Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

I’ve decided to stop putting the series title in the title of these posts. There’s no real need to continue that.

After my last couple of posts, this is all probably beginning to sound like a lot of legalistic jargon. “Put off this” and “don’t do this…” are probably ringing in your ears (or eyes, since you’re reading this right now). But don’t worry, now we’re on to the reason behind all of this: Jesus! Like I said at the beginning of this series, this passage of Scripture is all about Jesus. It tells us the proper response to the salvation that He has graciously given us.

By the way, if you want to study this topic of putting on the new self a bit more, I recommend reading Ephesians 4:17-32. It’s somewhat different from Colossians 3:1-17, but it’s also incredibly similar.

Now we’re on verses 9-11: “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

So I’m going to skip over the part about not lying to each other for a moment. For one, it’s pretty clear what that means: don’t lie to each other. You can’t get any clearer than that. But also, I think it has a reason that it fits into this passage and particularly this sentence, so I’m gonna get back to it in the next post. As for putting off the old self…well, once again, I’ve already gone through that quite a bit.

So after we’ve taken off the old self, we put on the new self! What is this new self? We’re gonna get into that in this and the next several posts (yes, there are more to come, please bear with me). One thing you’ve probably already inferred is that it’s not everything else I’ve talked about: sexually immoral, angry, and hateful. Sounds like a vast majority of the world, right?

But what’s the first thing that we learn about the new self? It “is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” Notice a few things about that sentence.

One, it hasn’t “been renewed.” It is “being renewed.” It’s an ongoing process. It’s not just a one-time thing, like we just stop sinning one day and never sin again; it’s something that will go on for the rest of our lives. It’s a real sign of our salvation, because the unsaved are slaves to sin and have no choice but to give in to it (Rom. 6:20). We have the option to fight it, to shed sin like filthy old clothes (which is, incidentally, the idea that “put off” has in the Greek) and put on the new, clean clothes of our new selves. But we will never be perfect at it until we are in Heaven with Christ.

Two, we are “being renewed in knowledge.” Colossians 1:9 talks about being “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” By knowing the will of God, we can walk in it and bear fruit for the Kingdom of God. This is how we grow spiritually. The new self is a spiritually mature self. We come to know the will of God, and God Himself, by reading His Word. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Three, it’s being renewed into the image of something. It’s not just made into a brand new, totally original thing. We are being made into the image of Jesus Christ, the creator of all things (Col. 1:16). That’s our calling. That’s our purpose, to reflect the glory of Jesus Christ to the world by our words and actions. The new self reflects God’s glory to the world. Why? So that others may glorify God as well. “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12). That visitation could be either the judgment that comes. But it can also be that the Gentile will be visited by God and His saving grace and so glorify God when he remembers your testimony. Reflecting the glory of God can lead people to Christ! So, get reflecting! We’ll talk more about reflecting God’s glory in the next several posts.

Read the rest of this series:

  1. Introduction
  2. Appearing with Christ in Glory
  3. Put Off Sexual Sin
  4. Put Off Sins of Anger
  5. Obscene Talk
  6. As Fits the Occasion
  7. Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Put On the New Self, Part 6: As Fits the Occasion

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

In my last post, we learned that we are only to speak what is “good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Eph. 4:29). Basically, verbal abuse and swearing are unbecoming of a Christian because they don’t help anything.

However, there are times when certain restraints should be removed because to not say something is the less loving route. I’ll talk about two today:

  1. Calling out a fellow Christian on his sin
  2. Calling out a false teacher

Fellow Christians and Their Sin

What do you do when you know a Christian is sinning? The Bible is very clear on that. Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (Matt 18:15). When he sins against you, tell him! It’s that simple. The rest of the passage talks about if he doesn’t repent of his sin. “But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt. 18:16-17). There are no holds barred here. If the sinner doesn’t repent, bring a couple of people with you to talk him out if it. And if he continues sinning, tell the whole church. Don’t keep it a secret any longer.

We have to remember, though, that the purpose of this is not to gossip. Look at what Jesus said in verse 15: “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” This is reproof out of love. If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, we’ll call them out when they’re sinning. They are disobeying their Lord, and God chastens those who continue in sin.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit (again) that I have a difficult time with this. I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like making people feel bad. But that’s what the Bible says to do. Jesus called people out on their sin multiple times, wanting them to repent. And if I’m sinning, I hope someone will call me out on it because frankly, I don’t want to sin anymore (not that I, a human being, can fully stop sinning, but you get the idea).

