How do you measure the health of a church family? I’m not talking about medical health. I’m talking about our discipleship to Jesus. When it comes to our belief about and practice of discipleship to Jesus, are we healthy? I know Faith Church isn’t perfect. No church is perfect. Because of that we don’t want to assume that we are doing just fine. Instead we should strive to maintain a humble, teachable posture, welcoming evaluation of ourselves. As difficult as it can be to learn that we have a problem, we need to know if we have unhealthy discipleship in our church family. We do not want to shrug off potential issues as if they are no big deal. So again I ask, how do you measure the discipleship health of a church family?
Our Faith Church Vision Team is reading Reggie McNeal’s book Missional Renaissance, in which he argues that churches need to start using a new scorecard. For too long, McNeal says, churches have been focused on the metrics of “bigger is better.” In other words, if a church family is gaining more worship attenders who give more money so they can build ever larger buildings, that church was considered to be healthy. Another metric has been applied to smaller churches, and that is their ability to keep offering worship services week in and week out. If they are continuing to pay their bills and hold worship services, they were considered to be healthy. Whether big or small, worship attendance, buildings and budgets rarely give us an accurate diagnosis of discipleship health. So what measurements do give us a picture of our health as disciples of Jesus?
As we continue our sermon series through Colossians, Paul has written quite a bit about what a healthy church looks like. In chapter three he said that a healthy church focuses on things above, by removing the dirty clothes of the sinful nature, and putting on the clean clothes of new life in Christ. In the next section, he will teach us two practices that healthy church families make a consistent, intentional part of their lives, as they seek to be disciples of Jesus who put on those new clothes, focusing on things above. Check out Colossians 4:2-6 ahead of time, then I look forward to discussing it further with you on the blog next week.
Christian…how are you thinking about your retirement years? The principle we’ve been studying this week, “work unto the Lord,” holds for retirement, even though in retirement you are no longer working a job. This principle can guide you as you retire if you answer the question: What is a distinctly Christian view of retirement? How does God want you to retire? What choices does God want you to make with your time and finances and relationships during retirement? As we have seen in Colossians 3:22-4:1, starting here, Paul tells us, “whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord.”
This is tricky because our American culture tells us something very different than “retire as unto the Lord.” Many, many Christians have bought into the American cultural idea of retirement, and as a result their practice of retirement is not in line with “whatever you do, do it unto the Lord.” Let me explain.
So often in our culture, we are trained to look to the next thing. Just get through it. If you are school, you are studying toward what is next. Elementary school prepares you for middle school. Middle school prepares you for high school. High school prepares you for a career or for college. College prepares you for a career or for grad school, which also leads to your career. It can seem that a long-term career is the end of the road, the destination that you have spent all these years of education preparing for. But when you are in that career, you quickly learn that is not the end of the road. Each day you are working for quitting time. Each week you are working for the weekend. Or you are working for vacation. Eventually the years go by, and more and more you are working for retirement. It can seem, then, that retirement is the destination. Why? Because finally, you will be able to fully rest, to fully enjoy the fruit of your labor.
I recently heard about a guy who did quite well in business, ran a factory here in Lancaster County, and at age 55 sold it, made a bundle of money and retired. Now he spends his time hunting and fishing, all over the world. Is that what it means to “work as unto the Lord?” I can’t answer for that guy because I don’t know him or the totality of his life. But it seems to me that many American Christians might look on that kind of life as what we desire. To retire and enjoy life, after decades of toil.
No doubt, God is a God of rest and sabbath. But God’s vision of rest is quite different from the so-called American Dream. As members and participants and children of the King, no matter what we do, we do it unto the Lord. That goes for retirement too. Our view of retirement, and how we live the retired life, then, as Christians, is transformed. We give our retirement, as we do with anything else in life, over to the Lord and the mission of his Kingdom. We ask the question, “How, Lord, do you want me to use this additional time and space I now have?” We devote ourselves and our time and our finances to the Lord. We place it at his feet and we say, “Take it all and use it for the mission of your Kingdom.” We look for what would bring him joy and what would glorify him and Kingdom ways.
So rather than studying and working for the weekend, for vacations, or for retirement, thinking that is “me” time, when we have a Kingdom viewpoint, we are studying and working for the Lord. Amazingly, what we will find when we “work as unto the Lord,” no matter what stage of life we are in, it is the most joyful and most fulfilling way of life. It is, in a surprising way, the ultimate “me” time. How so? When our heart and mind is set on doing things in a way that brings joy to our Father’s heart, our heart is also brought along to joy. When love and joy are the motivation for what we do it’s infectious.
