Colossians — Chapter 3

Authorship & Background

Deep Dive

Setting: Paul writes from prison, most likely in Rome around AD 60–62 (some scholars argue for Ephesus a few years earlier), to a church he had never visited. Colossae was a small town in the Lycus valley of western Turkey, a few miles from Laodicea and Hierapolis, and the church there had been planted by Epaphras (1:7). Chapters 1–2 lift up Christ as supreme over all things and answer teachers who were pressing food laws, holy days, visions and harsh treatment of the body on the believers. Paul ended chapter 2 by saying those rules look wise but do nothing to stop the indulgence of the flesh (2:23). Chapter 3 gives the real answer: not a stricter rulebook, but a new life that comes from being united with Christ. Much of it runs parallel to Ephesians 4–6, probably written at the same time and carried by the same messenger, Tychicus (4:7; Eph 6:21).

Put On the New Self (vv1–17)

• "If then you have been raised with Christ" (v1). The "if" does not express doubt. It means "since, then." Paul has already said they were "buried with him in baptism" and "raised with him through faith" (2:12), and that they "died with Christ" (2:20). Chapter 3 draws out what follows. Everything Paul is about to command rests on something that has already happened to them.
• "Seek the things that are above" (v1). The verb (zēteō) is the one Jesus used in "seek first the kingdom of God" (Matt 6:33). It means to go after something with desire. "Above" is not outer space but where Christ reigns.
• "Seated at the right hand of God" (v1). An echo of Psalm 110:1, the Old Testament verse quoted most often in the New: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." The false teachers were fascinated by angels and heavenly visions (2:18). Paul says the one thing worth fixing your eyes on in heaven is the enthroned Christ.
• "Set your minds on things that are above" (v2). This is a different verb (phroneō), the one Paul uses for a settled mindset (Phil 2:5; 3:19). Verse 1 is about what the heart pursues, v2 about what the mind dwells on. The contrast "not on things that are on earth" points back to 2:21–22: "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" is earthly religion, however spiritual it sounds.
• "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (v3). Two pictures: death and hiding. The old life ended when they were joined to Christ's death. The new life is real but not yet visible, kept safe in God the way treasure is stored where thieves can't reach it. Compare Galatians 2:20.
• "When Christ who is your life appears" (v4). Christ is not merely the source of life or a help to it. He is the believer's life. "Appears" (phaneroō, to be made visible) points to his return. What is hidden now (v3) will be shown then, and believers will "appear with him in glory" (1 John 3:2). Some manuscripts read "our life," and the ESV footnotes it. The sense is the same either way.
• "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you" (v5). Literally, "put to death your members that are on the earth." The verb nekroō means to make dead, to treat as a corpse. There is a paradox here: they "have died" (v3), so now they must put to death. What God declared true of them in Christ, they now carry out day by day. Romans 6:11 and 8:13 work the same way. Paul does not say "manage" or "reduce." He says kill.
• The first list (v5). It moves from outward acts to inward roots: sexual immorality (porneia, any sex outside marriage), impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. Sexual sin was widely tolerated in Greek and Roman cities, so this was a hard break for Gentile converts.
• "Covetousness, which is idolatry" (v5). Pleonexia is the grasping desire to have more, the itch for advantage. Paul calls it idolatry because it puts something in God's place as the thing that will satisfy and secure. Compare Luke 12:15 and Ephesians 5:5.
• "On account of these the wrath of God is coming" (v6). God's anger is his settled opposition to evil, to be revealed fully at the end (Rom 1:18; 2:5). Many manuscripts add "upon the sons of disobedience," the exact words of Ephesians 5:6, and the ESV footnotes this. The Tyndale notes suggest a scribe may have carried them over from Ephesians. Either way, the warning stands.
• "But now you must put them all away" (v8). The second list is about the tongue and temper: anger (a settled grudge), wrath (an outburst), malice (wanting harm for someone), slander (the Greek is blasphēmia, here speech that tears other people down), and obscene talk. The first list wrecks purity. This one wrecks fellowship, and Paul treats it just as seriously.
• "Do not lie… you have put off the old self… and have put on the new self" (vv9–10). A body cannot function when its members deceive each other (Eph 4:25). The picture is clothing. The word for "put off" (apekdyomai, to strip off) is the same verb Paul used in 2:15, where Christ "disarmed" (stripped) the powers. The "old self" (literally "old man") is who a person was in Adam, before Christ. The "new self" is who they are in Christ. The grammar describes a change that has already happened. So the commands in vv5–8 are not "become new," but "live as the new person you are."