False Teachers

This is a subject of particular interest to me, because I personally find it very difficult to be tolerant of false teachers. The people I mainly mean here are those who claim to be teaching the Bible and sound doctrine but are teaching utter heresy. Rob Bell is a nice example.

But are we supposed to be tolerant of false teachers? I don’t think so. Actually, we’re called to “contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude 3). Jude continues: “For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). Whoa. Jude didn’t pull any punches there. He outrightly condemned not only what these teachers were doing (perverting the grace of God and denying Jesus as the only Lord), but the teachers themselves. He called them “ungodly” and “designated for this condemnation.” Specifically, they were designated for God’s condemnation which was spoken of “long ago.”

Paul didn’t pull punches with false teachers and their actions either. In fact, part of the reason he wrote Colossians was a response to false teaching that had arisen in Colossae. He called the false teachers “puffed up without reason by [a] sensuous mind” (Col. 2:18) and their teaching “empty deceit” (Col. 2:8).

And let us not forget Jesus’ treatment of the Pharisees. Jesus called them “hypocrites” (too many verses to cite), openly exposed what they were doing (Matt. 23), and warned others against them and their teachings (Mark 8:15).

Why did they do these things? And why should we? The main reason, I think, is that these false teachers are wolves who have come to lead the sheep astray. That metaphor comes from Matthew 7:15: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” That means they look like Christians (or claim to be Christians) outwardly, but inwardly they are unregenerate, unsaved people trying to lead the sheep astray into wrong teaching. Jesus said we “will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt 7:16). By fruits, He means the things they do and say. And when we recognize them, we need to call them out so we can warn other Christians to stay away from them! Christians do at times fall for false teaching; it’s the job of other Christians to read their Bibles, know sound doctrine, and make sure that doesn’t happen.

As for the teachers themselves, I’m not sure what to say about them. They could potentially come to Christ later on, so I don’t think we should just outright say there’s no hope for them. But by calling them out, we expose them. Maybe then they will feel ashamed and realize they need to come to Christ. We don’t know what God plans for them. But they must be called out, both for their own benefit and the benefit of believers everywhere.

Read the rest of this series:

  1. Introduction
  2. Appearing with Christ in Glory
  3. Put Off Sexual Sin
  4. Put Off Sins of Anger
  5. Obscene Talk
  6. As Fits the Occasion
  7. Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Put On the New Self, Part 5: Obscene Talk

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

I started to set up a structure to the rest of this series after my last post. I had planned on continuing on to verse 9 and I already have part of that post written up, but then I realized that there’s a topic in verse 8 that I really think I should cover in more depth: the issue of obscene talk.

At first I thought that the context of verse 8 meant obscene talk was angry speech towards another person. But then I realized that that’s only part of the problem. The main context of the second group of sins is that these are all sins that affect our social relationships with other believers. This may include being angry at them and yelling at them, but that’s not all there is to it. The real issue, like every other sin talked about thus far, is the heart.

The Bible has a lot to say on the subject of our speech. Let’s go to James 1:26: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.” Whoa. That’s a pretty big statement. Bridling the tongue basically means that we keep a tight rein on our speech. This verse is a warning to us. We can think that all our external ceremonies and Bible reading and all that are true signs of saving faith. But, as Jesus said, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:18-19). What comes out of our mouth is a true sign of our heart’s condition. James is telling us to watch that, because it’s a sign that we need to repent of sin. If we keep a tight rein on our speech, that’s an inward and outward action, and it’s a good sign.

Cursing Others

This connects with the idea of angrily yelling at and verbally abusing someone because, if that’s what we’re doing, it shows a lack of love in our heart towards our victim, which is not a good thing. That’s a sign that our heart is not in good condition. Again in James, it says, “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (James 3:8-10). Our tongue is a muscle that can be used for both great good and great evil. It can be used to bless and to curse. It can be used to praise God, and then turned around to wish evil on someone else. But it should not be used for both purposes. If we bless our Lord, we should also bless people with it because they are made in the image of God.

Vile Communication

The idea of “obscene talk” in Colossians 3:8 stems from Greek words meaning “shameful” or “vile communication.” The King James Version actually uses the word “filthy.” Another verse that talks about this is Ephesians 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” That word, “corrupting,” means “rotten” or “worthless.” So what these verses are saying is not to speak in a vile, disgusting way because it’s worthless and unbecoming.

