Most of us long for a better world – a safer, happier and fairer world. But the question us, ‘How do we get there?’ Most people see a solution in politics or economics: change the leaders; fix the political and economic systems, the courts and the schools, and the world will be a far better place.
But will it? History is replete with the theories and experiences of various political and economic ideas. Capitalists and communists, monarchists and republicans, insist that their way will create a better world. But history shows that whatever the system, there’s still fraud, injustice, poverty, pillaging, sexual harassment, violence, greed, and war. The systems may change, the faces may come and go, but the scene remains much the same.
The problem is us. What makes the world a valley of tears is not the system, but people behaving in foolish and selfish, insensitive and brutal ways.
So what practical steps can we take to make the world better? Should we get active in politics, in the schools, in industry or in the courts? By all means, yes. But there’s something we can all do immediately: we can play our part in a circle of influence that is open to us all –family. This is one of the implications of Paul’s subject in Colossians 3:20-21.
There we read: Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. Parents, (literally fathers), do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.
In speaking of obedience in everything Paul has in mind a professing Christian family. He is not saying that children must obey their parents when there is conflict with the law of Christ. Paul expects Christian parents to know and practice God’s commandments and Jesus’ teaching. The relationship between parents and children is not simply a matter of kinship but is a relationship framed by God’s law of love and grounded in God’s truth.
As children grow up they are to come to understand the God-given authority of their parents. It is something they learn as they see the way their parents treat one another and live their own lives, teaching about and exemplifying their own relationship with God. Where parents forget that there is a Lord in heaven to whom they are accountable, there is the recipe for spoilt, neglected or ungovernable children.
Indeed, as Dick Lucas observes in his exposition of Colossians (IVP: 1980, p.162), ‘disobedient children are one of the more disagreeable and alarming signs of decay in a Christian culture. It means that biblical sanity is on the way out, and it is particularly distressing when it is propagated in the name of kindness and progress’.
At the same time, we must notice Paul’s injunction that parents are neither to tease and exasperate their children nor give way to their every whim. Rather, they need to treat their children with love and care, commitment and sensitivity, respecting their individuality but curbing their attempts to reject authority.
That said, Paul’s injunction that children are to obey their parents is not a life-long rule. The Fifth Commandment instructs God’s people to honor their parents. Obedience is enjoined during the growing years.
The first four of the Old Testament commandments address the question of our relationship with him. The second six address the relationships of neighbour love. It may surprise us to see that the first of the second set is about the relationship with parents. We might have expected the fifth to address our duty to the State – either to the Head of State or Prime Minister. But this is not the case. The first command concerning neighbor love involves our relationship to parents – to honor them.
From God’s perspective, the family needs to be at the heart of our human relationships. Loyalty to family comes second only to our relationship with God. Many who have had bad family experiences will feel uncomfortable at this, perhaps wanting to deny any responsibility to family. But whatever we may feel, we see throughout the Scriptures that God treats family seriously. Marriage and family are not a stage in the evolutionary development of society.
There are those who consider that human society is evolving from a primitive beginning to some future ideal. The Bible has a different view: it sees humanity as having fallen from an original ideal and being in danger of progressing to a future disaster. Jesus implies that family order is important for the wellbeing of society.
Dick Lucas observes that ‘home, not church’, is where children learn to serve God. He further comments that ‘in the Bible spoilt children rarely learn to serve the Lord’ (ibid, p.163). It is in the home that the foundations of future Christian service are laid.
None us can perfectly live out these words. However, God through the very grace that rescued us from our slavery to self, continues to work within us, changing us from one degree of glory to another, and giving us the inner resolve and power we so much need. And I suggest as this happens we will see others being drawn afresh to Christ, for people everywhere are searching for the truth which is found in Jesus Christ alone.
People generally know that a life-long marriage is good; but everyone agrees that marriage takes commitment and work. Writing in the London Times on July 18, 2012, Janice Turner commented: Marriage is gruelingly hard, astonishing, a feat of endurance.
So what advice does the New Testament offer on the subject of love and marriage? It’s worth exploring words that today are simply dismissed. In Colossians 3:18-19 Paul the Apostle writes: Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not treat them harshly.
In too many cultures women have been exploited and treated as chattels – especially by their husbands. In contrast, a striking feature about Jesus of Nazareth is that he treated women with courtesy and respect.
Furthermore, we can note that Paul himself wrote that there is no division between men and women – both are equal before God. In Galatians 3:28 he writes: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Consistently the Bible affirms the equality and dignity of womanhood alongside men.
