Over recent Wednesdays, we have been considering Paul’s exhortations concerning the new lifestyle that God wants his people to adopt. We’ve touched on the themes of new life, forgiveness, peace, wives and husbands, parenting, children, work, and prayer.
Throughout these reflections, we have noted the importance of letting God’s Word and his Spirit teach us and shape our lives for his glory. We are no longer to live for ourselves but in the service of our Lord – looking to encourage and help the isolated and lonely and those who are hurting. Furthermore, we are to look for ways to introduce family and friends to the Lord Jesus.
It is important that we note Jesus’ words in his Sermon on the Mount: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven“(Matthew 5:16).
And in 1 Peter 2:11-12 we read: Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Though Peter speaks of his readers, both slaves and free, as ‘resident aliens’ in this world, their lifestyle can draw others to God’s truth. Abstain from the sinful desires which wage war against your soul, he says.He has in mind our heart’s desires that are out of step with the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount – lies, false-witness, anger, greed, theft, the lustful look, the adulterous relationship – anything that stands against the mind of God.
The way we live – the integrity of our lives, and the quality of our relationships – can open up gospel opportunities.
Paul writes in the same vein in Colossians 4:5: Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Jesus expects us to act wisely and graciously towards people we live and work with in our households and in the wider community.
Furthermore, Paul says: Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt… (Colossians 4:6a). He expects us to cultivate conversations that are kind and gracious but seasoned with salt – a metaphor for sparkling and interesting conversations that are not full of syrup but trigger questions about life. It’s worth working on ways to use news items, opinion columns, and books and films to spark such conversations.
Paul is exhorting us to cultivate the skill of having conversations that are kind and gracious, but that are also seasoned with salt; that is, conversations that are not just insipid and wimpish, but conversations that have a cutting edge. His reference to salt implies a sparkling, interesting, challenging brand of conversation that can lead to conversations about life and, in turn, to the gospel of Christ. Paul suggests that all of us will have opportunities to talk to others about God – his reality and relevance, his amazing love and incredible goodness. Our problem is that we don’t look for them, and if we do, we are afraid to venture into the territory of matters of faith and belief. We fear that we won’t know what to say, that others will ridicule us, that our words won’t work and that all we’ll do is kill associations and friendships.
It’s so important we think about ways we can introduce the subject of faith without being aggressive or offensive – for example, through a brief, casual, passing reference to your faith in everyday conversation. And when someone has raised a personal concern, ask them, ‘Would you like me to pray for you?’
Paul adds a sting in the tail when he writes: Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone (Colossians 4:6). Praying for and looking for opportunities to respond to genuine questions people ask about the nature of faith is something we overlook. It’s important we identify and learn how we might begin to respond to the five or so questions people ask about faith – suffering, science, New Testament authenticity, the resurrection, only one way, and good enough for God. Talk with your minister about this. It’s so important churches develop supportive and effective ways to reach people who do not know what to believe.
Over the (northern) summer you may want to pray and talk with friends at church about ways to introduce ‘God-talk’ naturally and easily into your conversations. Having a genuine interest in others and asking questions is a good way forward. Well-framed questions asked in the context of a normal, natural conversation can prevent the adversarial tone that often develops when spiritual matters are raised.
Can prayer change people – even though they are cynical or outright hostile towards matters of faith?
In Colossians 4:2-4 Paul the Apostle writes: Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word,…
Paul was in prison when he penned this letter. Significantly he doesn’t ask that God open the doors of his prison. Rather he asks that the doors of gospel opportunity might be opened.
Four themes stand out: Consistent prayer; Thanksgiving; ‘Open doors’; and Clarity.
Consistent prayer. Devote yourselves to prayer,… It is easy for us to be so busy with other things that we overlook the importance of prayer. The Acts of the Apostles reveals that the first followers of Jesus Christ were committed to prayer. Indeed, Luke 11:1 tells us that the disciples, observing Jesus’ own practice of prayer, asked him to teach them to pray. He taught them the prayer we know as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’.
It’s important to remember this, especially when our prayer life is dry. Significantly, the first word Jesus tells us to use is, “Father”. True prayer expresses a privileged relationship with the one God who is Lord of heaven and earth. Furthermore, Father implies that God delights to hear from us. He has done everything necessary for us to enjoy a special relationship with him, for he loves us far more than we ever dreamed. And this tells us something else: when we pray, our confidence is not in the act of praying. Rather our confidence is in the One to whom we pray.
That said, the need for Paul’s injunction may have arisen because the Colossians had become apathetic about prayer. They didn’t see its urgency or, like Jesus’ disciples on the eve of his crucifixion, they had gone to sleep instead of praying. Paul urges us not to give up praying. We may not feel that our prayers are being answered, but we mustn’t give up.’ The Bible consistently tells us that God promises to hear and to answer our prayers.
Thanksgiving. Furthermore, Paul twinsprayer and thanksgiving. His words, keep alert in it (prayer) with thanksgiving suggest that to reflect on the way God answers our prayers will evoke within us praise and thanksgiving. Paul exemplifies this in chapter 1 of his Letter where he thanks God for the Colossian Christians. As someone has commented, true prayer can’t exist without praise any more than praise can exist without prayer. The one feeds and fuels the other.