I think one good verse on this topic is Ephesians 5:4: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.” Crude joking, at least, is pretty easy to define. Again with Greek words, this one has the idea of vulgar witticism. And I wanted to be sure of that because that's what I was thinking of, but I didn't know if there was some cultural idea I wasn't seeing. So, vulgar jokes are a form of vile communication.

But what about swearing? This is one of the arguments raging in Christian circles today between the people who want to make the gospel culturally relevant and the people who know the gospel is always relevant in every culture if we preach it right (guess which camp I’m in). I tend to think that swearing falls into this category too, since even unbelievers know that those words aren’t appropriate in decent settings. They bleep out certain words on television, which can honestly be one of the vilest cultural cesspools, at least in our country. And to think I want to work in media. But I’m not going to be legalistic about it. I know genuine, loving Christians who let words slip once in a while. I think the real question is whether or not using such words is really profitable.

Since this post is starting to get long, I’m going to stop here and talk a bit more on this topic next time, since I think it’s incredibly important (the Bible seems to think so too) and there’s still a bit more to say.

Read the rest of this series:

  1. Introduction
  2. Appearing with Christ in Glory
  3. Put Off Sexual Sin
  4. Put Off Sins of Anger
  5. Obscene Talk
  6. As Fits the Occasion
  7. Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)

Friday, September 16, 2011

Put On the New Self, Part 4: Put Off Sins of Anger

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

So after Paul’s finished with sexual sin, he moves on to yet more sins that the earthly self indulges in. And by the way, when I’m writing about these or any sins (including the previous post), I don’t want anyone to think I’m writing from a purely academic standpoint. This isn’t an intellectual exercise; I genuinely want to study and learn from God’s Word and pass on what I learn to anyone who wants to listen in hopes that it helps them in some way. This isn’t just a random academic thing. This is a passionate discourse.

Now, on to the next part of this passage, verses 7-8: “In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.”

So the big problem here is that these are all sins that flow from anger and hatred. I find it interesting that both sets of sins that Paul gives are both sins that Jesus Himself talked about in the same discourse, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (vv. 21-22)

What’s Jesus saying? He’s saying that being angry with and verbally abusing people is morally the same as murder. Just like in the last post, the big issue with these sins doesn’t only lie in the outward acts, but also in the heart and the motives of the sinner. These are the motives that lead to murder, and thus are just as sinful and evil as it.

Not all of these sins are outward. Anger, the stem from which all the other sins flow, is an inward feeling. In the study Bible he put together, John MacArthur calls it “a deep, smoldering bitterness” and “the settled heart attitude of an angry person.” It’s within us. It is about our attitude and our heart.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ll be the first to admit I struggle with this, and this is a confession. On rare occasions, there are times when I feel so angry I want to yell at whoever it is angered me and tell them exactly how horrible I think they are. But that’s absolutely the wrong attitude, and it’s sinful enough to be compared to murder. James 1:20 says that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” As Christians, we are supposed to reflect the glory of God to the world. But as humans, we are imperfect and sinful. When we are angry with people, it’s rarely for purely righteous reasons. Oftentimes it’s selfish (“How dare they do this to me!”) and tinged with the desire to avenge oneself on the object of our anger (“They’ll pay for what they did to me!”).

However, there is such a thing as righteous anger, evidenced when Paul says to believers, “Be angry and do not sin” (Eph. 4:26). But I think we need to be very careful our anger is for the right motives. If we are angry at sin in the world, for example, that’s a good thing. If we are unselfish in our anger, that’s also a good thing. But again, because of our sinful hearts, we need to be extremely careful about that.

I find it interesting that James specifically calls “the anger of man” wrong. That’s because the anger of God is never wrong. God, unlike us, is perfect, holy, loving, good, and just. His anger is always for the right reasons. I’ll talk more on that in a bit.

Wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk are outward expressions of anger. Specifically, the word “malice” comes from a word talking about badness or depravity, but in this context it seems to be against others. These encompass the time when you are outwardly angry with people and start to yell at them, verbally abuse them, and potentially even hit them. But once again, that’s wrong. God doesn’t want us to retaliate against those who hurt us. Jesus also talks about retaliation in the Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you." (Matt. 5:38-42)

There’s no need to go through every single part of this paragraph, but what Jesus is basically saying here is not to seek out vengeance and retaliation for personal wrong. The slap on the right cheek that Jesus is talking about gives the picture of a backhanded slap meant to directly insult someone’s dignity. This has nothing to do with self-defense or even defense of someone else; it’s alright to defend ourselves and others (Acts 24:10). But that’s where the line is drawn: self-defense and defense of others, not personal retaliation. As MacArthur says in his study Bible, “[Jesus] was calling for a full surrender of all personal rights.”

