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A Brief Commentary on Colossians

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Rembrandt van Rijn, Saint Paul

Over the past few weeks I’ve been teaching an online course on Paul’s letter to the Colossians. As we’ve gone through the letter, I’ve also been noting on social media some insights gained from studying Colossians. It occurred to me at some point that these form a kind of short-hand commentary on the letter. Here are those social media posts, making for A Brief Commentary on Colossians.

Scholars debate whether Paul actually wrote Colossians (Col 1:1), mostly on theological grounds. Pseudonymous writings were known in the ancient world, a devoted disciple writing in their mentor’s name.

I have doubts about other Pauline letters, but I believe Paul directly authorized Colossians.

Colossians—like most of Paul’s letters—begins with an extended prayer (Col 1:3ff.). Typically these prayers merge into a theologically rich section, which forms the basis for practical exhortations.

A helpful pattern: prayerful theologizing lived out practically. Faith lived out in love.

“God-Lord-Spirit” (e.g. Col 1:3-8) is Paul’s incipient trinitarianism—not the full-blown version of later orthodoxy, but a helpful triad for describing God and God’s work in the world.

God the Father works through our Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. We come to God through Jesus by the Spirit.

“Faith-Hope-Love” (e.g. Col 1:3-5) is Paul’s triad of core Christian virtues.

“Faith” = trust in God + allegiance to God’s ways

“Hope” = future-focused faith, grounded in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead

“Love” = love in the way of Jesus: self-giving, other-lifting, compassion-in-action

Paul’s prayers (e.g. Col 1:3ff.) are saturated with gratitude. Joyful thanksgiving is a hallmark of Christian prayer.

Yes, we also lament—and so did Paul. But more often than not, our prayers should be marked by humble, joy-filled gratitude for the people in our lives and all that God has given us.

“The word of truth” in Col 1:5 is not the Bible. It’s “the gospel,” the text says, the orally proclaimed message about Jesus. This is true of nearly all “word of x” language in the NT, including “word of God.”

The story of Jesus is God’s good-news word to the world. The Bible bears witness to this.

The fruit of the gospel, the fruit of the Spirit’s work in response to the good news about Jesus, is faith, hope, and love in the way of Jesus (Col 1:3-8).

The seed of the word is planted in the soil of our hearts, and if the soil is good it bears much fruit (Mark 4:20).

Four common themes in Paul’s prayers (e.g. Col 1:3ff.):
1) Gratitude for the other, for their faith, hope, and/or love.
2) For the knowledge of God’s will to be fruitful in doing God’s will.
3) For strength to endure hardships with joyful thanksgiving.
4) For growth in love for one another.

What’s in our prayers?

“From the day you heard the gospel and truly comprehended the grace of God” (Col 1:6).

What a wonderful description of a come-to-Jesus moment! Hearing the good-news story of Jesus and fully grasping the amazing grace of God—and being utterly transformed in the encounter.

Paul makes much of his “co-workers” like Epaphras (Col 1:7), faithful men and women who shared with Paul in bringing the good news of Jesus to the world. Contrary to our imagined lone-ranger image of Paul (like Rembrandt’s famous painting, above), he depended on others, working in community.

Knowledge of God and God’s will is never given by God so we can appear clever or wise in the eyes of others. These are given by God to make us fruitful in good works, the works of faith and hope and love—works which are often unseen by others (Col 1:9-10).

God has “rescued us from the power of shadows and transferred us into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son” (Col 1:14).

In other words, we’ve experienced a profound change in lordship: formerly slaves to evil powers, now committed followers of Jesus and his way of love leading to justice and peace.

Col 1:15-20 is highly poetic, and may be from an early Christian hymn (see also 1 Cor 8:6 and Phil 2:6-11). I love the idea of early Jesus-followers gathering in Ephesus or Colossae, their croaky dawn voices singing off-key, “Praise be Jesus the Christ, the image of the invisible God…”

Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). No one has ever seen God in God’s fullness, but when we look to Jesus we see God as God is—faithful, compassionate, merciful, working through weakness, walking in love.

We are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27)—Jesus *is* the image of God (Col 1:15).

This means we who follow Jesus are being re-created in the image of Jesus (Col 3:10-11)—becoming more and more like him in his way of being, his way of living in the world.

Jesus— “all things have been created through him and for him” (Col 1:16). Jesus is the embodiment of divine wisdom, through which God created and sustains all things (Prov 8:22-31). If we want to know what divine wisdom looks like, look to Jesus: pure, peaceable, gentle, merciful… (Jas 3:17).

