Closet Cleaning~~The Next Step

Welcome back to your closet! We took a week off to contemplate some thoughts on change, now we are ready to return to our heart’s closet cleaning project as we consider the teachings found in Colossians 3. I guess this provides an opportunity for us to consider the role of change in our individual lives.

Last time, as we looked at verse 5, we discussed the command to ‘mortify’~put to death, annihilate, exterminate~ specific sensual sins that were a big part of the Greek culture of Paul’s day. (And ours as well, I might say!)

As we move down to verse 8, Paul increases his intensity and tells the Colossians believers, “OK, you have done that part, NOW you need to…”  In other words, if you think that was hard, now you need to put off, rid yourself of, and lay aside the following.

The list from verse 8 divides itself into anger/reactionary type sins and language sins. Notice how the progression intensifies.

Anger-Pent up frustrations that lead to aggression

                Wrath-(rage)-outbursts of temper

        Malice-A combination of anger and wrath that        reaches a point that often demonstrates itself in injury to others. Developing a vicious spirit towards someone

Slander-using words to injure others

                Filthy communication-ugly, offensive, abrasive talk

(Bible Knowledge Commentary,  Expositor’s Bible Commentary, and Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words)

The way in which we react to circumstances and the language we use everyday should be ‘outfits’ that match who we are in Christ (verses 1-4).  Paul admonishes that the ‘outfits’ listed above do not do so! So, we are told to get rid of them!  We need to clean them out of our closet.

The sad thing is that the sensual sins we cleaned out of our closet last time (verse 5) are obviously looked upon with strong distaste, while the attitude/language sins of verse 8 are often overlooked and ‘justified’. Sometimes we think maybe we should keep some of those ‘outfits’ just in case. 

But, as mentioned above, Paul increases his emphasis and states, "BUT NOW you need to rid yourself of these outfits as well."

As an interesting side note, the Bible Knowledge Commentary mentions that the phrase ‘put off’, or ‘rid yourself’ was also used as a common idiom, “throw it off like a dirty shirt”.

As we continue to look into our heart closet, we now have this section to go through and clean it out too! 

HMM? I think some of our closets are getting pretty bare!

Debbie