{"id":536,"date":"2010-08-25T12:10:55","date_gmt":"2010-08-25T19:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=536"},"modified":"2011-01-14T05:07:41","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T12:07:41","slug":"where-the-scripture-dwells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=536","title":{"rendered":"Where the Scripture Dwells"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and <\/em>hymns and <\/em>spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.\u201d<\/strong><\/span> (Colossians 3:15)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll warn you now, that I\u2019m going to take at least three separate posts to try to unpack this marvelous verse!\u00a0 So, to get us started within Paul\u2019s context, I ask: How may we ever keep the well of God\u2019s grace bubbling up within us (vv.12-14)?\u00a0 How are we to cultivate a habitual gratitude (v.15)?<\/p>\n

The Apostle steers us directly into the path with his next imperative: \u201cLet the word of Christ richly dwell within you.\u201d <\/span><\/strong> This is an obvious parallel to the opening expression of the previous verse (\u201clet the peace of Christ rule in your hearts\u201d).\u00a0 The expression \u201cThe word of Christ\u201d<\/span><\/strong> is found only here in the New Testament.\u00a0 The \u201cword of the Lord\u201d (1 Thess. 1:8; 4:15; 2 Thess. 3:1) or the \u201cword of God\u201d (e.g. Rom. 9:6; 1 Cor. 14:36; Eph. 6:17) are more common.\u00a0 Our present expression, however, is in keeping with the Christological focus of this letter.\u00a0 Elsewhere in this letter Paul speaks of the afflictions \u201cof Christ\u201d (1:24), the circumcision \u201cof Christ\u201d (2:11), the substance (lit. body) \u201cof Christ\u201d (2:17), the peace \u201cof Christ\u201d (3:15), and the mystery \u201cof Christ\u201d (4:3).\u00a0 The genitive (\u201cof Christ\u201d) here could be subjective (\u201cthe word which Christ speaks\u201d)[1]<\/a> or objective (\u201cthe word that speaks about Christ\u201d).[2]<\/a> Probably the latter is closer to Paul\u2019s intent, but perhaps he provides an intentional ambiguity\u2014it is the message Christ gave, which expounds and explains who He is, that has its core and center in Him.[3]<\/a> This would be another way of referring to the gospel message itself, as expounded from the Scriptures\u2014primarily at that time Old Testament (he does, after all, refer to Him as \u201cChrist\u201d or \u201cMessiah[4]<\/a>), but also to include in time the New Testament (cf. Rom. 16:25-27).<\/p>\n

This \u201cword of Christ\u201d we are commanded to \u201cLet . . . dwell\u201d<\/span><\/strong> in us.\u00a0 The present imperative form, as with the command of verse 15, demands that action be taken repeatedly, as a habit of life.\u00a0 The word simply means to dwell or live in.\u00a0 But here surely it means to dwell personally and powerfully, pulling in some of the idea of the parallel verb from verse 15 (\u201cLet . . . rule\u201d).\u00a0 It is used five times in the New Testament, all by Paul and all metaphorically.\u00a0 It describes God (2 Cor. 6:16) by the Holy Spirit residing in the believer (Rom. 8:11; 2 Tim. 1:14).\u00a0 It also, closer to our usage here, can describe faith dwelling in the believer (2 Tim. 1:5).\u00a0 Here the word of Christ is to dwell \u201cin you.\u201d<\/span><\/strong> Continuing the idea of their corporate experience and life (from verse 15) the plural form means \u201cin your assembly\u201d[5]<\/a> not simply in each one of you personally.\u00a0 Certainly for this to be true of all of them together it must be true of each one individually, but the point is that if \u201cthe peace of Christ\u201d is to rule their relationships (v.15) then \u201cthe word of Christ\u201d must dwell in their midst (v.16).\u00a0 Personal opinion must bow to Christ\u2019s word.\u00a0 Personal feelings must yield to what Christ says.\u00a0 Individual ideas must bow to Christ\u2019s determinations through His word.\u00a0 When this happens then peace will rule in their relationships.\u00a0 Paul emphasizes even further the nature of this indwelling by saying it must be \u201crichly\u201d<\/span><\/strong> undertaken.\u00a0 The adverb is used four times in the NT, three of those by Paul (Col. 3:16; 1 Tim. 6:17; Titus 3:6; 2 Peter 1:11).\u00a0 It is related to the more frequently used noun which is translated as \u201crich.\u201d\u00a0 The adverb thus has the sense of richly, abundantly, and lavishly.<\/p>\n

When God\u2019s people live together in fellowship and gather together for worship \u201cthe word of Christ\u201d must have a prominent and primary place.\u00a0 Christ dwells among His people where His word is anticipated, sought out, welcomed, and allowed to rule.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s own indwelling is enabled through His word preached and taught in the power of the Holy Spirit.<\/em><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Bruce, 283; Lightfoot, 222.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> O\u2019Brien, 206; Moo, 285-286.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Dunn, 236.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Moo, 286.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Thayer, 217.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.\u201d (Colossians 3:15) I\u2019ll warn you now, that I\u2019m going to take at least three separate posts to try to unpack this marvelous verse!\u00a0 […]<\/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,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":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-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colossians","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-8E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","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=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}