For the Apostle Paul, the powers of this world are both “visible and invisible” (Col 1:16)—material and spiritual, human and non-human, personal and impersonal. They are humans with power. They are powerful systems and structures. They are the spirit that animates and compels these powers.

The powers of this world—human, systemic, spiritual—were created by God (Col 1:16). When good, we are called to participate with them, using power to serve. When evil, we are called to resist them, nonviolently. Either way, we trust in God’s ultimate reconciliation of these powers (Col 1:20).

Jesus is “the head of the body, the church” (Col 1:18). He is the source of the church’s life, the guiding authority over the church. The church is called to live out the life of Jesus, to continue his reconciling mission in the world (Luke 4:18-19; 19:10; Acts 10:36).

Jesus is both the “firstborn of all creation” and the “firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:15, 18). “Firstborn” is not emphasizing his origins, but his status—in both God’s original creation and God’s new creation, Jesus is Lord, having “first place in everything.”

In Jesus “all the fullness (of God) dwells” (Col 1:19). Everything that is God is found in Jesus. All God’s transcendence-in-immanence, all God’s power-in-weakness, all God’s majesty-in-humility, all God’s sovereignty-in-service, all God’s holiness-in-mercy, all God’s faithfulness-in-love.

Through Jesus “God was pleased to reconcile to God’s self all things” (Col 1:20). This was Jesus’ mission, and he continues this mission through the church and by God’s Spirit in the world. All things—every person, everything in creation—will be renewed, brought to wholeness and harmony!

In Jesus God has reconciled all things, “making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20). This isn’t penal substitutionary atonement—it’s Christus victor, Jesus through his bloody crucifixion at the hands of the world’s powers disarming these powers and triumphing over them (Col 2:14-15).

Paul uses strong language to describe the way Gentiles live: “hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (Col 1:21). There’s surely hyperbole here, common early Jewish rhetoric, but it highlights a reality for all of us: we all have habits of harm which can enslave us, from which we need to be liberated.

We who are in Christ are “holy and blameless and irreproachable”—as long as we “continue securely established and steadfast in the faith” (Col 1:22-23). Throughout the NT Christian faith is portrayed as an ongoing journey, growing in our trust in God and our commitment to Jesus’ way of love.

In what sense has the gospel already “been proclaimed to every creature under heaven” (Col 1:23)? Through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his exaltation to God’s right hand: these are God’s public declaration of the defeat of sin and death, and of Jesus as Lord over all evil powers.

If “the gospel has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven” (Col 1:23) then all God’s creatures can proclaim the good news back to us—if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

“God was pleased to reconcile to God’s self all things”; the gospel “has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven” (Col 1:20, 23). The good-news story of Jesus has profound implications for everything God has created, and we as Christians are called to live into the restoration of creation.

Paul on his sufferings: “In my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24). This is not that Jesus didn’t suffer enough on the cross; it’s that our co-suffering love with and for others is an extension of Jesus’ co-suffering love with and for the world.

Paul is realistic about physical suffering: he calls it a “groaning” with creation and the Spirit, even a “messenger of Satan” (Rom 8; 2 Cor 12). Yet Paul chooses to rejoice in suffering (e.g. Col 1:24) because, even though it’s not from God, God can work through it to bring about God’s good purpose (Rom 8:28-30).

For Paul “the word of God” is not the Bible—it’s the gospel, the good-news story of Jesus. In Col 1:25 it’s specifically the good news that this gospel brings to Gentiles: the “mystery” of how, through Jesus, God has brought us into the people of God, widening the circle of God’s saving mercy.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27)—a Pauline gospel summary. We who are “in Christ” have Christ “in us,” Christ’s very Spirit. This gives us “the hope of glory”—the assurance that one day we will fully reflect Christ’s glory, the fullness of Jesus’ character, as children of God (Rom 8).

“So that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28)—this is Paul’s ministry goal for individual people. Being increasingly shaped into the image of Christ, the character of Jesus—his way of faith, his way of love.

“I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love” (Col 2:2)—this is Paul’s ministry goal for communities of faith. “Encouraging” them—building them up—so that they are “united in love”—not united in particular beliefs, but in following Jesus’ way of love.

In Jesus Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:3). This doesn’t mean there is no knowledge outside of Christ. Rather, it means that in Christ we find the wisdom and knowledge that most matters in life—how to live a life of faith, hope, and love.

