January 5: Colossians 3

Lists. Lists are some of the most dangerous things in Scripture, as far as our attention span is concerned. One noun follows another, separated only by a comma, getting across a point by arithmetic rather than by argument or illustration. Colossians 3 is full of lists. Lists of things we ought to repent of. Lists of things we ought to be doing. There's even a list of social roles and how the Christian in each role ought to behave.

My temptation is to brush over the lists. I've heard all this before after all: same old Christian stuff. But I think that 1) the lists in this chapter are founded upon something thrilling, and 2) that something thrilling should keep us from glossing over all the dos and don'ts.

That something thrilling is the fact that you and me—if we're in Christ—we're dead. Paul says so: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (3:3). There is no life left in us. We were "buried with [Christ] in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead" (2:12).

That's why we can't gloss over the dos and don'ts. Since we already died to who we were apart from Christ, there can't be anything alive in us but Christ. Paul exhorts us to "put to death" what is earthly in us (3:5), because we are no more under the power of earthly sins than the population of the local cemetery. In Christ, that person you once were who was a slave to sin is currently coffin dwelling.

So, since my sin prone self is six feet under, the "do" God is drawing my attention to today is patience (3:12). There are dozens of other exhortations here that he may be calling your attention to, but he's reminding me right now that patience is his call on me in Christ. I am not patient by nature, but this passage reminds me that my impatient self is dead and buried. I need to be who God has made me in Christ by grace; today that means being patient.