Colossians 3:12-17
Chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God every step of the way.
It’s time for this year’s Summer Sermon Series – our third year of taking the time to look in some detail at the various books of the New Testament. These books provide the baseline for our faith -- the story of who we are. We understand ourselves better when we understand them better.
The first summer, as you’ll recall, we spent with the four gospels – when they were written, why they were written, by whom, and to whom. Last summer we focused on letters from Paul. There are thirteen letters attributed to Paul, but last year we looked only at the seven letters that are pretty universally accepted as genuinely written by the apostle Paul.
This summer we will start out with the six remaining Pauline letters – the ones attributed to Paul but generally assumed to have been written by others, using Paul’s name to establish their “legitimacy.” If we have time we will also look into the letters written by other writers – James, John, and Peter, the almost certainly falsely attributed Jude, and the unattributed Hebrews. That’s a lot for three or four months – we’ll see how far we can get.
One of the things we will watch for particularly will be changes occurring in the narrative as we get further and further from the actual life of Jesus. The seven letters we read last year were all written in the 50’s – 20 to 30 years after the life and death of Jesus – well within the lifespans of many who actually knew and followed Jesus in his life.
The letters we’ll read this year were written from the 80’s to the 120’s – a full fifty to ninety years after Jesus. Written to and by people who had never seen the historical Jesus – people who only knew the story as it was being developed within the group-mind of the community, when it was becoming less a story of Jesus, than the story of the church that was growing out from Jesus. What we will be hearing this summer is how a church grows out of an initial scattered gathering of believers.
Again, we’ll be looking at these letters in the chronological order in which they were written, not as they appear in most bibles. And, again, we’ll be using Marcus Borg’s Evolution of the Word, as our primary reference.
The earliest written of these letters is Colossians, a letter written to the Jesus people of Colossae, located today in west-central Turkey. The writer of the letter self-identifies as Paul, addresses specific groups of people, and begins with a blessing – all as the “legitimate” Paul does, leading some mainline scholars to hold to their belief that this is truly from Paul himself. One of the first oddities, however, is that the letter makes it clear this is not one of the communities Paul had founded, nor has he ever been there – and yet the writer effuses over the Colossians as if they are the dearest thing in his heart. It’s just a little odd.
As the letter progresses, though, the content begins to directly contradict Paul’s earlier teachings, especially in two important teaching points, leading most scholars today to lean toward it being a non-authentically Pauline source.
The first of the points is the treatment and role of slaves. In Paul’s letter to Philemon, which we read last year, he particularly emphasized that the slave Onesimus was his, Paul’s, brother and should be received as such by Philemon, his “owner.” Yet in Colossians 3:22 the writer instructs slaves to “obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord.”
The second specific point concerns the role of women – we are expected to believe that the same Paul who previously wrote “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” (Galatians 3:28) would now instruct the women of Colossae to “be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Paul has received a lot of grief over the years for his "anti-women" teachings. It is clarifying to recognize that many if not most of those statements come from these disputed letters, and were probably not composed by Paul at all.
The teachings of the authentic Paul were, following Jesus, radically “something new,” radically against social stratification of any kind. In the thirty-plus years which had passed since the authentically Pauline letters, Paul’s teachings were already being watered down to make them acceptable to the hierarchical constructs of the Roman Empire. The authentic Paul never accommodated his teachings to anyone.
One more major point in siding with the “not true Paul” side is that, while the teachings, excepting the ones quoted above, are generally in line with Paul’s style, about mid-way through the letter “Paul” begins to sound much more like the author of the Gospel of John and the first letter of John, in that he begins to refer to Jesus in terms of the “cosmic Christ,” as one who was present from the creation and was, indeed, part of creation itself. This language is not found anywhere else in Paul’s writings.
There are arguments to be made that this is a genuinely Pauline letter, but there are stronger arguments against it. The “Cosmic Christ” language is clearly an evolved theology, one we do not find anywhere else in the years Paul was alive, (he died in the 60’s). It becomes much more developed in the 80’s and 90’s, showing up finally as a well developed theology in John’s gospel, written in the decade after Colossians.
Borg makes, for me, a convincing argument against it being written by Paul. I side with those scholars who suspect it is an earlier letter, written in Paul’s name, by a disciple of Paul – and then somewhat clumsily updated as the thinking of the community has aged into the 80’s. What it is, is an excellent portrait of the development of a Christian community from an early group of followers of Jesus the Teacher, into a ‘Church” of the Cosmic Christ.
Colossians, whether authentically Paul or not, is definitely worth studying. I recommend you read it through – it’s only four short chapters. The teachings are good, and the language in places is lovely. Fifty years later, the cult of Jesus-followers is becoming a faith with a codified theology, one with its original radicalized message giving way to adaptation to the society and the powers that be of its time.
This has happened time and again through the centuries -- sometimes it's a good thing, such as when cultural prejudices shift to become more accepting. Sometimes it is not good -- when the church acts in the interest of power and money rather than love. It is happening again right now with actions previously viewed as sinful being glossed over by a large segment of American Christianity in order to accommodate their political leanings. We are none of us free from this and it is important to recognize it when we find it in the history of our faith. Recognizing it in the past may help us avoid it in the present.