• "Being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (v10). An echo of Genesis 1:27, where humanity was made in God's image. Sin defaced that image. In Christ, who is himself "the image of the invisible God" (1:15), it is being restored, and the verb is ongoing: being renewed. The false teachers offered secret knowledge. Paul says real knowledge is God remaking a person to look like his Son.
• "Here there is not Greek and Jew… slave, free" (v11). "Here" means in the new self, the new humanity. Paul names the walls that divided the ancient world: ethnic (Greek and Jew), religious (circumcised and uncircumcised), cultural (barbarian and Scythian), and social (slave and free). "Barbarian" was the Greek word for anyone who didn't speak Greek. It mimicked foreign speech as "bar-bar." Scythians, nomads from north of the Black Sea, were the ancient world's byword for the most savage barbarian of all. The parallel in Galatians 3:28 adds "male and female." Paul is not saying these differences vanish. He is saying none of them decides anyone's standing with God or place in his family.
• "But Christ is all, and in all" (v11). The climax. Christ is everything that matters, and he lives in every believer, whatever their background. This sets up the household code at the chapter's end: slaves and free will both be addressed as people who serve one Lord.
• "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved" (v12). These are Israel's titles in the Old Testament: chosen (Deut 7:6), holy (Exod 19:6), beloved (Deut 7:8). Paul gives them to a mostly Gentile church. The order matters. They are first chosen and loved, and then told what to wear. Identity comes before instruction.
• The new wardrobe (v12). Compassionate hearts (literally "bowels of compassion," the ancient way of saying deep inner feeling), kindness, humility, meekness (strength under control, not weakness) and patience. Every one faces outward toward other people, and nearly all describe Jesus himself (Matt 11:29). The false teachers prized "severity to the body" (2:23). Paul prizes gentleness toward others.
• "Bearing with one another… forgiving each other" (v13). Bearing with means putting up with people's ongoing irritations. Forgiving means releasing a real wrong. Paul assumes believers will have "a complaint" against each other. The church is not a place without offense. It is a place where offense is forgiven. The standard is high and the motive is plain: "as the Lord has forgiven you." Compare the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt 18:21–35).
• "Above all these put on love" (v14). Love is the outer garment that goes over everything else. Paul calls it the "bond" (syndesmos) of perfection. The same word described the "ligaments" that hold the body together in 2:19. Without love, the other virtues come apart (1 Cor 13:1–3).
• "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" (v15). "Rule" (brabeuō) appears only here in the New Testament. It comes from the word for an umpire at the games, so it means to arbitrate or decide. When believers are torn between choices, or between each other, Christ's peace is to make the call. Paul immediately adds "in one body": this is not only private calm but peace among the members of the church.
• "And be thankful" (v15). Thankfulness runs through the letter (1:3, 12; 2:7; 4:2), and it appears three times in vv15–17 alone. A grateful heart is hard to turn into a rulebook religion.
• "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (v16). "Dwell" means to live at home in, not visit occasionally. "The word of Christ" most naturally means the message about Christ, the gospel, though it includes his own teaching. Its effect is mutual: "teaching and admonishing one another." Ephesians 5:18–19 makes this the fruit of being "filled with the Spirit." Colossians makes it the fruit of being filled with the word. The two go together.
• "Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (v16). Scholars debate whether these are three distinct kinds of song. Most think Paul uses them together for the full range of Christian singing, from the Psalms to new songs about Christ. Singing here both teaches the church and thanks God.
• "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus" (v17). The section ends with the widest possible command. Acting "in the name of" someone means acting as their representative, in line with their character and authority. There is no secular corner left in the Christian life. And again: "giving thanks to God the Father through him."
• Commentators: All three read vv1–4 as the foundation for everything after. JFB puts it well: "The design of the Gospel is not merely to give rules, but mainly to supply motives to holiness." Guzik likens the believer's life to Jesus' own risen life: out of the tomb, living in new power, eyes on heaven. Henry calls Christ "the principle and end of the Christian's life" and says believers should be toward the world "like a dead thing to it." On v5 Henry calls covetousness "spiritual idolatry," and JFB says "self and mammon are deified in the heart instead of God." Guzik and JFB both take "rule" in v15 as an umpire deciding, and the lexicon supports that ("to act as umpire… to arbitrate, decide"). Henry calls singing "a teaching ordinance as well as a praising ordinance." JFB reads love as the garment that "completes and keeps together the rest."

