Colossians 3:16 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, with all wisdom by teaching and admonishing yourselves with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
This verse particularly focuses in on the life of the church as the body of Christ. These are the things the church can do as it gathered together in thankfulness. Paul moves from the peace of Christ to the word of Christ. This word focuses upon the gospel message of Christ’s incarnation, death, resurrection, and exaltation and all of its ramifications and applications in how and why we exist. This word is what God wants us to know. There are many messages that bombard our minds in the “information age” in which we live. But there is one message that must break through all the texts, emails, visuals, and audios that come to us every day.
This message must be given with all wisdom. This wisdom is from God and not human thinking although we must do our part in studying and learning deeply about the word of Christ. Wisdom comes with worship, represented in the Old Testament as the “fear of the Lord” (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10). The way the word of Christ is given int he church is expressed in two instrumental participles. Teaching is one of the key ways people come to know about the good news of Jesus. Through many of his letters, Paul dealt with many teachers who distorted the gospel. He wrote to Timothy to find qualified teachers in Ephesus in order to ensure that the church would grow to strong health and mission (2 Timothy 2:2).
Admonishing is a form of strong teaching that warns about right and wrong thinking and behavior. It moves beyond the facts that often are the key topics of typical teaching. Admonishing often is through exhortation. Paul’s own writing, particularly in this chapter, is a good example of the type of admonishment the leaders of the churches could do. Admonishing people in the church can be a delicate matter because there must be a balance between unconditional love with acceptance and the need to correct and rebuke sin and ignorance. If an atmosphere of love is nurtured and people know they are in a safe place, then it will be easier to deal with their sin.
Paul then gives a short list of ways this teaching and admonishing can be done. It is difficult to know what type of music the early church had. It may have been simple at first because of meeting in house churches. The church of all ages has expressed its faith and hope in music. The Psalms are a collection of the songs of ancient Israel. Some of the greatest songs of all time are based on psalms or other Scriptures. Hymns have a more standardized sense to them. These are songs that are well known and sung in many places. The hymns mentioned or implied in the New Testament focus on key creedal elements about Jesus. Spiritual songs might be considered those that speak about our spiritual lives in various ways. There are many songs that do not specifically mention Jesus but refer more to our lives in other ways.
This singing should come from our hearts and be directed to God and filled with thankfulness. There is nothing in this world that can replace times of genuine, heart-felt worship through singing. There are many styles of Christian music in the world. Music tends to be highly cultural. It is unfortunate when the music of a particular culture is replaced by outside music. The wonderful variety represents God’s creativity in making so many unique and gifted people. This versed challenged the Colossians long ago to grow their faith and unity through hearing the word of Christ proclaimed and singing songs in worship. These are two key attributes to any growing church.
For older posts, click here.