The qualifying words to wives, as is fitting in the Lord, point to a deeper truth about the marriage relationship that is found in the nature of God who is one, yet three persons. Furthermore, the three persons of the Trinity are identical in being: each of the three is wholly and fully God. No one person of the Trinity has a higher or lesser status than the others.
That said, each of the three is different from the other. For example, God the Son chose to draw into himself human nature – something that is not true for God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. Furthermore there is an order of movement (Greek: taxis) between the three Persons. This is not about rank or hierarchy, but about the way they operate with respect to one another. The Father sends the Son; the Son does not send the Father. Furthermore, the Son’s actions are voluntary: he delights in doing the Father’s will. This doesn’t mean that there is no conversation before a decision is made. The way Genesis 1:26 speaks of the creation of men and women, “Let us make humankind in our image…” points to a pre-cosmic conversation.
A clearer understanding of the Trinity helps us to appreciate the richness of Paul’s words about the ‘order’ of a marriage relationship. Indeed we begin to see how tightly wrought are Paul’s words to wives and husbands, and to husbands and wives in Colossians 3:18 and 19. The two commands must be taken together.
He is therefore not saying that wives are to submit to abuse or be marital doormats – people who take what is handed out to them and who speak only when spoken to. He is not saying that wives are to be weak or to see themselves as inferior. Jesus was not weak when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Father,… not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). In contemporary English, deference captures the essence of Paul’s, submit.
Yes, this is counter to our culture’s thinking and practice. But notice that Paul’s tougher word is to husbands: Husbands love your wives and do not treat them harshly.
Having enjoined wives to show deference to their husbands, Paul does not say, ‘and men, you rule’. Husbands are not told to control their wives let alone exercise dominion over them. They are told to love. And here again, our Western world has been led astray.
Our one English word love is used to translate four Greek words – one of them being eros, from which we get our word ‘erotic’. It is a word associated with intense emotional feeling. Yet neither Paul nor the New Testament uses this word to speak of marriage. Rather, we find a very different word — agape. There are no rapturous, mystical experiences associated with it. It is the same word the New Testament uses to speak of God’s costly sacrificial love for us.
Eros is a word of self-gratification – a demanding, craving love, a love that demands a lover. Agape is a word of self-forgetfulness. It is a generous, altruistic sacrificial love, more interested in the welfare of the one who is loved. Eros wants to take. Agape wants to serve.
When Paul speaks of a husband’s love in Colossians 3:19, he is writing of a love that is committed to serving the very best interests of the loved one. This doesn’t mean he’s called on to serve his wife’s selfish whims but rather her deepest needs.
When we have a better understanding of God our lives and relationships are enriched. How much are we dependent on God’s written self-revelation for our better appreciation of him and his ways. And, fallen human beings that we are, how much we need to ask for his grace of forgiveness and strength joyfully to follow his commands.
‘Peace’ is a word that goes to the heart of the Christian message. It’s something we all long for, yet it is one thing the world does not have. Everywhere we go there are tensions, injustices, and conflicts.
In fact today, April 25, Australia remembers the sacrifice of tens of thousands of Australians who died in war. A special focus this year is on April 25, 1918, the start of the turning point on the Western front with the liberating of the French village, Villers-Bretonneux under the command of the Australian, Lt.-General Sir John Monash. ‘The Great War’ as it was called, was said to be the war that would end all wars!
Yet daily we learn of appalling atrocities perpetrated in Syria and Yemen to name just two places. Wars subvert people’s trust in the existence of a good and loving God.
It is significant that in Colossians 3:15 Paul writes: …Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.
He echoes Jesus’ words to his followers on the night of his arrest: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
Yet tragically, disagreement and division plague many churches.
In Colossians 3:12 Paul sets out personal attitudes to adopt: As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, he writes, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Instead of indifference we need to work at compassion and kindness; instead of pride, humility and gentleness; instead of impatience and resentment, patience.
And, he continues: 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, that binds everything together in perfect harmony (Colossians 3:13-14).
Here are ways we should be different from the wider society. In our relationships heaven’s values should begin to prevail – love and mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. God expects us to show grace.
Paul also sets out an action plan for changing our attitudes and relationships. In 3:16 he says: 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.
