To Live and Act in Love

I began to read from Colossians 3:18 in my daily devotional when I was drawn towards the entire chapter. Col. 3:18 begins with “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Naturally whenever I see verses that have been taken out of context to hurt people in the past, I am always curious as to what came before those verses. So I did a little digging and I would encourage you to take some time and read Colossians 3:1-17 because, in my perspective, it gives some good insight into verses 18-21.

In the first seventeen verses Paul writes to the church in Colossae, modern day Turkey, about how to live our lives. He instructs them how to relinquish all earthly ties and focus on how we are a part of the family and inheritance of Christ. Paul says, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience”12. He then goes on to say in verse 14, “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” He pulls us into how we must lose all things that would separate us, create strife, or argument and remind us to clothe ourselves with the presence of Christ. With humility, meekness, kindness, compassion, patience, and most importantly love.

Now having read all that, we step into verses 18-21 where, more often than not, individuals will have heard or read verses 18 and 20, not 19 and 21. With a verse about women being subject to men, Paul writes quickly about how men should love their wives and never treat them harshly. When he says kids must obey he follows it up with “Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.” Just like in the seventeen verses that come before, Paul is reminding every member of the household how, if we live like Christ in true servanthood and meekness, we can thrive in Christ’s light.

Reading the context of a verse or chapter is always beneficial to our understanding of scripture and how Christ is calling us into community together. Whether that community is within our home, the church, school, work, town, state, or nation. We, as christians, are called into a charity of living that strives for love. Let us then adorn ourselves with the most lavish of Christ’s clothes. To show our neighbors that we are Christian through our drapings of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love. To promote harmony within our families by following Christ’s example and tenderly caring for one another.

Pax et Bonum,
Pastor Tucker, n/OLF