“Though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit” (Col 2:5). We’ve all experienced this, the sense of being with someone in spirit even when we can’t be there in person. Paul’s words, though, hold an ambiguity that deepens this for fellow Christians—”I am with you in spirit/the Spirit.”

“Christ Jesus the Lord” (Col 2:6)—two early Christian confessions rolled into one.

Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the one who brings about God’s reign of justice and peace and life on earth.

Jesus is Lord, the one who holds our ultimate allegiance, above all other powers of this age.

As Christians we “receive” Jesus as Christ and Lord (Col 2:6)—we gladly welcome him as Christ and Lord, and we learn the traditional Christian teaching about him as Christ and Lord.

This is the same way in which we continue to “walk” in Jesus—as our Messiah and our Lord.

The Christian life is “walking in Jesus” as Christ and Lord—walking with Jesus, walking in his way of life (Col 2:6). We never get beyond this—spiritual maturity is about walking more closely with Jesus, more closely reflecting his character, his motives, his desires.

No, Paul is not against “philosophy” in general (Col 2:8)—he shows evidence of being familiar with, and using, some of the philosophy of his day. Here he’s probably speaking against a kind of “sophistry,” using clever but false arguments, or beautifully sounding but ultimately meaningless rhetoric.

“In Jesus the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9). Everything that God is, is found in Jesus. All God’s transcendence-in-immanence, all God’s power-in-weakness, all God’s majesty-in-humility, all God’s sovereignty-in-service, all God’s holiness-in-mercy, all God’s faithfulness-in-love.

For the Apostle Paul, Christians are those who have been crucified with Jesus (dying to our self-focused desires), buried with him (symbolized in baptism), and raised from the dead with him (sharing in his life of faith, hope, and love) (Col 2:12).

In Christ God has “forgiven us all our trespasses” (Col 2:13). This might seem irresponsible of God, not keeping us accountable. But God has also given us God’s Spirit, who works in us a life of repentance from our habits of harm, and a life of faith and love in the way of Jesus.

In crucifying Jesus the powers-that-be thought they were disarming Jesus, publicly humiliating him, triumphing over him. In a surprising twist, however, through the cross—stamped with the approval of his resurrection by God—Jesus has actually done these things to the powers of this age (Col 2:15).

Paul never denounces Jews for keeping kosher or observing Sabbath—he himself was an observant Jew. Rather, his point in Col 2 etc. is that Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to be part of the messianic people of God—for both Jewish and Gentile Christians, the “fullness” is found in Jesus.

For Paul, the “world” and the “flesh” (e.g. Col 2:20-23) are the collective and individual manifestations respectively of living a self-focused life not centered on Jesus’ way of faith, hope, and love. In their extremes, they can reflect either rigid rule-keeping or wild self-indulgence.

Christians often equate “worldly” with selfish indulgence or rampant immorality. But in Col 2:20-23 Paul describes rigid rule-keeping as equally “of the world.” Legalism is just as worldly as licentiousness. The way of Jesus is neither of these extremes.

It’s something fundamentalisms don’t get: a way of life based on prohibitions cannot actually bring about holiness. This has “an appearance of wisdom” but it fails to deal with the root of the problem: our deeply ingrained habits of harm (Col 2:20-23). We need the Spirit. We need Jesus’ way of love.

For Paul, heaven is not a place we go after we die; it is the realm of God now, where God is most fully present (“the things above,” Col 3:1). In Christian eschatology, heaven comes down to earth; we long for God’s reign to come on earth as it is in heaven—and one day it will (Matt 6:10; Rev 21-22).

Don’t get me wrong. Paul does speak about “life after death,” but it’s not about being “in heaven.” It’s about being “with Christ” (Phil 1:23), “with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8)—with Jesus. The ultimate goal is the resurrection of the body, living within a renewed creation (Rom 8:18-30).

If heaven/ “the things above” is where God is most fully present, “earthly” things are those which do not reflect God’s presence (Col 3:2, 5). These are not our basic human desires, which are good; they are those harmful or excessive desires we nurture, and the actions that come from them.

For Paul, “sexual immorality” (Col 3:5) refers to harmful or excessive sexual desires, attitudes, and actions: lust, promiscuity, infidelity, idolatry, exploitation, violence. Note: this has nothing to do with sexual orientation, and nothing to do with loving and committed same-sex marriages.