Michelle often comes back from work with stories of how one person at the café who she’s serving will quietly tell her that they want to pay for another table, keeping their gift anonymous. Think about how this act of selfless generosity bring infectious joy. Certainly the party receiving the surprise of a free meal is joyful. But also the gift brings joy to the server who is taking care of both parties, and the anonymous giver received joy watching it all happen. Doing things, all things, as unto the Lord changes our viewpoint on tasks, because we are infusing joy into what was formerly just menial. The actual task is the same, but our hearts change.
Back to the concept of “me” time and retirement. I am not saying that we should never have time alone, or go on vacation, or throw a party. What Paul is saying is that we use our time and money and ability in such a way that makes it very clear that we are devoting to the Lord. We allow the Lord, and the mission of Kingdom, to define how we will use our time, money and ability, rather than the culture around us defining that. How we are choosing what we do is important.
What I have noticed, as a particularly troubling trend among Christians, especially when we retire, is a thirst for luxury. This is not the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Don’t let yourself off the hook if you think you are unable to experience luxury. Those with less means can still deeply thirst for luxury, and often, at least in America, still experience luxury, though perhaps is much smaller doses and frequencies than the wealthy. What do I mean by luxury? Luxury is any experience or possession that mostly unnecessary, self-indulgent and counter to a life that is defined by “do it all in the name of Jesus.” In other words, we Christians are not to view studying and working so that we can experience luxury. Yes, our culture has bountiful opportunity for us to experience luxury, telling us that we should strive for it, study for it, work for it, so that in retirement we can indulge it.
So how about you, how are you approaching your work, your studies, your retirement? Are you living as unto the Lord? What is the “why” behind what you are doing? How is your heart? Wrestle with it a bit this week. Ask God to search your heart and ask him to help you know and understand better the joy that is found in living as unto the Lord.
What will help both students and teachers, workers and bosses, retirees, volunteers and leaders to “work as unto the Lord,” is to have a Kingdom mindset about work.
There are at least four ways to view your time at work, and this goes for the students at school, as well as for the retired persons for your involvement in volunteering, etc. I am thankful for author David Miller’s book Faith at Work for these four ways to have a Kingdom mindset about work: Ethics, Expression, Experience, Enrichment. You can learn more here. Let me summarize each of them.
Ethics is doing the right thing. Not cheating, not lying, not stealing, etc. Carrying yourself with integrity. When the boss asks you to lie to a client, you do not lie to a client. Expression is how you share your faith. We could use another “E” word, evangelism, for this. Seeking to faithfully share the good news of Jesus in your context. Experience involves questions of vocation, calling, meaning, and purpose. Its two sub-orientations are Outcome (work as means, purpose/meaning) and Process/Activity (work as end, calling). Finally enrichment focuses on practices such as healing, prayer, whether individually or as a group, such as having a Bible study with your co-workers.
It seems to me that Paul is primarily thinking of Ethics when he says “work as unto the Lord.” As we saw in the previous post, don’t just work hard when the boss is watching. Work hard all the time, because God is always watching. And when we say, “God is watching,” Paul is not trying to say that God has his microscope on you watching your every move, ready to dock you if you screw up. He’s watching us because he loves us. He gave us gifts, talents, breath for a new day and he loves to watch us use those gifts. It brings him joy to see us use the things he’s given us. It is a joy for my wife, Michelle, and I to see our kids taking different gifts and abilities that they’ve been given and using them. As a side note, kids, this is for you too, very similarly to what Paul wrote last week, “Children obey your parents,” so that when you do your chores, your work at home, you are doing it joyfully unto the Lord, without complaining, without argument. Consider the joy that this gives God. Kids, look at God as your parent who loves you and whom you want to worship as you work on chores and on school work.
So if parents love watching their kids, how much more does God love watching those he created and adores work as unto the Lord? Paul’s motivation here is much more positive, work heartily unto the Lord. You get to work those 40-50 hours/week because that is 40-50 hours serving the Lord, no matter what the actual job/task is that you are doing. How is your heart posture as you do that work/task? Think about as 40-50 hours/week of worship, of ministry.
Another angle to this is an approach called Business as Mission, where a person or an entire business is missional. This would be in the Experience category of the four Es. This is what my wife, Michelle, and her business partner envisioned for their company Imagine Goods. A for-profit company that empowered workers through employment. The company has since closed down after an amazing 12 year run. But the business itself was missional. What about you and your work, whether that is school work or your place of employment? Is there a Kingdom mission even if yours is a for-profit business? Is there a Kingdom mission in how you are choosing to spend volunteer time? Is there a Kingdom mission in the way you interact in sports, for those of you who are students, or hobbies?