Keeping the peace doesn’t mean simply sweeping our differences under the carpet. That is not what Paul means. We need opportunities to speak our minds to one another. And he tells us, that the way we do it is by coming to the Bible together. Rather than giving one another a piece of our own mind we can bring our disagreements to God’s Word and to his mind. There is no place for strong-willed, aggressive, individuals insisting on their way. We need to let God’s Word and the principles of his Word do the directing.
Furthermore, we are to do this with all wisdom. Our Bible reading is not to be uniformed and subjective. All of us are expected to work at understanding the Scriptures and therefore to speak to one another with sensitivity and tact. The Bible is key to peaceful relationships.
And, Paul says: With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. We tend to think of Christian hymns only as songs of praise to God. Paul is suggesting another purpose: instruction and exhortation. We do not have to address God every time we sing in church. We also speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Here is a reason we need congregational singing where we can hear one another sing songs that are grounded in a rich understanding of the Scriptures. It gives us a taste of heaven.
And something else needed: we need to be grateful to God. Whatever you do, Paul writes, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (3:17).
Nothing brings about tension and division more than a discontented, ungrateful spirit. To be thankful is to trust God in every situation, no matter how difficult or challenging. Paradoxically, when we are thankful to God, we will discover joy and contentment. Indeed, where God’s people are thankful to the Lord, we will find people who are at peace with one another.
Here then are some clues as to how we can begin to show those around us where to find peace.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts – in our attitudes to one another, and in practical action. So let’s remember that because the Lord has forgiven us, we must forgive. And let’s remember Jesus’ words: “Love one another as I have loved you” – and so keep the peace.
In his article, ‘Choosing My Religion’ in The Weekend Australian Magazine (April 14-15, 2018), Bernard Salt says that while he had ‘a deeply religious (Catholic) upbringing, my faith lapsed in my 20s’.
That said, he goes on to observe: ‘Christianity is connected with so much of humanity over two millennia because of its central tenets. The idea of forgiveness is both bold and powerful; it takes courage to forgive, and it cultivates the positive qualities of the human spirit. Without forgiveness there is vengeance and anger. Don’t get me wrong: I think there are times when it is entirely appropriate to show anger. Vengeance I’m not so sure about …’
Further, he comments: ‘In our increasingly godless society, I wonder whether in casting off what I see as the far-fetched bits of religious belief systems we aren’t also losing those bits that over time have made a proven contribution to the quality of human life. A community that practises forgiveness is stronger than one that never forgives. Anger taken to the grave achieves nothing; it is forgiveness that cultivates love and humility’.
While Bernard Salt’s observations are helpful, his solution that we draw the best from all faiths to ‘create an even better society for the future’ is at best only partial. In the uncharted waters of new values we are creating, apart from ‘forgiveness’ what other values should we include in, say the top ten? Furthermore, and this is more telling, where will humanity find the inner resources to implement such values? We don’t even live up to our own New Year’s resolutions.
In this kind of discussion we need to pause and ask ourselves afresh, and others too, what we know about Jesus. For example, on one occasion one of his close followers, Philip, said to him: “Lord show us the Father…” (John 14:9). To which Jesus responded, “He who has seen me has seen the Father…” Popular thinking concludes that Jesus is the ultimate good guy, or one of history’s great teachers, but neither comes near what Jesus said to Philip. He is saying that he is not just God’s emissary or ambassador, but God himself. He was claiming to be God in our shoes.
One of the striking things about Christianity is that it is grounded in history. The Gospel writers insist that Jesus of Nazareth not only lived but is unique. He is not just a prophet, he is more than a prophet. He is not just a man, but God’s Messiah who came to serve us by providing the means whereby God could forgive us.
Forgiven. In leaving God out of the equation of life, we omit the starting and the end points of the whole notion of forgiveness. In his great penitential psalm King David cried out to God: “Against you only have I sinned…” (Psalm 51:4). As Derek Kidner in his helpful commentary, Psalms, observes: ‘Sin can be against oneself and against one’s neighbour but the flouting of God is always the length and breadth of it, … Our bodies are not our own; and our neighbors are made in God’s image’ (p.190).
In Colossians 3:13 Paul the Apostle writes: Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. God has every reason to be angry with us: we are sinners, we flout his law, and we ignore him. But what did he do? Having sent his only Son to die the death we deserve, he offers full and free pardon to anyone who turns to Jesus Christ in true repentance and faith. So Paul exhorts: ‘If God has forgiven you, shouldn’t you also be prepared to forgive those who have wronged you?
