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Post by Josh on Oct 11, 2012 10:35:55 GMT -8
Post your comments, questions, and discussion starters on Colossians chapter 3:1-17 here.
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Post by Josh on Oct 13, 2012 11:46:24 GMT -8
From my raw notes on the teaching:
Set Your Hearts on Things Above
I love how Paul captures and reinterprets correctly favorite proto-Gnostic terms such as above/ heavenly (3:1) and hidden (3:3).
Is Paul advocating that we be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good?
What Paul means is “a valid and legimate concern with the heavenly dimension in contrast to the misguided concern of the philosophy.”
“heavenly mindedness is not be understood as a form of absentmindedness about ordinary life or social or economic conditions. Having a heavenly reference point is, instead, the very thing that should drive true believers on within their social situation to pursue justice and fairness.” -NIB Commentary
Since the readers already have access to the life of heaven, they are to pursue this access. They are to take advantage of what has been achieved for them, to seek the genuine realm above. If we are united in Christ and if Christ is “in heaven”, then we are also “in heaven” in some sense.
Gnostic Dualism: spirit versus matter Christian Dualism: heaven versus the world
The writer’s pastoral strategy can now be seen clearly. It might appear precarious to tell his readers to concentrate on the things above, when it was the excessive concern of the proponents of the philosophy with such matters that prompted the letter in the first place. He by no means completely disparages the reader’s concern with the heavenly realm. Instead, he attempts to redirect it.” -NIB
“In the process it emerges that two antithetical positions about participation in the heavenly realm are in confrontation. The philosophy’s advocates take the earthly situation as their starting point, from which by their own efforts and techniques they will move beyond the body, gain visionary experience, and ascend into the heavenly spheres. The writer moves in the reverse direction, seeing the starting point and source of the believer’s life in the resurrected Christ in the heaven, from where it works itself out in earthly life…” -NIB Commentary
Our Hiddenness in Christ
What are the implications of the “hiddenness” of our life in Christ? (3:3)
“By no means everything about Christian living is apparent, not only to outsiders, for whom much of it appears foolish, but also to Christians themselves, for whom there remain mystery and much questioning until the final revelation. We will not see all that is entailed in our new identity until the eschaton, and there will be times when everything seems to tell against its reality. So while the relationship with Christ speaks of assurance, our present experience of it is partial and provisional. Its hiddenness necessitates that Christians live by faith and not by sight and, therefore, without all the answers to the meaning of many events in their lives” -NIB Commentary
Put to Death What Belongs to Your Earthly Nature
Verse 5 sounds like severe asceticism with a harsh treatment of the body, but it is not parts of the body that are targeted by Paul but sins. Now and not yet in Paul: have we died with Christ or do we still need to? See verse 10 especially which mentioned the New self in need of being renewed (daily).
Paul's metaphor for this becomes the taking off and the putting on of clothes.
In chapter 3, he includes two lists of 5 sins each. One could categorize the first list of sins as corruptions of our individual nature and the second list of sins as corruptions of relationships. v. 11, with it's emphasis that there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, etc. int he kingdom is a parenthetical anti-dote to the second list of sins. By the way, "Scythian" refers to the cultures around the Black Sea, the lowest social strata of the time. Josephus refered to Scythians as “little better than wild beasts”.
Honesty in the Community v. 9: Do not lie to each other: “There can be no room for lies in the new community, because they poison communication and breed suspicion instead of mutual trust.” NIB Commentary
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