Paul says that greed is a form of idolatry (Col 3:5). A desire to accumulate wealth or power is akin to worshiping another god, one who commands our allegiance—and demands that we sacrifice others along the way. We cannot serve both God and Mammon (Matt 6:24).

Anger is not in itself sin— “Be angry but do not sin,” Eph 4:26 says. But not all anger is righteous, and even righteous anger can fester into rage or malice (Col 3:8). This—harmful or excessive anger—we must guard against, for it does not bring about the righteousness or justice of God (Jas 1:20).

For Christians, “Christ is all and in all” (Col 3:11). “Christ is all”—Jesus is our Messiah and Lord, in whom we find all we need for a life of faith and hope and love. And “Christ is in all”—by the Spirit the risen Jesus is in and among all followers of Jesus, with us to the end of the age.

In our baptism—and day by day throughout the Christian life—we are remade into the image of God, that is, the image of Jesus (Col 3:9-11; see 1:15). In this renewal of God’s image, there is no distinction along lines of ethnicity, culture, language, religious expression, gender, social status…

In our baptism—and day by day throughout the Christian life—we commit to putting off habits of harm and putting on holy habits of love: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, and forgiveness (Col 3:12-14). This is like putting on Jesus, clothing ourselves in his character.

Love in the way of Jesus is the virtue that “binds together” all other Christian virtues (Col 3:14). It is “the more excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31). It is the greatest of the abiding virtues of faith, hope, and love (13:13). “Faith working through love” is “the only thing that matters” (Gal 5:6).

Love in the way of Jesus is the purpose of freedom for the Christian (Gal 5:13). This—loving our neighbour as if their needs were our own—sums up the entire Torah (Rom 13:8-10; Gal 5:14). It is the first of the fruit of God’s Spirit in our lives (Gal 5:22).

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph 5:1-2).

“The peace of Christ” can be inward peace, peace with one another, peace with God, peace within creation. It’s a full shalom.

In Col 3:15, the focus is on peace with one another: “the peace of Christ” is to “rule” or “judge” among us, being the determining factor among us as church communities.

“The word of Christ”: the gospel, the good-news story of Jesus. “Dwell”: make a home in. “You”: a collective plural. “Richly”: abundantly, in fullness.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”: Let the good-news story of Jesus make itself fully at home among you as a community (Col 3:16).

How does the good-news story of Jesus make itself at home among us? Through our teaching and our worship (Col 3:16). As with believers individually, so with the church collectively—we never move beyond the gospel, we never move beyond Jesus, but maturity is a deepening of life in Jesus (Col 2:6-7).

“Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus”: do everything as if you were an envoy of Jesus, specially commissioned by him (Col 3:17). That’s a daunting task! But it is our calling as followers of Jesus: to be as Jesus to the world, especially in the way we love.

“Giving thanks to the Father” (Col 1:12). “Abounding in thanksgiving” (2:7). “Be thankful” (3:15). “Giving thanks to God the Father through Jesus” (3:17). “Devote yourselves to prayer, in thanksgiving” (4:2).

Gratitude—and the basic contentment that comes with it—is essential to the Christian life.

Col 3:18-4:1 is a “household code,” similar to the better known one in Eph 5:22-6:9. How should we read these for today?

Household codes, following Aristotle’s example, reinforced patriarchal norms to maintain order and stability in society. In following household codes, the early Christians were reassuring the powers-that-be that Christianity was not a threat to the social order.

Why was this needed? Because Christianity *was* a threat to the social order. After all, Jesus is Lord, not Caesar. And all that “brother/sister” language for fellow believers, and not promoting marriage, de-centered the biological family. The first Christians were not about “family values.”

(By the way, for more on that idea—that the earliest Christians were not “family values”—see my blog post here.)

Yet even the Pauline household codes pushed against the patriarchy: according to Col and Eph, the patriarch of the household had significant obligations to household members, outlined using Christian language of love and equity, reflecting Jesus’ Lordship.

Ephesians’ household code begins by calling on all Christians—including patriarchs—to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21). Both refer to one of Paul’s axioms: “There is no partiality with God”—God views all people on equal footing (Eph 6:9; Col 3:25).

So how should we read these for today? Christians should always be pushing toward greater equity and egalitarianism. Always. These household codes show us how the early Christians strove to do that, pushing against patriarchal norms even while, at times, having to live within them.