Working as unto the Lord is seeing yourself as a mission worker and thinking theologically about your work. To do this, to work unto the Lord as Paul suggests, we must avoid compartmentalized thinking. Compartmentalized thinking is when we say that our work life is totally distinct from our home life which is totally distinct from our spiritual lives, and so on. What Paul is saying here in Colossians 3:22-4:1 is that, for the Christians, every part of our lives is integrated under the banner of the Kingdom. Your time at school is Kingdom activity. Your time at work is Kingdom activity. Your retirement and volunteering is Kingdom activity. Work and school and serving organizations are not items that we check off the list, just to get them done. We are not to be people who are working for the weekend or for vacation. We are God’s Kingdom people everywhere we go, no matter what we do, and we seek, maybe using the 4 Es as our guide to live out our faith at all times. Where is your heart? Focused on living as unto the Lord?
You might think, “But how? My work is mind-numbing. I am not doing what I want to do with my life.” Or you might think, “Really? This applies even to school in math class, which I hate? I’m forced to take these classes that are teaching me stuff I will never use. It is a waste of my time!”
I am currently working (slowly…) on getting my doctorate. You know what someone told me about my dissertation? Just crank it out. Get it done. Probably 5 people will ever read it. You just need to gut it out and get the degree. There is truth to that statement, because that is the reality for many students. But it is also frustrating to think about. I just paid the tuition and dedicated three years of my life, stressed myself out basically the whole time…just to get it done?
Of course, it is true that I learned a lot along the way, and the degree is like a key that will unlock doors of opportunity that I did not have before. That’s no small thing. But there is also a way to look at being a worker, an employee, a volunteer from God’s perspective. Every class I took while studying for my degree, every book I read, every paper I wrote, including the dissertation, should be seen as an act of worship. “Work as unto the Lord.”
I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to do the biblical study and theological thinking necessary to see your work, your academic career, your volunteering from God’s eyes. That includes the work you do right now that you can’t stand, or the school work that seems pointless. What will it look like to do that work as unto the Lord? How can my work be done in a way that brings joy our God’s heart as He sees me engage with it?
I would recommend that you read Amy Sherman’s book Kingdom Calling as a next step for how to view your work, your studies and your retirement as Kingdom work.
Each follower of Jesus, no matter their station in life, is called to work as unto the Lord. Working unto the Lord means that we will avoid a faulty view of work. There are at least four faulty views to avoid.
The first faulty viewpoint is when people think “working as unto the Lord” is just for people in Christian ministry. Avoid the trap of thinking that professional ministry work or church work is somehow more important than other work. It is not. All of our work matters, and that is what Paul is trying to teach us in Colossian 3:22-4:1. Even a slave could work as unto the Lord. Even if you feel satisfied at work less than 80% of the time (see previous post), your work matters, and you can do it unto the Lord. In fact, your work, though it might seem to have no relationship whatsoever to the Kingdom of God, is actually Kingdom work. How so? Check back to the next post as we’ll look into this further.
The second faulty viewpoint is when some pastors or church leaders make it seem like the only important thing in God’s eyes is for you to show up at church and serve on church committees and ministries. While we might not say these words, we church leaders can insinuate that we want you to, “Just get work out of the way so you can get to what is really important…church!” Is it more important?
No doubt active, consistent, sacrificial participation in the relationships of a church family is important, and that’s not me talking. That’s clear in Scripture. But what Paul reminds us here in Colossians 3:22-4:1 is that work is important too. Think about the section of verses from last week and this week: Family and work. The two places most people spend most of their time. How much time do you spend at work or at school each week? You probably spend 40-50 hours each week at work or school. How you use that time is just as important to God as the time you spend in church. In fact, given that you spend so much more time at work than you do in church, I think there is a strong case to be made for viewing how you use that time at work is even more important. God cares about your heart attitude and not just time spent in what would be called by society, “ministry.”
A third faulty viewpoint, Paul refers to in verse 22, when he cautions slaves about only working hard when their master is looking. On a basic level this is something we all understand. The boss walks into the room and all of sudden there is a flurry of activity as the workers, who previously were having a conversation unrelated to work, stop their conversation and get back to work. Clearly, no matter our station in life, we should be people who work hard.
