Put
on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies,
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing
one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any:
even as Christ forgave you, so also do
ye. Colossians 3:12-13 KJV
I
expect right about now you are wondering just what in the world the title of
this blog means, and if I am serious about what I am asking you to do? To be truthful, the first thing I wanted you
to do was laugh, yet after that I think we should all look closer to see what
exactly God wants from us in this instruction from Paul’s letter to the
Colossians.
Although
most of you have noticed by now that I normally teach from the New King James
Version of the Bible, you should know I read and study from many different
translations in order to be sure I understand exactly what is being said. Doing that, at times, produces some rather
interesting ideas such as the one I want to discuss this morning which starts
with the word “bowels”.
Without knowing it, you are probably
more familiar with this concept than you initially imagine. In the ancient world, most believed that our
deepest emotions came from our “bowels”, or if it makes more sense, our “gut”. I think most of us have heard or even used
the expression “gut feeling” when referring to making a decision or expressing
an opinion about something we believe to be important. The Greek word used here to refer to the
bowels is splagchno
which translated means; bowels, intestines, (the heart, lungs, liver, etc.) the
bowels were regarded as the seat of the more violent passions, such as anger
and love; but by the Hebrews as the seat of the tenderer affections, esp.
kindness, benevolence, compassion; hence our heart (tender mercies, affections,
etc.) a heart in which mercy resides.
Now
does this concept begin to make more sense?
As believers, we are expected to be different than the world around us,
and Paul tells us here that the first step in that process is to change our
“gut” by putting on “bowels of mercies”.
He explains it by comparing the process to our daily ritual of putting
on our clothes before we appear in public.
The word Paul uses here is endyō, which literally means to put on your clothes. I am sure most of us spend more than a little
time every morning deciding exactly what we are going to wear, and making sure
that we look presentable before we appear in public. Paul is basically saying here that as
believers, “the elect of God”, we are to put on these mercies every day just as we do our clothes.
Since most if not all of us would
never consider going outside of our homes without our clothes on, does it not
make sense that as believers we should never go out without putting on our
“mercies”? Even more important is the
idea that we need to put these mercies on as they are not a “natural” part of
our makeup. Many of us might expect that
by making the decision to follow Christ, these qualities might somehow become
our “natural” state, but it would appear that it doesn’t work quite that
way. Many times in Paul’s letters to the
churches he teaches us that we need to make the effort to change our natural
man into a godly man. In fact, just a
few verses before this passage Paul tells us this;
But
now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,
filthy language out of your mouth.
Do not lie to one another, since you
have put off the old man with his deeds,
and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge
according to the image of Him who created him,
Colossians 3:8-10 NKJV
Since this doesn’t appear to be a
“suggestion” but rather more like a “commandment”, why don’t we take a closer
look at what we are expected to wear in the world around us.
Compassion…the bowels of mercies simply means that we should look at
everyone we meet with the same compassion God feels for us, which is basically
with a heart of pity and sympathy for the state we are in.
Kindness…having the spirit of concern for
others that results in treating them with respect which quite often is
undeserved. It is a natural result of the
first attitude of compassion.
Humility…which is the attitude that every man or woman is better than
we are, and we should never feel that we are better in any way that those
around us.
Meekness…which could also be described as gentleness. It should never be confused with weakness,
but rather it is a willingness to control or relinquish our strength in order
to avoid conflict. Jesus was the perfect
example of strength controlled by relinquishing His “rights”.
Longsuffering…which is simply another word for patience. Do you react with patience when others test
you with their argumentative or combative nature? Are you willing to take what they give without
reacting in kind?
Forbearance…is the next step after longsuffering in that not only do we
not react in kind, we actually put up with the actions of those who might
desire conflict. It literally means to “endure”,
or stand tall in spite of what comes our way without giving in to the desire to
retaliate.
Forgiveness…the last but certainly not the least of the qualities we
need to put on is forgiveness. Paul also
makes it clear that he is not referring to forgiveness as we might see it, but
rather forgiveness such as God the Father has for us. That type of forgiveness is the type where
past grievances are totally forgotten, never to be brought up again. How difficult is that to us when the natural
reaction is to remember everything someone else has done to us, and later use
it as ammunition against them. True forgiveness means suffering a wrong, and
being willing to pretend it never happened and not allowing it to affect our
actions towards that individual again.
Just
as we get up every day and consider what we are going to wear, Paul tells us to
first “check our bowels” to be sure we are dressed with the spiritual attitudes
God expects His believers to wear. I
think it reasonable to conclude Paul is telling us it would be a good idea for
all of us to worry more about wearing the right Godly attitudes than wearing
the right clothes.
Keep
watching.
