Steps Toward Christian Living
Steps Toward Christian Living
This means we put to death … what is earthly in us (3:5a). In other words, we kill the sinful things lurking inside us. In the remainder of verse five, Paul gives us a list of sinful things we should put to death. When you see a list of sins in the Bible, always pay special attention to what comes first. First in this list is sexual immorality, or “fornication.” The word translated sexual immorality (PORNEIA, por-nay’-ah) is the Greek word from which we get the word “pornography.” It includes pre-marital sex, adultery, homosexuality, or any kind of sex outside the marriage of a man and woman.
We must also get rid of impurity, or “uncleanness” (3:5), which goes beyond sexual behavior and includes dirty speech, gestures, and impure thoughts of any kind. Next, do away with passion, or “inordinate affection” (3:5), which refers to lust that is excited by reading dirty magazines, watching filthy movies, or viewing pornography on the internet. Evil desire, or “evil concupiscence,” refers to wanting something sinister or vile. Covetousness, which is idolatry, is focusing on fulfilling sinful desires rather than becoming all God wants us to be (3:5). It also refers to greed that totally disregards the well-being of others, such as deceitful “get-rich-quick” schemes.
Next, malice means “evil intent.” It is intentionally hurting someone with words or actions. Slander, or “blasphemy, (BLASPHĒMIA, blas-fay-me’-ah) is a transliteration of a Greek word from which we get the word “blasphemy.” It means “to injure or defame with speech.” It refers to hurting someone with lies, gossip, or rumors. Last in the list of sins we must eliminate is obscene talk, or “filthy communication,” referring to crude, abrasive, obscene, dirty speech
A lie is a deliberate untruth or half-truth. An old proverb says, “Half a truth is a whole lie.” Any intentional misrepresentation of the truth is a lie.
To do this, we must put on the new self (3:10), which refers to our new nature in Christ. This new nature is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator, which refers to our sanctification. Sanctification is a lifelong process of becoming more and more like Christ. It is becoming the people God created us to be.
This means we are to be just like Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). In our new life, the Christian life, there is not Greek and Jew [racial prejudice], circumcised and uncircumcised [religious bias], barbarian, Scythian [cultural distinctions], slave, free [social barriers] (3:11). A Greek was a Gentile, or non-Jew. A barbarian was one who could not speak Greek and was considered unsophisticated. A Scythian (sith’-e-un) was a warring, murdering nomad, considered to be the worst of all barbarians.
Regardless of our backgrounds as believers, Christ is all, and in all (3:11). Jesus Christ is in all of us in the person of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9) and permeates and unites us in all our relationships. How does the last phrase of Galatians 3:28 express this truth?
As someone has said, we don’t have to be identical twins to be brothers and sisters in Christ. In any Christian fellowship there will be differences. However, these differences should not cause us to fall into the sins of our old nature, but rather give us opportunity to display the love of Christ (Jn 13:35).