Paul is not, however, saying that we need to be workaholics. We might call that Faulty Viewpoint 3.1. This can be difficult in our contemporary society because more and more people work from home, or work has access to us at all times because of our smart phones. People often say to me that being a pastor must involve the pressure of being on-call in the middle of the night. That’s simply not been my reality. Probably less than five times in 19 years of pastoral ministry have I been called out in the middle of the night. What is my reality, though, is that my phone connects me to the church family all the time. Text messages, phone calls, emails, social media. There is a very real sense in which I’m on call a lot more than pastors were in the old days. Those boundaries and lines get fuzzy. Many of you know this reality in your jobs too. Where do you draw the line? It is hard to know. We need to learn to disconnect, to rest, to take a sabbath. What I see Paul discussing here is the reality of laziness, of procrastination, of irresponsibility. We should be people who are known for being on time, being diligent, reliable, hard workers.
It seems to me, though, that there is a shadow side to hard work, and it might be what is at the heart of workaholism. Let me explain with an illustration from the world of education. Educational theorists and researchers have noted that adult education is vastly different from child education, precisely because adults choose when they want to learn and what they want to learn. Therefore adults tend to be very motivated. A student who barely made it through high school or college may find years later that they get straight As in grad school. This could be due to people who seek to “work as unto the Lord,” and they find their motivation benefited greatly by years of perspective through which they have matured. This could also be due to the fact that adults tend to be the ones paying their tuition bills. But the shadow side is the reality that work and education can give us a kind of high, especially when it results in power, promotions, adulation, achievements, and increasing paychecks. What we have to be careful about is that we don’t equate perfectionism with “working as unto the Lord.” We can achieve high marks and lots of accomplishment, not because we’re worshiping the Lord, but because we are incredibly egotistical or narcissistic, wanting to look good and, in fact, wanting people to praise and worship us. That is not what working as unto the Lord is. Do you see it, again? It is a heart issue: someone’s hard work on the outside does not necessarily equal someone working as unto the Lord.
The final faulty viewpoint Paul gives us about work is in Colossians 4:1, and this is for the bosses. Treat your workers well, because you have a boss too…Jesus. Similarly, James writes in James 5:4, “The wages you have failed to pay the workmen who mow your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.” We Christians should be leading the way in paying our workers. We should be known the world around as paying above-average wages, in giving benefits, in graciously and lovingly leading our employees. Churches, especially, should be amazing employers. I was so proud of Faith Church’s Leadership Team last year. When the pandemic hit and our part-time staff were out of work for months, the Leadership team paid them their full amount the entire time! If you have a leadership role of any kind in your school, in your workplace, in your volunteer group, how will you clearly work as unto the Lord in how you treat the people you are responsible for?
I once heard that if you are working a job that you enjoy 80% of the time, you’ve hit the employment jackpot. Most people work jobs that don’t get close to that 80% satisfaction level, meaning that they are dissatisfied with their job more than 20% of the time. That might sound frustrating, to think that we so often don’t work jobs that have a higher experience of satisfaction. Shouldn’t we be satisfied with our jobs at least 90% of the time or more? Isn’t that the story we tell our kids? “You can be anything you want to be,” and thus we urge them seek to out and prepare for the career that will bring them joy and fulfillment. That way you won’t ever have to go to work, you will get to go to work; you’ll be looking forward to it, excited and fulfilled.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, kids and students, but just about every job has elements that you will dislike, and usually is it more than 20% dissatisfaction. Think about a job sounds awful to you. I think of the dad from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Do you remember his job? He worked in a factory that manufactured toothpaste, and he twisted on the caps of toothpaste tubes. Could you imagine doing that for the rest of your life? I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that kind of work. It has dignity. I am simply saying that it is okay if you don’t like your work.
But that’s a fairly extreme, fictional example. Let me give you a real one. My cousin’s family owns a local fruit distribution company, and I worked their part-time when I was in high school. One of the jobs I did was to grab bags of packaged apples as they came down the assembly line and put them in boxes. I had to lower them gingerly into the box so as not to bruise the apples. When the box was full, you would send it down the line where a taping machine would seal the box and eventually it would get loaded onto pallets for transportation to grocery stores. I worked with my cousin, and I’ll never forget him saying that the apple packing house motivated him to do well in school and college. Why? Because, especially as teenagers, it was very easy to get sick of apples. 30 years later, guess where my cousin works? You guessed it…he works for his family business! But he is not pulling bags of apples off the line and boxing them. He did go to college, get his degree, and now he is in management.
My point is that every job has elements you will dislike, but the passage we are studying this week, Colossians 3:22-4:1, reminds us that we Christians can have a renewed attitude about our jobs, even about the parts we dislike. How so?
