Colossians pt8

Full disclosure. Passages like the one we will look at today are the reason why many people don’t like to preach verse by verse through a book of the Bible. It is much easier to cherry pick passages that don’t create a need to dive deep or to challenge current thinking. But that produces followers of Jesus who do not know how to handle the Word…and that is hurting the church in the long run.

So when we look at this passage this morning, I would simply ask you not to turn off, or to turn to what you think you already know. Do not write off the words of God, but be willing to engage with them and let God speak to you.

(Read Colossians 3:18-4:1)

To our 21st century ears there are already so many problems here, Submission. Obedience. Slavery. My goodness. It is like a dream passage for a non-believer to say “See look at all this ancient thinking. This is why the Bible is irrelevant, outdated, mysoginistic…etc” Passages like these are regularly used to dismiss Paul, much less Christianity as a whole. And on the surface, I can see where that would be coming from, but that is the problem. We are looking at this passage and trying to understand it in our context, without first understanding the context of the initial hearers. (Explain my hermeneutics class)

Colossians & Philemon Virtue Illustrated by the Christian Family (3:18–4:1)

Tragically, our churches provide numerous examples of dysfunctional families in which abuse has been justified by a distorted interpretation of Paul’s household codes. Wifely submission is taken to mean the subjugation of the woman’s whole being to the man; husbandly love is taken to mean the man’s condescending care of the woman. The abuse promoted by such interpretations has led many believers to disregard Paul’s teaching as irrelevant and too misogynistic for today’s liberated environment

The overarching context here is a letter to a church where there is a lot of division and false teaching that Paul is seeking to correct. People who are trying to add to the Gospel and who are trying to return the primarily Gentile believers to a more rules based, Hebraic way of understanding God. And part of what they are doing, based on this passage, is attempting to accuse those who are following Jesus of letting anarchy reign.

And Paul has been addressing this throughout this entire passage- calling for harmony and unity and centering the work on Jesus, not on other rules. And he moves from the church to the family, because of the prominence of the family in the Roman world.

To understand the passage, we need to have a better understanding of the Roman household. The husband- the man- was the undisputed ruler. Whatever he said went and there was no room for questioning or disagreeing. There was no discussion.

“Domestic codes laid out for the man, as the paterfamilia who had total authority, how to manage his household in a moral and honorable way. Thus, the regular topics included duties such as honoring the gods, raising children, dealing with servants, being a husband, and being active in local politics. Yet, where the responsibilities deal with the individual, the goal of the domestic code was larger.

In the Greco-Roman world, a common belief was that the family or household was a microcosm of the society and state as a whole. The health of the household reflected directly on the well-being of the state. Thus, the man being a good father was not just about the individual but also covered the communal.

This is why Greeks and Romans were skeptical of religions that attracted the allegiance of women or servants, destabilized the family and therefore also the state. This was also true for converts to Judaism. For Greeks and Romans, the family had to worship the Roman gods of paterfamilias.

When a family member or servant would convert to worshipping the Lord alone, this meant the convert would forsake the family gods, which was equivalent to repudiating both family and state.”

So that means that Christianity had an issue. The Christians needed to be able to reach the greater culture, but if they were seen as destabilizing society there was no way to gain a hearing.

So Paul wrote them a way forward that remained true to what followers of Jesus were called to, and took into account their larger witness to the world.

So, for example, verse 18 called on wives to voluntarily “submit” to their husbands. This is a trigger for a lot of ladies. I get it. Let me point out a few things that get missed. One- voluntary. It is not saying all women submit to all men. It is saying to a wife, let your husband take the lead- and here is why- in this culture, that is what is seen as proper. And it will advance the Gospel.

Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Wives (3:18)

Submission is voluntarily assuming a particular role because it is right. Obedience is not directly commanded. Submission demands obedience as a pattern, but there are times in which obedience to a husband may become disobedience to God

It is the same word used of Jesus submitting to the Father, so in other words, it is asking a wife to assume the same posture that Jesus used with His Father. Notice also, it says nothing about roles for women. This has nothing to do with jobs or leadership in society or anything else. This is simply saying, let your husband lead.

Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Husbands (3:19)

Paul used the term of Jesus’ attitude who is Lord of all (see 1 Cor 15:28), the term may be appropriately used of one with the highest office. Both wives and husbands must recognize that the term has nothing to do with personal worth and value

It also does not say, don’t talk to your husband about decisions that are to be made, or give him advice, or share with him what the Lord is telling you…it says none of these things.

Finally, look at how is says to do so “as is fitting in the Lord.” In other words, letting a husband lead, does not mean you are to follow him into sin. If a husband is “leading” in a way that is taking the family, or himself, or the kids away from the Lord, you don’t submit. You say no.

