Colossians 3:12-17

“Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if someone happens to have a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others. And to all these virtues add love, which is the perfect bond. Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body to this peace), and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

— ‭‭Colossians‬ ‭3‬:‭12‬-‭17‬‬

 Definitely a self-contained paragraph, but I need to see how this paragraph fits in outline of Colossians. Perhaps that opening phrase, elect of God, is building from an argument in the previous 3 chapters. I know Colossians has a lot about Jesus’ deity/“preeminence”, and Paul is attacking some heresies. This paragraph must fit into that somehow. Sounds similar to Paul’s exhortations elsewhere and even to the Acts 2 church. 

Mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness. Hard characteristics to implement in one’s life. “Clothe yourself”—I’m sure that’s a terrific word study and has parallels in other Pauline works.

This “just as God forgave you” resurfaces throughout NT, and it’s a hard idea to comprehend sometimes. Sounds easy. We like to add caveats and asterisks—and I’m not that dense. Of course, there are seriously traumatic situations where forgiveness would seem impossible. I certainly am not demanding those who hurt others at the deepest level are never given a second thought, but I have seen forgiveness in these circumstances, and it’s stunning. It makes all of our pettiness seem, well, very forgivable.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a church “clothed” with everything in this paragraph fully, but I guess that’s why Paul is instructing even the Colossians to show mercy/kindness/love/forgiveness to each other.

Add love. The perfect bond. We can wrap our minds around love. Sacrificial service, like Christ, even to those we don’t like. Sometimes those other things seem more difficult (at least to me). But perfect harmony with one another comes from these things: others above myself, helping however I can, forgiving, being kind.

V. 16: Once the word of Christ, i.e., the gospel, lives in us, the rest of the verse is all results: teaching, singing, encouraging. These are participles which give the natural consequences of understanding the gospel.

Whatever you do—needs to be understood in this context. In the name of Jesus is not a secret mantra or ritual. It’s the motivation behind our kindness to one another. We carry His name. We do it like we’re doing it to Jesus. If we understood that we have His name on us, much of the disunity, pride, and resentment may slowly fade.

So much gratitude in these verses among ourselves and back to God.