Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 3:10-17 (day three)

“There is no distinction between Greek and Jew.”

Okay, then how am I to know who I’m dealing with? Jock, gamer, libertarian, fundamentalist, Unitarian, Asian, woman: Give me something to go on. Paul says, “No, we’re not going to assume things about each other according to those kinds of categories anymore. This is the day of the new human.” And yet, look around at the church in today’s world—our controversies, our disagreements, our expectations of each other. If we won’t understand one another within the church apart from pre-conceived identifiers, how in the world will we ever make a claim to anyone in the wider world that Christ can transform the way a person lives? You want to be a better patriot, a better teacher, a better boyfriend? Get a mentor. But if you want to become new, start over with Christ.

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 3:1-9 (day three)

“You laid aside the old man.”

Sexual preoccupation, revenge-seeking, fixation on material gain, grudge-holding. Might as well face it, you don’t know any other way to live. Even if none of these exact things are your jam, it’s the way things are done around here. And if you should refuse to give in to such vices, it seems you’ve really left yourself vulnerable to the powerful people who’ve learned the ways of the world. But Paul invites you to leave that way of being completely behind. It’s not that you or I have the opportunity to stop doing bad things, but to become, over time, a new kind of human. Not merely a being who does good things in a bad world, but a new kind of being whose life will light the way for those who knew no other way existed.

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 2:16-23 (day three)

“No one is to act as your judge.”

Paul knows what he’s taking about. He left Pharisaism and entered a religious tradition—Christianity—already beleaguered by the most powerful rules humanity has ever known: unwritten rules. And this was a man who was shaping Christianity in its earliest expression. Even he found himself on the receiving end of condemnation by fellow believers. Paul encountered judgmental voices, and so will you. One of the most inviting ways to respond is to adopt the motto “Judge first lest ye be judged.” Is anybody listening to Paul’s words?

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 2:8-15 (day three)

“a circumcision made without hands…”

Modern Westerners get a little squeamish regarding language that refers to the human body. But unless we face forthrightly the practice and place of circumcision in Hebrew civilization, we will have no reference point by which to comprehend the meaning of Paul’s language. The cutting of the male body in this way stood as an irreversible and visible sign that the spiritual realm was making an inroad into the material realm so that the totality of the human person—spirit and mind and body and social context—was now devoted to God. This is why Paul adopts such a metaphor. The church’s irreversible and visible devotion to Christ will be conveyed in human language by nothing less than such a drastic term. The beauty of Paul’s metaphor will trump any polite squeamishness.

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 2:1-7 (day three)

“I am with you in spirit.”

Is this a way of saying, “I’ve got you on my mind” or, “I feel like we’re close” or, “I support you”? For Paul, it wasn’t a metaphor. He understood that for those who live as apprentices of Jesus, space and time will prevent neither intimacy nor the strength and comfort and courage that intimacy produces. Jesus said much the same thing when he told his disciples (and us), “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” The Holy Spirit carries the very presence of Christ as close to us as if he were still present in the flesh. The Holy Spirit will do the same for us with one another. When we think of and pray for brothers and sisters not in proximity, we can begin to experience presence with each other.

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:24-29 (day three)

“I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.”

When we read Paul, we’re reading someone who had become intimately familiar with the vast, unseen side of reality that many people—most, it seems—don’t see, don’t understand, aren’t aware of, or aren’t convinced exists. If one of those descriptions fits you, you’re certainly not alone. If you find yourself doubtful but wanting to know more, skeptical but willing to investigate further, then Paul writes for you. He imagines you as one who grows in your understanding of this unseen realm, coming to know more and more firmly the God who is at the center of it all. If that sounds like something worth turning your life towards, then you know why Paul thought his sufferings were worth it. Good news costs an awful lot to deliver into this world. Read on.

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day three)

“To reconcile to himself all things…”

You’ve never seen the universe in proper working order. And, of course, the universe includes everything—solar systems, family systems, vascular systems. This is why Jesus, the most joyful human being who has ever lived, suffered profoundly during his time among us on this plane of existence. His all-encompassing suffering elicits from Paul no less than an all-encompassing statement of restoration. Some read into this statement a decree that all will be saved, thereby insulting the human race—and its Creator—by regarding us as drones without will or moral agency as bearers of God’s image. But for those who hear Paul’s words as a beautiful hymn of invitation to a life they’ve always wanted, a longing stirs deep within: Could this be the Savior?

Re:Verse passage –Colossians 1:15-19 (day three)

“He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.”

There’s a way to live such that death will not put an end to life. That way is not a narcissistic fountain-of-youth fantasy (which has no basis in reality), but rather an intimate fellowship with one another through forgiveness, generosity, faithfulness, kindness, humility, and sacrifice. Jesus is the one person in all of history who has lived that kind of life. In the future, everyone will live like Jesus. Or, to put it another way, everyone who has life in the age to come will be alive only because he or she has learned the eternal kind of life. This is Paul’s point, that Jesus is the first of his kind, the first human being who lives the eternal kind of life, and the one—the one—who will teach you to live it.

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:9-14 (day three)

“growing in the knowledge of God…”

Knowing is for science, believing is for religion. Is that how you think about reality? We say “faith-based” when we talk about an initiative that springs from a spiritual motivation. We say “evidence-based” when we speak of a practice or program that proceeds from a scientific paradigm. We hold in high regard the stories of “persons of faith” who seemingly are proven right despite what all the “persons of knowledge” have said to the contrary. But does faith trump knowledge? Surely that’s not faith’s trajectory. When, for example, you have received God’s provision for a need, that is one instance in which having faith that God could do something has become knowledge that God is actually capable of doing it. It is possible, then, to grow in spiritual knowledge. This is Paul’s prayer for us.

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:1-8 (day three)

“We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have.”

We moderns tend to translate events into quantifiable data; therefore we might imagine Paul had heard that many had “prayed to receive Christ”. But the witness of the New Testament is that when this new movement generated news, the biggest story wasn’t that people were “walking the aisles”—celebration-worthy though that would be—but rather that forgiveness began to happen, patterns of living began to change, enemies got reconciled, the poor began to be noticed, resources got shared, family wounds began to heal, and people sacrificed their lives for others out of love for Christ. Living in such a way is all but unheard of in this world. When it happens, it is momentous news. Paul’s words give us hope that we can generate such tidings again.