Christians must work against human enslavement, in all its forms. Yet Paul’s words to Christian slaves in his day are good words for all of us as Christians in our work: “Whatever task you do, work as for the Lord and not for humans. You serve the Lord Christ” (Col 3:23-24).

“There is no partiality” with God (Col 3:25); this is one of Paul’s axioms (Rom 2:11; Gal 2:6; Eph 6:9). God regards each person equally, through the eyes of love, regardless of their ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, age, socio-economic status—or any other social distinction we might make.

“Devote yourselves to prayer, with thanksgiving” (Col 4:2).

“Persevere in prayer” (Rom 12:12).

“Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:17-18).

Regular, persistent prayer—with thanksgiving—is a fundamental reality of the Christian life. It’s the air we breathe.

I’ll say it again: for Paul “the word” is not the Bible—it’s the gospel, the good-news story of Jesus, “the mystery of Christ” (Col 4:3). As Christians may we all—through our words and through our deeds—”reveal” this mystery clearly (4:4).

Christians: “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders… Let your speech always be gracious” (Col 4:5-6).

I’ll say it again for those in the back of the social media room: Christians are called to let our speech always be gracious toward those who are not Christians.

Gracious. Always.

The ends of Paul’s letters are often skipped over, but in some ways they’re the most interesting parts (e.g. Col 4:7-18). It’s there that we learn about Paul’s coworkers and we get a window onto his closest relationships. We can even glimpse God at work behind the scenes of the NT.

“Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you” (Col 4:9). This is the same Onesimus who is the runaway slave from Philemon, for whom Paul in that letter advocates. He is to be received “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother” (Philmn 16).

The Colossians have received instructions about “Mark the cousin of Barnabas”; they are to welcome him if he comes (Col 4:10). This is the same Mark that Paul didn’t want to bring along on his second missionary journey (Acts 15:36-39). A reconciliation behind the scenes of the New Testament.

“My coworkers for the kingdom of God” (Col 4:11). As Christians, this is what we are called to be and to do: working together in Jesus’ way of love to see God’s reign come on earth as it is in heaven, God’s reign of true justice and lasting peace and flourishing life for all people.

“Luke, the beloved physician” (Col 4:14). This is the traditional author of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. We have no solid way of confirming this, but there’s also no good reason to doubt this tradition.

“Nympha and the church in her house” (Col 4:15). Women served as patrons, deacons, teachers, and even apostles in the early church (see Rom 16:1-7). However we understand prohibitions against women having authority (e.g. 1 Tim 2:12), in practice women had much authority—and should still have.

Paul wrote a letter to the Laodiceans, yet we don’t have such a letter (Col 4:16). Was this lost? Or was it, perhaps, the letter to Philemon, or to the Ephesians? Regardless, we know of at least two other letters Paul wrote which have been lost to us, to the Corinthians (see 1 Cor 5:9; 2 Cor 2:3-4).

“I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand” (Col 4:18). Common practice: hire a scribe to prepare the papyrus and ink, take notes, and write out the letter. The author, then—if able—would write a short greeting in their hand. In Gal 6:11 Paul contrasts his large writing with that of the scribe.

“Grace be with you” (Col 4:18). Paul normally ends his letters with a benediction such as this, often longer. “Grace” is Paul’s shorthand for the unearned gifts of God, given to us in Jesus, given through the presence of the Spirit.

Grace be with you, my friends.

© Michael W. Pahl

Following Christ into Catastrophe

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We seem to be constantly on the verge of impending catastrophe. COVID. Climate change. The collapse of Twitter.

That last example is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there’s some truth in it. The collapse of Twitter (if it happens) would have significant negative impact on some people’s livelihoods, health supports, advocacy networks, and more. But it’s also true in a different way: the way people are responding to Twitter’s demise reveals some of the social dynamics at play in the larger catastrophes we face.

It seems to me there are two unhelpful responses to these catastrophes.

One is to get swept up in the tidal wave of fear and despair—the hysteria—that accompanies any perceived catastrophe. There is even a kind of “culture of catastrophe” at work in some segments of society, where our way of being in the world, even our identity in society, is determined in relation to whatever the current catastrophe is. We are required always to be in a heightened state of anxiety and urgent action—a sure-fire recipe for mental ill health and societal conflict.

The other unhelpful response, though, is to downplay or even ignore the seriousness of the problem. Catastrophes do happen. Catastrophes have happened in history, and they are happening around the world. COVID and climate change are real problems. Injustice and inequity, bigotry and violence, disease and disaster, in all their forms, are real problems. To suggest otherwise is to be naïve, or even to betray our historical or geographical privilege—those living in the middle of catastrophe don’t have the option of ignoring it.