Ladies, let me say this, I know verses like this have been twisted to do all kinds if evil and have been used to justify misogyny, and abuse, and all kinds of horrific sin against women. That is not Paul’s point. It is not in keeping with his words about women, and more importantly it is not in keeping with Jesus’ elevation of women in his ministry. I cannot undo that damage. I can teach the Word in a way that ensures no one in this church ever uses this Bible to justify that gross sin.

The next verse, in fact, cuts that off at the knees- calling husbands to love their wives and to not be harsh with them.

Fellas, the word there is for unconditional love. Period. You love your wife like Jesus loves you. This is once again, to the hearers, a calling to be a husband in a way that speaks to the culture at large of the truth and goodness of the Gospel.

Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Husbands (3:19)

The simple, positive command is to love. The term agapē, used here, never occurred in secular household tables. The command, therefore, appears to be a distinctively Christian element of the marriage relationship. It was common, of course, for husbands to love their wives sexually, but Paul advocated much more than that. In his description of the husband’s love in Eph 5:22ff., he clearly stated that the husband was to love his wife sacrificially. Her inner beauty and self-fulfillment were to be his delight, and he would do whatever he could to promote her personal well-being and satisfaction. The model is Christ’s love for the church

The Roman husband- as we have already noted- was to “keep his family in line” for the good of society. That could be in any way behind closed doors. What was seen as “honorable” was what was portrayed outwardly. And harshness was a part of that.

So Paul was determined, here and in other passages, to call husbands who were followers of Jesus to a better way. He consistently told men the love they were to have for their spouses was the self sacrificial kind that Jesus has displayed for them. That meant they were going to not be kings of their homes, but servant leaders who put themselves last.

And they were not going to be “harsh.” This is a strong rebuke against spousal abuse. But it went further than that. Harshness would include everything from neglect to ridicule to dehousing them via divorce. Common actions in many places in the first century. Not acceptable for Christian husbands.

Paul is not done. Because there is another aspect of these households- kids. And there are a pair of instructions given regarding kids- both to them and about them.

Children are to obey both of their parents. Not just their fathers. The message here is calling back to the 10 Commandments in the Old Testament. Kids are their parent’s responsibility in the Lord and part of their job, as Christians, is not to make their parents job any harder than it already is. Obedience is a part of that.

Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Children (3:20)

Paul apparently was addressing young children here. Two factors inform this interpretation. First, the use of the term “children” rather than “young men” (or equivalent) shows Paul was addressing younger children. Second, in Eph 6:4 fathers were told to “bring them up.” The training process involved teaching children how to obey, and those who heard these words would respond properly. Nothing in the text suggests a specific age, however. The term “children” primarily describes children in relation to their parents, so the assumption is that they were at home and under the parents’ supervision

But the burden is then pivoted back to the dad- don’t provoke your children. In other words, do not seek to push them to disobey- by your words or your orders or attitude. Dads in particular should be mindful of this, because of the role they occupy in the house. (talk here about the importance of apologizing and repenting to your kids)

Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Parents (3:21)

Parents embitter children by constantly picking at them, perhaps refusing to acknowledge their efforts. The fact that children might become discouraged suggests that the parents too easily reminded the children that they were not good enough. This activity had no place in the Christian home. If correction were needed, it should have been toward the behavior of the child, not the child’s personhood, and it should have been enforced quickly. Discipline was not to be prolonged so that nagging occurred

Finally, Paul has to consider the other area of the house- and it is one we do not deal with, but I want to address it. In Paul’s time, indentured servants were people who had been sold into bondage to pay debts. This is not like chattel slavery we are familiar with- what Paul called man stealing and condemned in 1 Timothy 1:9-10. That does not make the practice identified here any less odious, but it is different and is no way a commendation of the practice. Yet some Christians would find themselves as bondservants and some would come to Christ and already have bondservants who they could not free because they would have no where to go or to provide for themselves. So what were they to do?

Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Servants and Masters (3:22–4:1)

How could slaves respond positively as Christians within their circumstances? Surely they could make a valid response to the gospel that would produce a better situation for them now and in eternity. Paul, in fact, presented the appropriate response. He called them to acknowledge and accept the fact that God knew their situations and that he rewarded them for how they acted in those situations

They were to seek to serve and treat one another as Jesus treated them. Serving well and treating well. Not being lazy or harsh. Keeping their eyes on the Lord they were serving.

Now that is a lot, and many of you are still wondering- why in the world is this passage in the Bible, and why are we even talking about it?

Here is why. How we treat one another in our families matters. Your home is the first church that your family attends, and for some people who come to your home it may be the only church they have ever seen. How you and your spouse and your kids relate to one another says a lot about your relationship with Jesus- to others.

And the picture we paint in our homes needs to be one that calls people to follow Jesus, not to reject Him.

What in your home does not call people to follow Jesus?

What reflects Jesus?

If you are single, how does this affect who you are looking for in a spouse?

And most of all, you cannot have a home that points people to Jesus, if you do not know Him yourself.