Rules for Christian Households (vv18–25)

• A household code (3:18–4:1). Greek and Roman moral writers, going back to Aristotle, had standard teaching on running a household. They addressed the male head about how to manage his wife, children and slaves. Paul's version keeps the familiar shape but changes it in three ways. He speaks directly to wives, children and slaves as moral persons who can choose. He lays duties on the powerful as well as the weak. And he places every relationship "in the Lord." Similar codes appear in Ephesians 5:22–6:9 and 1 Peter 2:18–3:7. The Colossian code is shorter than the one in Ephesians, except in the section on slaves, which is the longest here, probably because the runaway slave Onesimus was returning to Colossae with this very letter (4:9; Phlm 10–16).
• "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord" (v18). The verb is hypotassō, originally a military word for ranking under. Here it is in the middle voice, "subject yourselves." It is a choice the wife makes, not something forced on her. Note the word differs from the "obey" (hypakouō) given to children and slaves in vv20 and 22. "As is fitting in the Lord" both grounds and frames it: done as part of following Christ, never as a command to follow a husband into sin (Acts 5:29).
• "Husbands, love your wives" (v19). In a world where Greek and Roman codes told husbands to rule, Paul tells them to love, using agapaō, the self-giving love God shows. Ephesians 5:25 sets the measure: "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." "Do not be harsh with them" (literally "do not be bitter toward them") forbids resentment and sharpness at home.
• Readings differ. Christians who take Scripture as their authority read this pair in two main ways. Complementarian readers see a lasting pattern of a husband's loving, servant-hearted leadership and a wife's willing support, rooted in creation and in Christ and the church. Egalitarian readers see Paul working inside a first-century household structure to transform it, as with slavery, pointing toward full mutuality (compare "submitting to one another," Eph 5:21). Both agree that the text gives no license for a domineering or abusive husband, and that the husband's duty here is costly, not comfortable.
• "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord" (v20). Children are addressed as members of the church in their own right, present when the letter was read aloud. "In everything" assumes Christian parents and normal family life, not obeying a command to sin. Ephesians 6:2–3 adds the fifth commandment and its promise.
• "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged" (v21). Roman law gave a father almost unlimited power over his children (patria potestas), even, in theory, over life and death. Paul limits that power. "Provoke" (erethizō) means to stir up or irritate. "Discouraged" (athumeō) means to lose heart, to have the spirit go out of you. Constant criticism, harshness and unfairness can crush a child.
• "Bondservants, obey in everything… your earthly masters" (v22). The Greek is douloi, slaves. Many early Christians were slaves. "Earthly" (literally "according to the flesh") quietly relativizes the masters. They are masters only in this passing realm. Their slaves have another Lord.
• "Not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers" (v22). Ophthalmodoulia, "eye-slavery," means working only while the boss is watching. The word appears only here and in Ephesians 6:6, and Paul may have coined it. The opposite is "sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord": doing right because Christ is always watching.
• "Work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men" (v23). Literally "from the soul." This transforms the meaning of ordinary work. Even unpaid, forced labor can be offered to Christ.
• "From the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward" (v24). A sharp irony. Under Roman law a slave could not inherit anything. Paul tells slaves they are heirs of God. "You are serving the Lord Christ." The phrase "the Lord Christ" is rare and emphatic: Christ is the real Master.
• "The wrongdoer will be paid back… and there is no partiality" (v25). This cuts both ways. A slave who cheats will answer to God, and so will a master who abuses (4:1). God does not show favoritism to rank (Deut 10:17; Rom 2:11). The section continues into 4:1, "Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly," which completes the pair.
• Is Paul approving slavery? No, though he does not call for revolt. He speaks to believers living inside a system they could not change and shows them how to be Christ's people within it. Elsewhere he urges slaves to gain freedom if they can (1 Cor 7:21) and condemns "enslavers" (1 Tim 1:10). The Tyndale notes observe that the faith created new relationships that changed the system from within, and Philemon, carried on the same journey as this letter, is the clearest case: Onesimus is sent back "no longer as a bondservant but… as a beloved brother" (Phlm 16). Most Christians today apply these verses by analogy to employees and employers, remembering that a job is freely chosen and ancient slavery was not.
• Commentators: Henry insists the wife's submission is "not to a rigorous lord or absolute tyrant," and that husbands must love "with tender and faithful affection." He also says "parents must be tender, as well as children obedient." JFB, noting the past tense behind "as is fitting," suggests there had been "some degree of failure" in this duty at Colossae. Of husbands it warns against being "rude and bitter at home" while polite to everyone else. And of fathers it says children are discouraged "by perpetual fault-finding." Guzik notes that hypotassō is a military word about rank, not worth, and that the middle voice makes it voluntary. The lexicon supports both points. He reads "as is fitting in the Lord" as giving the motive rather than the limit, and lists cases where a wife is not bound, such as being asked to sin or suffering violence. On slaves, Guzik applies the passage to workers today and argues that Paul's teaching on equality before one Master undermined the slave system from within. JFB reads v25 as God, the Judge, favoring "the master no more than the slave."