Here we have a response to Bernard Salt’s concluding comments where he writes: ‘… I am troubled by what I see as the evolution of an increasingly harsh – vengeful, even – society, especially when dealing with perceived transgressors. Justice of course must be served and must be seen to be served but society should not be above forgiveness…’
Forgiving. Christianity offers us God’s full and free forgiveness, and with it the motivation we need to forgive one another: Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.
Furthermore, taking us beyond the limits of human wisdom, God gives us the framework to achieve this – the way of love. Put on love which binds you all together, Paul writes.
Love. He knows how easy it is for us to be angry and bitter. He is aware of the destructive effect of wounded feelings. But he also knows of the one force that can heal and enable us to grow into maturity – love. Love is patient and kind he writes in 1 Corinthians 13. Lovedoes not insist on its own way; itis not irritable or resentful. Rather, love bears all things, endures all things, and hopes all things (1 Cor. 13:4-7). We need God’s love at work within us to forgive. Knowing we are forgiven, we will be forgiving.
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” So wrote the noted 20th-century science fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein.
He anticipated the thinking that has become commonplace in Western Society. Like Caligula in Albert Camus’ play of the same name, freedom has come to mean the absence of self-restraint.
A good question to ask is whether Caligula was really free? A careful reading of Camus’ play reveals Camus’ doubts about this. In the closing scene, we find Caligula saying, as he looks in a mirror: “I have chosen a wrong path, a path that leads to nothing. My freedom isn’t the right one…”
Properly understood, freedom is choosing to submit to good and wise constraints.
It is essential that we know in our minds and hearts that Christianity does not begin with rules. Rather it begins with a new life made possible by Christ Jesus. In Colossians 1:13 we learn that God is committed to rescuing us from this present world of darkness and sin, and giving us a new life in the new world where his Son is king.
In Colossians 3:1-4 Paul frames our new life with specific exhortations – on a vertical axis: If then you have been raised with Christ, set your minds on the things above; and on a time axis: For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Paul urges us to let the light of our resurrection state fall on every aspect of life— our priorities and goals, our words and actions, and our attitudes. Everything is to reflect our new identity.
‘Let this new life of ours be the governing principle’, he is saying. ‘Everything in our old world will die. But in Christ, we are now linked to a new existence on the other side of the grave. In one sense we’re in heaven already. If our physical body packed up now, we wouldn’t cease to exist.
It makes a great deal of sense therefore that we start living as members of the new age to which we belong. It’s logical that we should adopt a new lifestyle.
All the dos and don’ts that follow on in Colossians 3 flow logically from this. Since we have entered a new kingdom, we should …Put to death therefore what belongs to our earthly nature…
This is so different from the legalism Paul writes about in Colossians 2. The legalism he rejects is this: ‘Here is a list of rules, obey them, and one way or another you’ll maneuver yourself into God’s presence’.
Instead, he is saying, ‘Since you have been transferred into God’s kingdom, live accordingly’.
Let me identify three themes that Paul addresses – sexuality, the tongue, and relationships.
First, Put to death… what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ‘If you say you are one of God’s people’, Paul says, ‘sex outside of marriage is not on’. People sometimes say they are ‘making love’. Rather, Paul is saying that it is ‘self-gratification’ – hence his reference to greed.
Second, Paul speaks about the tongue. 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 (Colossians 3:8-10).
To us it seems strange that Paul speaks about controlling the tongue in the same context as controlling sexual appetites. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk are so much part of everyday language that it seems incongruous for them to be put alongside sins of the flesh. We forget that Jesus taught that angry words are the same as murder.
Indeed, James says that the tongue is a restless evil (James 3:8). Malice, obscenity, and rage cause damage. ‘Therefore’, says Paul, ‘put off this old self. It isn’t consistent with our new nature’.
Sometimes people say that to be interesting and attractive we need to be a little sinful. But that is to forget Jesus: he was hardly aloof and boring. He was man as man was meant to be.
Third, relationships:In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! (Colossians 3:11).
People today cry out for the breaking down of barriers that divide – be they race or religion or whatever. Most of us long for a world without antagonism, without need, and without loneliness – a world where there is genuine love.
Churches ought to aim at being such a society. That is the way of God’s new world.
Indeed, one of the purposes of ‘church’ is to set up a signpost to that other universe. So the world can see and wonder. We ought to be a microcosm, pointing beyond this age, this world, to heaven. Rule-keeping won’t achieve this. Lives that are being set free and changed by God’s truth, will.