Open Doors. Furthermore, Paul requests prayer for God to open to us a door for the word. People don’t become believers by simply mixing with Christians. It is not something we catch – like the flu! Rather, because it involves a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we need to be introduced to him and this, Paul says, involves the prayer and testimony of others.
So we need to plead for God’s mercy, that he will send his Spirit to open deaf ears and blind eyes, and soften hard hearts. In his conversation with Nicodemus Jesus taught that no-one can enter God’s kingdom unless they are born from above through the work of God’s Spirit (John 3:3).
It’s a prayer we can expect God to answer. Yet, do we ask for God’s mercy towards our family and friends, our city and our nation? We need to remember James’ warning: You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (James 4:2-3).
Clarity. Paul also asks for prayer that wemay declare Christ’s mystery… and reveal itclearly, as I should. Western Christianity has been challenged by postmodernism and its outcomes – the movements dominated by self-interest, political correctness and anti-intellectualism. We should pray that the Lord will open doors of opportunity for us and enable us to speak his truth into our world with clarity.
Will God work our prayers into his plans? In an article, The Efficacy of Prayer, CS Lewis quotes the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal: ‘God instituted prayer in order to allow his creatures the dignity of causality’ The movement of thought in Colossians 4:3-4 assures us that God expects us to talk with him about others. He does include our prayers in his plans. It’s a part of the privileged partnership we enjoy with him. He seems often to wait for our prayers. We then see him act when we pray.
Prayer is a powerful tool, a potent force. Paul urged the Colossians to be steadfast in prayer. He understood that effective outreach begins with persevering prayer. Both Paul and Epaphras, the man who took God’s gospel to Colossae, prayed. Shouldn’t also we?
On recent Wednesdays, I have been asking what practical steps we can take to influence society positively and create opportunities to talk to others about God’s good news. Benjamin Kwashi, the archbishop of Jos in Northern Nigeria writes in the recent book, Reformation Anglicanism, ‘In much of the world today there are churches seemingly everywhere and very many Christians, yet with little positive impact on society’.
As I have said before, there’s something we can do now: we can play our part in our circles of influence – family, friends, and work. Over the last two Wednesdays, I have touched on Paul the Apostle’s words in Colossians 3 about marriage and family. Today we consider what he says about relations at work.
In Colossians 3:22-4:1 we read: Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality.Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
How are we to understand this? The reality is there has been a massive sea-change in the West since the first-century Roman world.
FF Bruce in his commentary on Colossians (Eerdmans: 1984, p.171) is helpful: ‘The household codes (of Colossians and Ephesians) do not give detailed advice for the complexities of modern industrialism… They embody basic and abiding Christian principles, which can be applied in changing social structures from time to time and from place to place’.
Furthermore, he comments: ‘The household codes did not set out to abolish or reshape existing social structures, but to christianize them. As far as slavery was concerned, it took a long time for the essential incompatibility of the institution with the ethic of the gospel, or indeed with the biblical doctrine of creation, to be properly assimilated by the general Christian consciousness’.
What then are the principles we can identify? Wholehearted service. Paul calls for a commitment from the ‘employed’ to do the work they are required to do. Using a word that he may have coined himself (literally, eye-service), he says that God’s people are not just to be people who work when they are observed. Work is to be done whole-heartedly, honestly and with no ulterior motives of self-promotion. God’s people are to work as serving, not so much their humanmasters, but their Master in heaven, the Lord Christ.
Furthermore, Paul notes (v.24), when we work as serving the Lord we will be rewarded with the inheritance of a good relationship with God. Inheritance here is not about earning salvation, but rather the reward of living as a friend of God and knowing that while we may not be rewarded as we deserve in this world, we will receive our due reward in heaven.
William Hendriksen in his Colossians (Banner of Truth: 1962, p.174), observes: ‘This was, accordingly, the most helpful advice anyone could ever have given a slave. Moreover, by means of his wholehearted cooperation with his master, rendering obedience to him in every way, and doing this while his master was fully aware of the fact that the service was being rendered by a Christian, the slave was promoting the cause and honor of his Lord. The master would begin to think, “If the Christian religion does this for slaves, it must be wonderful”’.
Integrity. We also need to keep in mind Paul’s words in v.25 which form a bridge between his words to ‘slaves’ and to ‘masters’ – thus applying to both: For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality. In God’s justice, wrongdoers – be they slaves or masters – will ultimately reap the outcome of any dishonesty. With God, there is no partiality.
We see a second set of principles in 4:1: Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly (literally, that which is just and that which is fair, to the slaves grant), for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
Accountability. God’s people who are masters need to understand that in the same way that those under them are accountable to them, so they too are accountable to the Master in heaven. How true and timeless these words are. Whoever said the Bible is irrelevant?
So, to apply these principles in today’s world, we see that commitment to and responsibility in relationships between employees and employers are an essential part of our Christian living. For God’s people, the balance of selfless and responsible attitudes and actions should be evident in the workplace. Employees are to act responsibly and respectfully toward their employers. Employers are to be totally fair to their employees. When an employer forgets that there is a Lord in heaven, there is the recipe for ill-treated employees.
Wherever we are and whatever we are called to do, we should understand better than anyone else the responsibility, under God, that we have towards others. For we know we have a Lord in heaven.
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.