Is it wrong to want justice? Absolutely not. God is absolutely just and desires justice far more than we do. Not only that, but He also knows how to deal out justice far better than we do. Thus Paul says in Romans 12:19, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” And we know that God’s justice will always and ultimately prevail; whether a saved person’s sins were paid for on the cross by Jesus’ death and thus that person has been cleared, or an unbeliever dies in his sin and is punished, all sin will be dealt with and paid for in full. So there’s no reason to get angry with people or take out vengeance ourselves. It’s ultimately in God’s hands.

So, reader, where do you stand in this ultimate scheme of justice? Are you someone whose sins have been paid for in full by Jesus’ death? Or are you living in sin that must someday be paid for? And are you willing to give up everything to Christ to be saved? Or would you rather take your chances in front of a God who knows every deed and sin in your life and will judge you for them?

If this seems like a scare tactic, it’s not; it’s a genuine, loving warning to check your life. However, you should be afraid; Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:4-5).

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, that He came to earth, and died and rose for sin? If you do, are you willing to submit to Him as Lord and Savior? When Jesus returns to earth, the rightful Creator King, to establish His Kingdom, will you be one of His enemies, punished forever for constant rebellion and insurrection against Him? Or will you be one of His subjects living in eternal peace in the Kingdom of the One Who created everything and thus has the ultimate right to rule?

Read the rest of this series:

  1. Introduction
  2. Appearing with Christ in Glory
  3. Put Off Sexual Sin
  4. Put Off Sins of Anger
  5. Obscene Talk
  6. As Fits the Occasion
  7. Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Why I Write (Part 3.1415)

I'm not sure how many times I've written this post in the past (I used to have a MySpace blog), but it always manages to change every time. So, here it is (again)!

Why do I write? And why do I write the way I do? I know I post on this blog a lot. But there are several reasons behind it.

I love it

Writing is fun to me. It always has been. I've been a bit of a writer since my childhood when I would write (and illustrate) little books for my family. I remember I wrote a book for Grandpa about a magic screwdriver, based off of his massive amounts of tools and his having a workshop in the old house. With that screwdriver he invented things like the eight dollar bill and a time machine.

It's a Thinking Process

I tend to think more clearly when I write. You know those long Bible studies I write that no one reads? Those are the results of a thinking process during study. Rather than simply try to remember it all, I organize it by writing about it. Sometimes I find gaps in my thinking, or as I write I remember something related to what I'm writing that gives an even better perspective on things.

It's a Form of Ministry

Some of you may know that I'm not the best (or at least most comfortable) public speaker in the world. At least I don't think so. I think I'm actually more comfortable singing in public than speaking, because then at least I know what I'm going to say. But I like to share what I discover in Bible study or what I think about something. So, writing is my avenue for that. I want to help others grow and get closer to God, and this, I think, is the best way for me to do that.

And how I write depends on what I'm writing about I guess. In my more in-depth Bible studies, I try to be as careful as possible. I try to select the right words to convey meaning, and I try to let the Bible speak for itself rather than speak for it myself, which is why I quote so many Bible verses. I don't want to take too many steps without having a Biblical reason for doing so, because I don't want to convey something unbiblical. I usually have my ESVBible.org account open as well because it's a handy reference tool. I also try my hardest to not let those posts get muddied up in "theological-ese," or those ridiculously complicated sounding words that make life more difficult than it needs to be like "penal substitutionary atonement" or "missiology."

But in posts like this I tend to be more lighthearted, easygoing. I'm only speaking for myself here, not trying to interpret Scripture for people, so it's easier to just go with the flow of it. I tend to think people like these posts more than the Bible studies, but I don't really know.

Anyways, I figured I'd write this post (again) for the sake of it. Enjoy your (insert day here)!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Put On the New Self, Part 3: Put Off Sexual Sin

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

In verse 5, we start learning about the old self, the self that we are commanded to take off. Here’s a quick reminder: taking off the old self is not something we do so that we will be saved. It is our response to being saved. Verse 5 says to “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.” The “therefore” indicates that this is because of something previous stated. What reason has Paul already given for us to do this? “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (v. 3). Again, we are to put to death the earthly things because our lives are hidden with Christ in God, not so that they will be.

Anyway, now to verse 5: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” The Greek translated “what is earthly in you” literally means “your members that are on the earth.” These things are not just things sinful people do, they are part of who we are, part of our sinful bodies, part of our nature. These are evil things, as evidenced by verse 6: “Because of these the wrath of God is coming.” There’ll be more on that later.

