{"id":112,"date":"2010-01-04T14:41:51","date_gmt":"2010-01-04T19:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=112"},"modified":"2013-06-26T11:31:12","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T15:31:12","slug":"the-christian-life-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=112","title":{"rendered":"The Christian life: one foot in front of the other"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”<\/strong><\/em> (Colossians 2:6-7)<\/p>\n

The Christian life is a “walk” (v.6) — a matter of putting one foot in front of the other moment by moment, decision by decision in the strength of God’s Spirit.\u00a0 But just what does that “walk” look like?\u00a0 The Apostle Paul tells us in v.7 as he\u00a0sets forth\u00a0four participles, all of which qualify the imperative to “walk in him [i.e., Jesus Christ]”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first comes from the horticultural world —\u00a0“rooted.”<\/strong>\u00a0 The perfect tense of the verb indicates that this is past action which results in abiding state.\u00a0 The passive voice points to God as the active agent (as also in the next two participles).\u00a0 When a person comes to faith in Christ, God sends that person’s roots down deep into Christ Himself.\u00a0 Like a mighty redwood whose roots go down and spread out to provide a channel for nourishment from the soil and stability from the winds of adversity, so Christ is the very “soil” from which the believer draws his life and in which he finds his security and strength.<\/p>\n

The second comes from the architectural world — “built up.”<\/strong>\u00a0 Here to we find a passive voice–God is the builder.\u00a0 Now, however, we have present tense (as in the next two participles as well)–emphasizing the ongoing, habitual nature of the action.\u00a0 We are built upon the foundation of Christ (1 Cor. 3:10-14).\u00a0 We are ever and always being build up by God on this immovable foundation.\u00a0 Having\u00a0rooted us (downward), now God works to build us\u00a0(upward).<\/p>\n

The third comes from the legal world — “established.”<\/strong>\u00a0 The word was used outside the Bible to describe that which was legally guaranteed.\u00a0 There may be something of that notion here, but more likely is the derived sense of being “strenghened” or “established.”\u00a0 That in which we are to be established is “in the faith.”\u00a0 By “faith” it seems Paul has in mind here, not the subjective, personal trust of each believer, but the objective content of “the faith.”\u00a0 It is “in” the sphere of the faith that God will\u00a0strengthen and establish us.\u00a0 Indeed, “… you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).<\/p>\n

The fourth rounds out the group — “abounding in thankfulness.”<\/strong>\u00a0 Perhaps here the picture is that of a cup overflowing with excess.\u00a0 The believer–regardless of his circumstances–should always brim over with expressions of gratitude to God.\u00a0 The thankful heart is caught up with what it does possess, not what it does not have.\u00a0 Falsehoods based upon empty promises find no hearing in the life of the truly grateful person.\u00a0 There is no ground\u00a0of appeal.\u00a0 In fact, as we consider the false teaching threatening the Colossian church, we might say that worship–corporate and\u00a0private–is both a safeguard and weapon against error.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For fun, see Colossians 1:10-12 where Paul uses the same verb (“walk,” v.10) and then uses four participles to describe that walk, just as he does here.\u00a0 Interestingly, the first and last use the same imagery as here: horticulture (“bearing fruit,” v.10b) and thanksgiving (v.12).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7) The Christian life is a “walk” (v.6) — a matter of putting one foot in front of the other moment by moment, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colossians","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-1O","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}