So what should we do? In particular, how should we as Christians follow Christ into catastrophe?

Well, we have some good guidance from Jesus himself in the Gospels. After all, Jesus predicted a catastrophe, and gave instructions for his followers on how to walk in that catastrophe. Let’s give a glance at Jesus’ “Apocalyptic Discourse” (yes, that’s what scholars call it) in Matthew’s Gospel.

David Roberts, The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, Wikimedia Commons

In Matthew 24-25, Jesus describes the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, a catastrophe which happened roughly 40 years after Jesus. (For a few historical-critical thoughts on this, see below.*) Jesus sets this catastrophe in the context of even wider catastrophes: wars, natural disasters, famines, plagues, and the like. And then Jesus gives some guidance for his followers on how they should walk into those catastrophes.

One word of guidance from Jesus is especially highlighted through chapter 24, summed up in this phrase: watch and pray.

“Stay awake,” Jesus says, be watchful. Be aware of what is going on, pay attention to the things that are happening and what they mean. Be ready for God’s deliverance when it comes. And pray. Pray as Jesus taught us (Matt 6:9-13). Trust in our loving God for our daily bread. Pray for salvation from the time of trial and deliverance from evil. Hope in God’s good future on the far side of the apocalypse.

Take seriously what’s going on. But don’t get caught up in the hysteria; don’t get swept up in the fear and despair. Don’t let the unfolding catastrophe determine your way of being in the world, your identity in the world. Watch and pray.

Another word of guidance is especially bought home in chapter 25, summed up this way: care for “the least” among us as the worst unfolds around us.

Jesus calls his followers to use what God has given us to invest into God’s kingdom, God’s reign of justice and peace and life. Feed the hungry, Jesus says, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, heal the sick, care for the imprisoned. In other words, continue to “seek first God’s reign and God’s justice” (Matt 6:33).

Don’t give up on this world; and especially, don’t give up on those among us most vulnerable to harm by evil forces in times of trial. Care for “the least” among us as the worst unfolds around us.

Some of us as Christians are good at not getting caught up in the hysteria of COVID or climate change or any other impending catastrophe. But then we’re often not as good at being aware of the reality of the problems, or at focusing on the most vulnerable through those problems, and those vulnerable people get harmed.

Others of us are good at being aware of the problems and, sometimes at least, centering the most vulnerable in the midst of those problems. But then we’re often not as good at prayerfully trusting in God for our present, or prayerfully hoping in God for the future, and we walk in unhealthy anxiety and inflame conflict with others who are not our enemies.

May we take Jesus’ words to heart, and follow Christ into the catastrophes of our time, walking always in faith, hope, and love, especially for those most often deemed least in our world.

———————————

*Here’s my take on the Synoptic apocalyptic discourses. There’s such a strong memory of Jesus’ predicting a future calamitous end, and even specifically the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, that I think it likely Jesus did indeed predict this. That memory is preserved not just in all four Gospels (Matt 24; Mark 13; Luke 21; John 2) but also in other NT passages (e.g. 1 Thess 4-5). And there were certainly enough signs in Jesus’ day that things were not going to end well for the Jewish people in their struggle against Roman imperial power. A Temple destruction in some not-too-distant future was also on the minds of others (see accounts in Josephus).

I also think it likely that Jesus believed the end of the age and the dawn of the coming age, the fullness of the reign of God, would come at the time of the Temple’s destruction. In this Jesus was wrong. However, the Gospel authors, all writing after the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE (Mark as a possible exception to this), still saw value in Jesus’ words. Yes, they embellished Jesus’ predictions to make them fit more directly with recent historical events (especially Luke in Luke 21:20-24), but they didn’t substantially change the tradition they had received (so they believed) from Jesus. Why is that?

One reason, I think, is simply that it confirmed Jesus as a prophet. He had predicted the Temple’s destruction, and look, it happened. But I think there’s another reason: they saw in Jesus’ words continuing guidance for them in the midst of the wider “catastrophes” he highlighted. Wars, natural disasters, famines, and plagues continued, along with false prophets and false messiahs and opposition and even persecution of Jesus’ followers. While Jesus’ return and the fulfillment of God’s reign was transferred to some unknown future, we still live in this “time between the times” where all these calamitous events take place. We need Jesus’ guidance on how to live in these ongoing days of evil.

