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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
3:5-4:6 Instructions on Living the Christian Life. Based on their death and resurrection with Christ and the hope of a future life with him, Paul encourages the Colossians to continue eliminating sinful behaviors from their lives and cultivating Christian virtues.
3:5-11 Dealing with the Sins of the Past. Paul calls the Colossians to make a decisive break with the sinful tendencies they have carried with them into their Christian lives.
3:5 Put to death. Because believers have died with Christ (2:20; 3:3), they can get rid of sinful practices (Rom. 6:11; 8:13). The language of putting to death indicates that Christians have to take severe measures to conquer sin. Watchfulness and prayerfulness against it will be the first steps (see Matt. 26:41), with self-discipline following (Matt. 5:29-30). Sexual immorality (Gk. porneia) refers to every kind of sexual activity outside of marriage. Five of the items that Paul lists have to do with sexual purity, stressing the importance of bringing this area of life under the control and lordship of Christ. which is idolatry. Greed, sexual sin, and other vices can intrude into one's relationship with God, taking his place as a focus of devotion.
3:6 the wrath of God is coming. In line with the OT prophets, who spoke of the day of the Lord as a time of coming wrath (e.g., Zeph. 1:14-15), Paul reminds the Colossians that God will suddenly intervene in human history and will hold everyone accountable. Those who live evil lives will face final judgment.
3:8 put them all away. Paul lists five more vices (cf. v. 5) that Christians need to get rid of. These five all have a bearing on social relationships among believers.
3:9-10 seeing that you have put off the old self . . . and have put on the new self. (On "self" as a rendering of "man" [ESV footnote], see note on Eph. 4:22.) Paul picks up here what he has said earlier about Christ circumcising Christians by removing "the body of the flesh" (see Col. 2:11). Here he employs the metaphor of "taking off" and "putting on" clothing. The aorist tense of the two participles suggests that it is an event that has already taken place. A qualitative change of identity has already occurred in the lives of believers. It now only remains for them to bring their behavior into line with their new identity (see also Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:24). Being renewed (present tense) indicates that the transformation of Christians is an ongoing process.
3:11 Here there is not Greek and Jew. There are no status distinctions among the new covenant people of God (cf. Gal. 3:28). No one has a special claim on God or is treated with less dignity than any other. Scythian. This was a people group located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. To the Greeks, the Scythians were a violent, uneducated, uncivilized, and altogether inferior people. In contrast to such discrimination and prejudice against other races and cultures, Paul shows that Jesus, who is all, and in all, binds all Christians together in equality, irrespective of such differences.