So the big issue Paul starts out with is sexual immorality. That’s a very broad term. It pretty much covers every sexual sin out there, like adultery (Ex. 20:14), premarital sex (Ex. 22:16), bestiality (Deut. 27:21), incest (Lev 18:8-14), prostitution (Deut. 23:17), and homosexuality (Rom. 1:26-27). All of those are physical, but Paul’s list shows that the physical is not all the Lord is concerned about.

To see this, let’s go back to Matthew 5:27-28, where Jesus Himself addresses this issue. He said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” See that? Jesus points out specifically that it’s not enough just to physically not commit adultery. Impure thoughts and motives are just as sinful. That’s what Paul is getting at when he talks about “impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.” Physical and mental impurity is what we are commanded to take off.

In fact, covetousness is so bad that it’s actually labeled as idolatry. Covetousness is wanting more and more of what we don’t have, or wanting something that someone else has in a greedy, jealous way. Covetousness is bad in and of itself, but in this context I think it refers to sexual covetousness. This leads to heinous things like pornography or prostitution. Paul specifically calls this idolatry, or wanting something else more than we want God, and that’s serious. That’s breaking the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). That’s also not loving “the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,” nor is it loving “your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27), since it involves exploiting someone else for your own selfish desires.

These are some of the traits of the old self. Believers were like that before God called and saved them. And unbelievers are still like that. “Because of these the wrath of God is coming.” One day, Jesus will return. He will redeem His people from the world, those who have truly confessed Him as Lord (cf. Rom. 10:9). All the unrighteous, the people actively in rebellion against God, “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 16:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21).

If these sins are active in your life, take this as a loving warning: you are in grave danger of the fire of hell. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). We all die, but those who reject Christ die a second, spiritual death by the hands of a perfect, just and holy God. But God loves you. He loves the world, and He knows our hopeless condition. So He has given us hope: Jesus Christ, God in human form, paid the death penalty of sin when He died on the cross. Colossians 1:20 says He made “peace by the blood of his cross.” Three days later, He rose from the dead, proving not only His deity, but also His full payment for sin. “In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14). The condition? You need to repent of those sins and any others, turn away from them, turn to God, and genuinely declare Him to be the Lord and Savior of your life. I say genuinely because a lot of people make a one-time declaration and show absolutely no change in their lives.

This is not works salvation. There is nothing you can do to really earn it. It’s a gift! And remember the first paragraph of this post: repenting and turning your life around is a response to salvation, not a means of gaining it. But if you’ve confessed Jesus as the Lord and Savior of your life, the Master and King over you, and you truly love Him, you’ll turn from your sin and follow Him. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Times will be hard. But in the end, you will be in eternal glory, in heaven forever with Him, the perfect ruler and loving God.

Read the rest of this series:

  1. Introduction
  2. Appearing with Christ in Glory
  3. Put Off Sexual Sin
  4. Put Off Sins of Anger
  5. Obscene Talk
  6. As Fits the Occasion
  7. Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Put On the New Self, Part 2: Appearing with Christ in Glory

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

The next phrase in this passage is verse 4: "When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." There are two major questions we must ask about this verse:

  1. What does it mean?
  2. How does it fit in with this passage?

What does it mean?

This is a fairly simple question to answer. All over the New Testament we find the anticipation that Jesus is going to come to earth a second time to establish His Kingdom. Unlike His first coming, which was as a humble slave (Matt. 20:28; Phil. 2:7), Jesus' second coming will be as a powerful King coming to take back the world from the clutches of evil and establish His glorious Kingdom forever (Rev. 19:11-21).

What this verse is saying is that, when He returns, we will come with Him as glorified saints. In 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, Paul says this:

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

In other words, in the end, all dead believers will be raised from the dead, and then all believers on the earth will be changed; our bodies will become immortal, glorified bodies, sinless and imperishable. We are now hidden in God; when Christ appears, He will reveal His people, the true church. Jesus knows His sheep (John 10:27), and at that moment we and the entire world will know who His sheep truly are. Won't that be great, friends? This is what our eternal destiny is; even after we die, we have nothing to worry about. We're going to come back to a perfect world with no death, no sin, and with Jesus as our great King. I don't know about you, but that sounds awesome to me.