© Michael W. Pahl

Holding on to Identity as a Minority Faith

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From December 2017 through February 2018, I wrote a series of short articles for MennoMedia’s Adult Bible Study Online. Over three weeks I am reproducing those here in my blog. Here is the article for January 7, 2018, based on Daniel 1.

Christianity is the largest religion in the world, with an estimated 2.3 billion adherents. As of 2015, three-quarters of Americans and two-thirds of Canadians identify as Christians. We are hardly a minority faith.

Still, it is true that Christianity’s public influence has declined. Christianity is no longer the touchstone of North American culture that it once was. Christianity no longer defines social values or public policy in quite the way it once did. The institutions of Christianity are not as prominent or as powerful as they once were, and the institutions of our western society are no longer exclusively or even predominantly Christian—if they ever were. Christendom is no more.

This means that although Christianity is not a minority faith in North America it can often feel like it is. For some, this presents a challenge, even a catastrophe. I think it presents an opportunity.

This changed situation is an opportunity for us to reflect on and sharpen our identity as Christians: What does it really mean to be “Christian”? What marks us off as “Christian”? What distinctive beliefs or rituals or symbols or sacred stories are at the heart of this thing called “Christianity”?

The story of Daniel and his three companions in Daniel 1 is a story about early Jewish identity. Ostensibly about Israelites exiled in ancient Babylonia, yet really about Maccabean Jews under pressure to Hellenize, the story remains for Jews a powerful symbol of maintaining their religious and cultural identity in the face of enormous pressure to assimilate. For us as Christians, it can stand as a biblical call to reflect on our identity as Christians, asking those same questions forced upon us by our own post-Christendom context.

So, what does mark us off as “Christian”? Contra Daniel 1, the New Testament insists it’s not our diet—“all foods are clean,” Mark concludes based on Jesus’ teaching (Mark 7:14-19), and Paul declares that “the kingdom of God is not food and drink” (Rom 14:14-17). Likewise, it’s not the observance of holy days like the Sabbath (Rom 14:5-6; Col 2:16-17) or covenant rituals like circumcision (Gal 5:6; 6:15).

For Christians, beliefs, rituals, symbols, and sacred stories have tremendous value in nurturing the things that matter most, but they are not themselves those essentials of Christianity. Rather, as markers of Christian identity Jesus and the Apostles consistently point us to a cluster of lived-out virtues: a trusting, obedient faith, a persevering, persistent hope, and, above all, a self-giving, other-delighting love, all in the way of Jesus, all nurtured by the Spirit.

Adult Bible Study Online Supplements

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I’ve not been blogging much here lately, but I have been writing short weekly pieces for MennoMedia’s online supplements to their adult Bible study curriculum. That began the first week of December and will go through February 2018.

UPDATE: These are now posted on my website. Links are updated to reflect this.

Love is All We Need

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Love is All We Need | Scripture and Jesus on Love | What is Love?
Love, Above All | How Should We Then Love?

We live in turbulent times.

Everything is changing. Nothing seems certain any more.

Humans NYOur knowledge of the universe is growing exponentially, racing beyond our wisdom, outpacing our ability to tame this knowledge for good purposes.

Our globe has shrunk to a village, but it’s a village made up of thousands of distinct cultures, dozens of religions with hundreds of offshoots, and seven billion one-of-a-kind individuals.

Our world is increasingly complex, and we don’t know how to handle this. We scramble for some kind of order in all the chaos and confusion.

We’re afraid, though we don’t like to admit it. We’re afraid of change, afraid of losing what we value most, afraid of the unknown other, the unknown future, afraid of a meaningless existence.

We mask all these fears with stuff—big houses and new cars, gizmos and gadgets and mindless entertainment, all just bread and circuses. Or we medicate our fears away—whether it’s prescription drugs or spiritual highs or something else—anaesthetizing our angst until it retreats to the depths of our subconscious.

Naturally, everyone’s got an opinion on what should be done—that’s part of the mad scramble for order, and part of the chaos and confusion. We take sides on issue x or issue y, digging into our polarized positions in binary code. We shout at each other IN ALL CAPS across the internet. We react to opposition with flaming words, with shaming and scapegoating, or with bullets and bombs—betraying all those underlying fears, and giving us even more reason to fear.

We Christians have our own brands of chaos and confusion, growing from those same complex realities. Faith nomads shift from one Christian tradition to another, church attendance overall is on the decline, and Christianity’s public influence is waning even faster. And we eagerly contribute to the cacophony of opinions on what should be done about all this.