Pointing to Christ

The whole chapter hangs on one fact: Christ died, rose and reigns, and believers are joined to him in all three. That is why the new life is not a set of rules about food and festivals but a new person "being renewed… after the image of its creator," and that image is Christ himself (1:15). The household code points to him too. Wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves and masters all serve one Lord, and he is the one who "took the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7) and gave himself for his bride. In him, "Christ is all, and in all."

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik covers the heavenly mindset, putting off/putting on, the household code, and the principle of doing all as unto the Lord.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• Crossway: crossway.org What being raised with Christ means for what a reader does on an ordinary morning.
• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Colossians -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

Links open on the publisher's own site. Nothing here is reproduced on this page.

Reflection

• Setting Your Mind on Things Above (v.2) — Because believers are raised with Christ, Paul calls them to fix their minds on heavenly realities rather than earthly ones. What occupies your thoughts most day to day, and what would it take to redirect your focus upward?
• Putting Sin to Death (v.5) — Paul doesn't ask believers to manage or moderate sin but to put it to death entirely. Which sin are you negotiating with instead of killing outright?
• Clothed With Christlike Character (v.12) — As God's chosen and beloved people, believers are told to clothe themselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Which of these virtues is hardest for you to put on, and does your identity in Christ change how you pursue it?
• Forgiving as Christ Forgave (v.13) — Believers are called to bear with one another and forgive as freely and fully as Christ forgave them. Is there someone you're withholding forgiveness from that Christ's example calls you to release?
• Letting Christ's Word Dwell Richly (v.16) — Paul urges believers to let the word of Christ live in them abundantly, shaping how they teach, sing, and relate to one another. Is Scripture a rare visitor in your life or a saturating presence?
• Working as unto the Lord (v.23) — Whatever believers do, they're to do it wholeheartedly as service to the Lord rather than to people. How would your work — your effort, attitude, and integrity when no one's watching — change if you saw Christ as the one you're actually working for?