we have Christ and His word dwelling richly in us, that will compel us to teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and also to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts. It is because He has changed us from the inside out that we feel compelled to worship Him. And Paul adds at the end there, there is “gratitude in (our) hearts.” When Christ and His word dwell richly in us, we have gratitude in our hearts. We’re going to talk about that more in a minute.
Embracing Gratitude
Verse 17 says, “and whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” This verse is pretty straight forward: everything we do should be in Christ’s name. It should be a reflection of Christ in us and it should bring glory to Him. That means when we’re cleaning up cheerios, or doing the dishes, or giving our neighbor a ride last minute, all of those things should be done with gratitude in our hearts. In all these things, gratitude and giving thanks.
From Thanksgiving to Christmas
So, as I’m recording this we just left Fall behind, and Thanksgiving was yesterday. So we’re leaving the Thanksgiving season behind us. And I’ve seen a lot of things on social media about carrying a gratitude practice and the scientific evidence that a gratitude practice really changes your mindset. In particular, I saw something about how a study was done where people wrote a list of like, ten things they were grateful for once a week, and the change in the mental health of those people was so dramatic. Even just writing that list once a week. Just ten things once a week.
But I think as we move on into the Christmas season that can get really difficult because we get really busy. And business crowds out the voice of Christ in us and keeps us from feeling gratitude. Like I mentioned before, Paul had a lot to say about gratitude. The fact that Paul keeps coming back to this idea of gratitude, that means something. And that’s significant. So as we move into the Christmas season, or whenever you’re listening to this, I want to encourage you to consider a gratitude practice because it really does change your mindset. And it helps you to live out the reflection of Christ in you.
Conclusion
So that is it for Colossians 3:1-17; I feel like I talked really fast, but there was a lot to go through today. I will be back in two weeks to finish off Colossians before taking a break for the holiday season. I hope that this letter from Paul is showing you how Christ can change us from the inside out if we allow Him to change us. And I am praying that, in this season, as you’re listening to this, that God will help you to put away the Old Self and to put on the New Self so that you can be a true reflection of Christ in you.
Outro
Thanks for joining me today! If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like, follow, and comment so I can help women become mature in Christ. A few things before I go:
First, I would love if you prayed for me, my ministry and the women I impact whenever you get a chance. And if you need some help, I have prayers on my website you can pray over each of those things.
You can find links to the resources I mentioned today in the show notes. If anything is missing, or if you have any questions, please email me at brigette@brigettehenry.com. My name is spelled differently, so you can also find that email link in the show notes.
If we haven’t connected yet, let’s connect! You can follow me on Instagram for encouragement and to see the behind-the-scenes of my spiritual journey. I also have a weekly email newsletter if you would like to get updates on new podcast episodes, access to my freebie library, and more! You can find links to all those things in the show notes.
Lastly, if you are located near Northeast Ohio, I’m working to establish myself as a speaker. If your church has any upcoming women’s events, I would love to be your speaker! You can contact me through the link in the show notes.
Thanks for listening to One Spiritual Journey. I hope to hear from you soon! Bye!
Links
Things I Mentioned Today:
Enduring Word Commentary: https://enduringword.com/
F.B. Meyer’s Our Daily Homily: https://enduringword.com/downloads/our-daily-homily-vol-1/
English Standard Version (ESV): https://www.esv.org/
Connect With Me:
Contact me: brigette@brigettehenry.com
Follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/onespiritualjourney
Join my mailing list: https://brigettehenry.com/subscribe
Other Fun Links:
Visit my website: https://brigettehenry.com
Freebie Library: https://brigettehenry.com/freebies
Subscribe for Access to the Freebie Library: https://brigettehenry.com/subscribe
Self-Care Worksheet: https://brigettehenry.com/freebies
The RENEW Study: https://brigettehenry.com/freebies
Notes:
Music by AudioCoffee via Pixabay
All scripture is CSB unless otherwise noted.
All Greek word definitions come from Strong’s Definitions. You can get access to this resource and more at blueletterbible.org.
Find the transcript for this episode at: https://brigettehenry.com/colossians-series-the-old-self-to-the-new-self-colossians-3
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