Some of us call for allegiance to doctrinal systems that lay everything out with clarity and certainty—in this we will find our stability, we are told. Others turn to the latest fandangled worship bling or revive tried-and-true forms of ancient ritual. Still others shrug their shoulders at theology or liturgy and instead focus on social justice efforts or political engagement.

Some point to charismatic speakers or compelling authors and hang on their every word—surely they will point the way forward. Others appeal for a simple return to the Bible, apparently unaware that the Christian Scriptures have in fact spawned dozens of different worldviews themselves, contributing to the complexity and chaos and confusion of our post-Christendom world.

In the midst of this chaos and confusion, standing in the complexity of our world, I join my voice to those who say this:

We need to love each other.

All we need is love.

Love is all we need.

Yikes! Did you hear that? That was the sound of Christians shouting their objections at me. (Yes, we Christians do that, in case you haven’t noticed.)

“Love? Seriously? The world’s problems are going to be solved by holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’? Get real!”

“Love, sure. But we are also called by God to be holy, we are called to seek and speak truth. Love without holiness and truth is no love at all!”

“You’re just another liberal following the crowd, reducing the gospel to mere ‘tolerance,’ willing to accept anything and everything in the name of love!”

Well, before you grab your pitchforks and storm mi casa, hear me out.

I say, “Love is all we need,” because I believe Scripture points us to this. I believe Jesus points us to this.

I say, “Love is all we need,” because I believe all other divine commands and human virtues—including holiness and truth-speaking—are subsumed under love, governed by love, even defined by love.

I say, “Love is all we need,” because I believe the love Scripture and Jesus point to is not mere tolerance, or mere affection, but something far more, far more substantial, far more necessary.

Love is all we need.

Faith Hope LoveIf we get this one thing right, everything else will fall into place. If we don’t get this right, nothing else will matter.

Sound a little over-the-top? Well, come back tomorrow and I’ll begin fleshing this out in a series of blog posts this week.

In the meantime, here’s a little reading to get you started.

Love is All We Need | Scripture and Jesus on Love | What is Love?
Love, Above All | How Should We Then Love?

Cross-posted from http://www.mordenmennonitechurch.wordpress.com. © Michael W. Pahl.

Faith, Hope, and Love

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Faith, hope, and love.

“These three abide,” Paul says (1 Cor 13:13). They remain: they’re always there, they’re always needed. They are the trinity of Christian virtues, the triumvirate of Christian practices, the trivium of Christian ethics.

Faith, hope, and love.

The words are commonplace in our world, tossed to and fro in waves of well-meaning  good feelings. “Don’t stop believin’.” “Ya gotta have faith.” “Don’t give up hope.” “Hope for the best.” “Love makes the world go round.” “All you need is love.”

Yes—but what are they? What do we mean when we talk about faith, and hope, and love?

As Christians we don’t approach these in the abstract. We don’t theorize about faith. We don’t philosophize about hope. We don’t theologize about love.

We look to Jesus, and we follow him.

So we see faith in Jesus’ utter dependence on Abba God for all things, both his daily bread and God’s kingdom come. We see faith in his enduring, even agonizing trust in God through all things, even his sufferings, even on the cross.

We see hope in Jesus’ confidence in God’s powerful love, that even in the midst of life’s harshest realities, even in the face of death, God would bring about good for him: vindication, new life.

We see love in Jesus’ compassion for the shepherdless crowds, his welcome of the sinners and tax traitors, his neighboring of enemy others. We see love in his selfless self-giving in feeding, healing, teaching, forgiving—and suffering and dying for you, for me, for all.

And we follow him. In Jesus’ faith, in his hope, in his love, energized by his Spirit, we follow him.

So we see faith in the faith of Jesus’ followers, as we depend on God for all things, as we trust in him through all things. We see hope in the hope of his followers, as we anticipate God’s powerful, life-giving love bursting out of our darkest deaths. We see love in the love of his followers, as we show compassion and welcome sinners and neighbor enemies, as we give ourselves in feeding, healing, boundless forgiving.

Faith, hope, and love—Jesus-faith, Jesus-hope, and Jesus-love.

“And the greatest of these,” Paul concludes, “is love” (1 Cor 13:13).

Selah.

Cross-posted from http://www.mordenmennonitechurch.wordpress.com. © Michael W. Pahl.