Read carefully and thoughtfully, being wary of pitfalls, Colossians is a good teaching letter and some of the language is beautiful. No one can possibly fault a passage which tells us to, “as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
A lovely message, regardless who wrote it.
The first summer, as you’ll recall, we spent with the four gospels – when they were written, why they were written, by whom, and to whom. Last summer we focused on letters from Paul. There are thirteen letters attributed to Paul, but last year we looked only at the seven letters that are pretty universally accepted as genuinely written by the apostle Paul.
This summer we will start out with the six remaining Pauline letters – the ones attributed to Paul but generally assumed to have been written by others, using Paul’s name to establish their “legitimacy.” If we have time we will also look into the letters written by other writers – James, John, and Peter, the almost certainly falsely attributed Jude, and the unattributed Hebrews. That’s a lot for three or four months – we’ll see how far we can get.
One of the things we will watch for particularly will be changes occurring in the narrative as we get further and further from the actual life of Jesus. The seven letters we read last year were all written in the 50’s – 20 to 30 years after the life and death of Jesus – well within the lifespans of many who actually knew and followed Jesus in his life.
The letters we’ll read this year were written from the 80’s to the 120’s – a full fifty to ninety years after Jesus. Written to and by people who had never seen the historical Jesus – people who only knew the story as it was being developed within the group-mind of the community, when it was becoming less a story of Jesus, than the story of the church that was growing out from Jesus. What we will be hearing this summer is how a church grows out of an initial scattered gathering of believers.
Again, we’ll be looking at these letters in the chronological order in which they were written, not as they appear in most bibles. And, again, we’ll be using Marcus Borg’s Evolution of the Word, as our primary reference.
The earliest written of these letters is Colossians, a letter written to the Jesus people of Colossae, located today in west-central Turkey. The writer of the letter self-identifies as Paul, addresses specific groups of people, and begins with a blessing – all as the “legitimate” Paul does, leading some mainline scholars to hold to their belief that this is truly from Paul himself. One of the first oddities, however, is that the letter makes it clear this is not one of the communities Paul had founded, nor has he ever been there – and yet the writer effuses over the Colossians as if they are the dearest thing in his heart. It’s just a little odd.
As the letter progresses, though, the content begins to directly contradict Paul’s earlier teachings, especially in two important teaching points, leading most scholars today to lean toward it being a non-authentically Pauline source.
The first of the points is the treatment and role of slaves. In Paul’s letter to Philemon, which we read last year, he particularly emphasized that the slave Onesimus was his, Paul’s, brother and should be received as such by Philemon, his “owner.” Yet in Colossians 3:22 the writer instructs slaves to “obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord.”
The second specific point concerns the role of women – we are expected to believe that the same Paul who previously wrote “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” (Galatians 3:28) would now instruct the women of Colossae to “be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Paul has received a lot of grief over the years for his "anti-women" teachings. It is clarifying to recognize that many if not most of those statements come from these disputed letters, and were probably not composed by Paul at all.
The teachings of the authentic Paul were, following Jesus, radically “something new,” radically against social stratification of any kind. In the thirty-plus years which had passed since the authentically Pauline letters, Paul’s teachings were already being watered down to make them acceptable to the hierarchical constructs of the Roman Empire. The authentic Paul never accommodated his teachings to anyone.
One more major point in siding with the “not true Paul” side is that, while the teachings, excepting the ones quoted above, are generally in line with Paul’s style, about mid-way through the letter “Paul” begins to sound much more like the author of the Gospel of John and the first letter of John, in that he begins to refer to Jesus in terms of the “cosmic Christ,” as one who was present from the creation and was, indeed, part of creation itself. This language is not found anywhere else in Paul’s writings.
There are arguments to be made that this is a genuinely Pauline letter, but there are stronger arguments against it. The “Cosmic Christ” language is clearly an evolved theology, one we do not find anywhere else in the years Paul was alive, (he died in the 60’s). It becomes much more developed in the 80’s and 90’s, showing up finally as a well developed theology in John’s gospel, written in the decade after Colossians.
Borg makes, for me, a convincing argument against it being written by Paul. I side with those scholars who suspect it is an earlier letter, written in Paul’s name, by a disciple of Paul – and then somewhat clumsily updated as the thinking of the community has aged into the 80’s. What it is, is an excellent portrait of the development of a Christian community from an early group of followers of Jesus the Teacher, into a ‘Church” of the Cosmic Christ.
Colossians, whether authentically Paul or not, is definitely worth studying. I recommend you read it through – it’s only four short chapters. The teachings are good, and the language in places is lovely. Fifty years later, the cult of Jesus-followers is becoming a faith with a codified theology, one with its original radicalized message giving way to adaptation to the society and the powers that be of its time.
This has happened time and again through the centuries -- sometimes it's a good thing, such as when cultural prejudices shift to become more accepting. Sometimes it is not good -- when the church acts in the interest of power and money rather than love. It is happening again right now with actions previously viewed as sinful being glossed over by a large segment of American Christianity in order to accommodate their political leanings. We are none of us free from this and it is important to recognize it when we find it in the history of our faith. Recognizing it in the past may help us avoid it in the present.
Read carefully and thoughtfully, being wary of pitfalls, Colossians is a good teaching letter and some of the language is beautiful. No one can possibly fault a passage which tells us to, “as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
A lovely message, regardless who wrote it.
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