This probably should have been added to the previous post: I also absolutely believe that our being hidden with Christ in God talks about our total security in Him. Jesus knows His flock and He secures their salvation; as He says, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28). After we died with Christ, our lives were hidden in Him, away from the sin and evil of this world in a sense. We of course struggle with sin on a daily basis, but we don't need to give in to it anymore, because we are no longer its slaves. We are free from sin, and our lives are safely hidden with Christ. We will only appear again when our sinful bodies are transformed into immortal, glorified bodies. And again, it's going to be awesome.

How does it fit with this passage?

I was wondering this myself when I was originally trying to figure out what to write about this verse. It obviously talks about the last days, but how does it fit into this passage that so clearly talks about the days we live in now? Well, I believe that the commands given here are a foreshadowing of the coming perfection that this verse talks about. And when we follow these commands, we are displaying to the world what things will be like in Jesus' Kingdom.

Think about it. In this passage we are told to put off the old self and put on the new self (vv. 9-10). In the end, our old self will be expunged totally by Jesus and replaced with a new, sinless self. In those same verses we are told that we are "being renewed in knowledge after the image of [our] creator." Again, in the end, we will be fully renewed in Christ's image. This is a total foreshadowing of the great things to come! The only difference is that these are things we are told to do, and we can't follow them perfectly since we are still sinful. But in the end, Jesus will transform us through no work of our own. Of course we can't even follow them on our own; we need God to enable us to follow Him and His decrees (Col. 1:9-13). But even so, we follow them imperfectly. In the end, we will follow Christ perfectly. And once again, it's going to be the greatest thing ever.

Read the rest of this series:

  1. Introduction
  2. Appearing with Christ in Glory
  3. Put Off Sexual Sin
  4. Put Off Sins of Anger
  5. Obscene Talk
  6. As Fits the Occasion
  7. Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Put On the New Self, Part 1: Introduction

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

This passage of Scripture is a very informative and helpful one. While at first glance it seems to be just a “do this and don’t do that” legalistic rule-oriented passage, it is not that at all. Like the entire book of Colossians, this is very Christ-focused. In fact, it’s all about Christ. What this passage does for us is detail the proper response to our salvation in Jesus.

The first verse makes this clear to us. “If then you have been raised with Christ…” This is the whole reason for this passage. We have been raised with Christ. Earlier in Colossians, Paul talks about how we have died to earthly things. We were “buried with him” (ch 2:12). After that, we were “raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God.” Chapter 2 also says we “died to the elemental spirits of the world” (v. 8), which means the demonic forces working in our world. The Greek word used for “elemental spirits” here was widely used as a term for spirits in Persian religious texts and other mystical writings. In other words, they are not of God, and thus demonic. But we’ve died to those spirits! We don’t have to submit to them anymore. Romans 6:2 says we’ve “died to sin.” In fact, the entirety of Romans 6 is about being freed from sin and talks greatly about having died to it. Romans 6:7 says, “[O]ne who has died has been set free from sin.”

But we haven’t only died. We have also been raised with Christ into a new life. Colossians 2:13 says, “God made [us] alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.” Again back in Romans 6, a chapter which connects with this part so greatly, Paul says in verse 4, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Paul also says, “[Y]ou … must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). Isn’t that incredible? We have died to sin, set free from its evil grasp, so we could be made alive in Christ. This means we “walk in newness of life.” Our lives are no longer enslaved to sin, which is an evil, oppressive and deceptive master. We are now “slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:18) and “slaves of God” (Rom. 6:22), which mean the same thing. We have a great, glorious and good Master in Christ whom we are called to follow. That is what this passage is about. This incredibly practical portion of Scripture tells us exactly what our old, dead selves did and what our new, living selves must do. It tells us how to walk with Christ in clear terms. Instead of just saying “Walk with Christ,” this passage tells us how to actually do that.

And we aren’t just doing different earthly things. The commands here that we are to follow, the “new self” as verse 10 puts it, are “above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” These are not just cold laws. These commands are from above, the righteousness that we are to seek after. This is true righteousness we are called to embody here, and our death and life in Christ is what enables us to do that.

I don’t want this to sound like some kind of works salvation, because that is absolutely not the point. The next two verses make that very clear. “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (emphasis added). The word “for” indicates a causal relationship between two points. We are to set our minds on things that are above because we have died and because our lives are hidden with Christ in God, not the other way around. In other words, we walk with God because He saved us first.

Read the rest of this series:

  1. Introduction
  2. Appearing with Christ in Glory
  3. Put Off Sexual Sin
  4. Put Off Sins of Anger
  5. Obscene Talk
  6. As Fits the Occasion
  7. Christ is All, and In All (Part 1)