Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
This sounds like a pretty good gig, doesn’t it? Spending significant time with folks who study God’s Word, teach and discuss it accurately, spend time singing praises to the Lord, and have an overall air of thankfulness about them. Sign me up! The church we attend is certainly like this—as are most of our close friendships—and we thank God for that. I hope you can, too.
Let’s break this passage down into its four parts.
The “word of Christ” wants to have a powerful place in your life…but do you let it? Do you invite His Word into your heart and mind? This is no mere academic exercise. In many classes you can devour the information, spit it out for the test, but leave the semester with little to no true understanding. It must not be that way with the Word of God. Spurgeon powerfully stated, “You must really know the spiritual meaning of it; you must believe it; you must live upon it; you must drink it in; you must let it soak into your innermost being as the dew saturated the fleece of Gideon. It is not enough to have a Bible on the shelf; it is infinitely better to have its truths stored up within your soul. It is a good thing to carry your Testament in your pocket, it is far better to carry its message in your heart.”
Discipleship is crucial. Who is teaching you…and who are you teaching? Once the “word of Christ” has taken up residence in your heart and mind, you are not to hoard it. Some of us are spiritually gifted to teach, like Pastors, but all of us are called to pass on what we have learned (Deut. 6:7). Admonishment, on the other hand, means to warn or to caution. It is the exertion of biblical influence in order to place something of value into the mind of someone you care about who may be headed in the wrong direction. However, admonishment can also be applied in a positive sense, helping another Believer with the application of biblical truths.
The third point is more about variety than prescription. In its original context, psalms were literally passages from the Book of Psalms put to music. Hymns, on the other hand, were more personal. Hymns tell a story or share a testimony and from a musical perspective, they also have a defined format. Spiritual songs are more spontaneous in nature and would probably include what we call modern contemporary Christian music or Praise & Worship songs. Again, the main point is not to discern three distinct styles, but rather to point us to creative expression of our love of the Lord.
Finally, whenever you are singing along with Christian songs, do feelings of thankfulness well up inside of you? I know there are people that are not very musical, but that misses the point. Paul is reminding us that we should always have a “song” of thanksgiving in our hearts, having been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light (Col 1:3). Believers have SO MUCH to be thankful for…but does that truth bear witness in our lives? Does it in mine? Does it in yours?
