Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
The bride and groom were before me. It was there wedding day. We had moved to the final section of the service where they would recite classic vows to each other, repeating after me to mitigate against wedding day jitters that can mess with memory recall. “I, _____, take you, ____ to be my husband/wife. To have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and to be faithful to you ‘til death do us part.” It was all fine for the groom until the last line about being faithful. At first, I thought he didn’t hear me being so wrapped up in love. So, I repeated it. He looked at his bride, then at me. I said it again, “to be faithful to you ‘til death do us part.” Finally, he vowed, “to strive to be faithful to you ‘til death do us part.” So ended the ceremony, and the relationship. The vibe wasn’t nearly as festive, but the catering was spot on…
There are a lot of approaches to having a healthy marriage, several of which I cover with couples who want to talk about it before tying the knot (most don’t). One approach, illustrated in Willard Harley’s book, His Needs, Her Needs, takes a quid pro quo approach, where couples agree ahead of time what their relationship is going to look like and essentially draw up a covenant with each other that they sign. There is value in clearly communicating needs and wants with each other and delineating how each help meet each other’s needs. But it can get so mechanical that love is basically forgotten. Sometimes one or both persons are so out to lunch on what “healthy” looks like that the contract serves as a pilot’s checklist before they attempt taking their marriage for a flight. The approach has helped many couples communicate more clearly and serve each other well.
Another great marriage book written by the Yerkoviches entitled How We Love. This book goes deep into personal history, looking at family of origin issues as primary shaping influences on how a person loves others and hopes to be loved. I have seen a lot of personal and marital healing come from that book and its related course.
I’m a growing fan of a newer method based on Emotion-Focused Therapy discovered by Dr. Sue Johnson. The premises of this approach is that when people feel connected to each other, everything else more easily falls into place. No contracts are needed to state needs and wants because the partners are already deeply desiring to discover that on their own, and long to serve one another. There is less homework to be done discovering how to love one another, too, because the connection discovers that on its own. Insults, fights, mutually assured destruction give way to loving communication. Keep that connection strong, and the marriage will thrive. Let the connection fade, and expect those old hurtful patterns to re-emerge. Connection is the key.
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, the first and greatest emphasis upon which the letter is based is Christ. Not simply Jesus, but rather that aspect of God which was the critical agent in creation itself. When the Gospel of John’s Prologue refers to the Word that was in the beginning, that’s Christ – the visible manifestation of God. The Good News that Paul shared is that the work of Christ clearly demonstrates and communicates that all of creation – including humanity – is deeply loved by God, and that if we ever wonder if we’ve burned the bridge too badly for God to want anything to do with us, we need not worry: in Christ God reconciled everything to Godself. Love and grace are the constant variable for us to build our lives on. We can’t do anything to make God love us more or less – it is already fully complete. Paul then went on to tell the church that the goal wasn’t simply to accept the Good News, like you might imagine happening at a revival altar call or something. Sure, Paul hopes everyone will embrace the life-transforming foundation, but his real hope was that people who grow into maturity in their relationship with God evidenced in the living of their lives. The Good News compels us to live differently, seeking to orient our lives by God’s Kingdom/True North more than any other influence.
The remainder of the letter moves through a series of ethical concerns listing a bunch of behaviors that they should stop doing, and also providing direction on what they should be doing. If you’ve read it, you know that Colossians chapter three can come off like a real buzz kill. No horny teenager wants to read that they can’t take a cookie out of the cookie jar until they’re married. No driven American in pursuit of the American Dream wants to be reminded not to put themselves first in order to get ahead. No political talk show hosts want to learn that character assassination and its related verbal assaults are off the table. Some view the whole chunk as confirmation that God is an eternal bookkeeper tracking us with great precision only to rip us apart at the end of our days. See for yourself:
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.
Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ. But if you do what is wrong, you will be paid back for the wrong you have done. For God has no favorites.
Masters, be just and fair to your slaves. Remember that you also have a Master—in heaven.
Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains. Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should.
Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone. – Colossians 3:1-4:6 |NLT
Oh, and did you catch the bit about wives submitting to husbands? Or how about slaves obeying their masters? Did anybody else throw up a little just then? What do we do with such outdated advice? Should we just chuck the whole thing? Tempting, for sure. Yet if we dust off our hermeneutic, we may find more relevance than originally thought. And yes, you do have a hermeneutic, and it’s showing right now…
Hermeneutics is the fancy word that refers to how we read and apply biblical text. I believe that we should use the same hermeneutic for all of the Bible’s texts if we want to have any consistency in our faith, otherwise we really do become guilty of favoring some passages over others for no other reasons than the favored ones likely bolster our held world view. My hermeneutic includes a belief that well-meaning, faithful people wrote the Bible. While they likely prayed a lot as they wrote, God did not override their quills or stories. This, by the way, is a direct challenge to what is called plenary inspiration. I don’t believe in it, and I don’t think the biblical writers did either. Since human beings wrote the Bible in a wide range of contexts over many centuries, I am confident they made some mistakes. Some minor, some major. This, by the way, is a direct challenge to the idea that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. I don’t think the biblical writers thought that either of those words were true of the scriptures, including Jesus (who never wrote anything down – photographic memory, I guess). Ancient Rabbis, by and large agree with me, which means that Jesus and Paul agree with me, too, since they were part of the ancient Jewish rabbinical tradition. They would have wanted robust discussions about the meaning of texts and were comfortable ignoring texts that they simply couldn’t make heads or tails of. Context was appreciated. Realizing context is everything allowed them the freedom of flexibility. Respecting genre enabled them to read some passages as the metaphors they were intended to be. What does that all mean for the above passage related to wives and slaves, specifically? It means we allow Paul to write at a time when women were treated as property and slaves were mostly indentured servants. Knowing that Paul actually championed gender equality (and writes of equality in this letter), he would likely rescind the submission instruction today. Ditto on the slave and master advice, especially if he could have seen the atrocious abomination that was American Slavery. (Side note: it’s interesting that we can quickly recognize the sever inhumanity of Hitler’s Nazism and other historical examples of barbaric behavior yet still struggle to own the slavery which we took to an unparalleled level simply for profitable gain. Recently the world marked the 75th anniversary of the US’s dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, which burned over 100,000 (mostly) civilians to death (men, women and children). Such barbarism wasn’t illegal until after the world witnessed it in us. Imagine what Paul would write to the US…).
The buzz kill instructions need to be appreciated beyond the Willard Harley quid pro quo, contractual lens. We can sometimes jump right to the words about God’s wrath and find ourselves questioning God’s love for us all over again. Perhaps Paul would edit his letter if he wrote this in 2020. What we can see here, in light of the context of the whole letter is that the foundation of the entire ethic that Paul is instructing is being connected to God thanks to God’s unending love for us. Paul is definitely favoring a “connection” based relationship approach here, and is pointing out that there are behaviors that hurt than connection. If Jesus taught that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all we’ve got and all we are, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, that means we drop behavior that hurts ourselves and others, all because of our love for God, others, and ourselves.
Maybe you are clueless and don’t realize that some of the behaviors listed are destructive. Go ahead and cut those out of your life like outdated sweaters and shoes. You’ve got a new wardrobe; you’ve been born into something fresh and eternal. Wear clothes from that closet.
Think of your faith like a marriage, because that metaphor is legit. Keeping your love for God strong and connected is what yields the life you are meant to live that not only blesses you but seeks to bless the whole world. When it’s “on”, the new clothes fit effortlessly, perfectly, are noticeable and remarkable. Lovely. How do we do that? We think on Christ, we keep our minds focused on Christ, we integrate disciplines that remind us of what matters most in our lives. Sometimes we have to be really intentional about this, especially since so much of the noise in our world isn’t supportive of faith beyond the shallows. What are you doing to foster your connection to God? If you don’t know, it might mean you’re missing out on a level of vitality you didn’t know what possible.
I struggle with leaving work at the office. As a pastor and an Enneagram Type 3, I am pretty driven. If I don’t monitor myself, I can find myself constantly at work even if I’m not. At times, I literally need to change my playlist to help my mind get out of work mode and into more important things in life mode like my wife and kids and actually having a life beyond work. Lynne and I have together created a growing playlist of tunes we both like that serve to in some way represent out love for each other. At times when I need to let work go, I play that playlist and am transported into my marriage. I’m amazed how effective it can be. Perhaps you need to do something similar regarding your faith, to remind you of God’s love for you and your love for God. Give it a try. What do you to lose except your quality of life and a better world for everybody?