The author of this passage, Paul, is writing nothing less than a redefinition of work, of serving, of participating in an organization, of school work, and of retirement. Think about the various reasons that you work. To earn money is obviously the big reason. Yours might be a part-time job while you are a student, and you are trying to earn some spending cash, or maybe save up for a car. Yours might be a job to pay tuition while you are going to college. Yours might be an adult job, your long-term career, where you are providing for your family, paying off debt, saving for the future. Those are all important reasons for work.
But there are other reasons for work, right? Could be that your parents tell you to clean your room or mow the grass. As an adult you work to get benefits like health insurance, to spend time with people, to contribute to society, to keep a business afloat, or best of all, to do something meaningful that you enjoy. Also all very important. I would submit to you that what Paul writes in Colossians 3:22-4:1 supercedes all of these important reasons for work. What Paul writes is this: “Work as unto the Lord.” How do we do that?
I think the 80% rule of work satisfaction, that I mentioned above, can help us Christians have that attitude of working as unto the Lord. I’ll say the 80% rule again. If you have a job that you like 80% of the time, you have hit the employment jackpot. This rule is so helpful because it reminds us that even the best jobs include 20% of the time doing work that is distasteful, frustrating, boring, or difficult. That’s not pessimistic. It is simply trying to be honest.
Frankly, speaking honestly, the 80% rule includes pastors too. I love my job, but not every part of it, and not all the time. Some weeks I sit in my office on Monday or Tuesday and think, “Ok, here we go, time to crank out another sermon.” I can start to doubt and wonder, “Is this all just a waste of time? What does it matter?” Because we all want to use our time in a meaningful way, right? So Christians, Paul reminds us, we work as unto to the Lord.
Think about the 80% rule with me, workers, students and retirees. Are you at 80% satisfaction? 90%. Higher? Or lower? Consider your reality. What Paul writes helps us to think differently about work. Work, Paul writes, is not simply an earthly reality. When we do our work as something that can be done as to the Lord, we view work as worship, and even as ministry. Have you ever thought about your work or school this way? Think about working as worship and ministry can transform your attitude about the parts of your job or school that you dislike!
School. Work. And retirement. Three phases of life. Which are you in? Maybe a mixture of more than one. Which are you looking forward to? Think about how much time we spend in these three phases of life. At least 13 years in school, maybe more if you go to college and grad school. Then something like 50 years of working. Then maybe another 20-30 years of retirement. That’s a lot of time. That’s a lifetime.
Last week we started a two-part mini-series looking at how Paul makes very practical application of the principle he teaches in Colossians 3:17, “Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” In Colossians 3:18-21, starting here, Paul applied this marriage relationships and to parent/child relationships. This week we look at how to apply “do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” in the areas of school, work and retirement.
Turn to Colossians verses 3:22-4:1 and what do you notice at the beginning of verse 22? The word “slaves”! Slaves? If you think to yourself, “Joel, you said we’re going to talk about school, work and retirement. This is a passage about slaves and masters.” You’re right. Sometimes in school and at work you can feel like you are slaving away. But that is nothing like actual slavery. So if this is a passage about slaves and masters, what does it have to do with work, or students in school, or retirees? Stay with me. I think by the end of the this post, you’ll see how it relates to you. Pause this post and read the passage, trying to discover how this passage relates to you. Read Colossians 3:22-4:1.
Before we can see how this passage relates to us, I do need to mention a very important detail. As we have learned in our studies in other New Testaments books, Paul and other writers of the New Testament mention slaves, masters and slavery as if it is no big deal. That first phrase in verse 22 sounds horrible, right? “Slaves obey your masters in everything”? What? Did Paul condone slavery? It sure sounds like it. But, no, he was not saying that slavery is okay and good. Paul is writing to a society that included slavery as commonplace, though it was different from the racialized slavery in our nation’s past. If you want to know more of what Paul has to say about slavery, read the book of Philemon (or my posts on Philemon, starting here). Slavery is always wrong, and Paul makes it clear in Philemon that in Christ the slave becomes the brother. When you take his writings as a whole, Paul clearly says that from a Christian viewpoint, there should not be slavery.
But Paul, as he writes this in the middle of the First Century Roman empire, is faced with a society that included slavery, and he knows that he will not be able to change that culture. So he calls for change in the subculture in where he has a voice, and that subculture is the church. Then through the advance of the church, he hopes to change the culture!
Here in Colossians, Paul is writing to slaves and masters who are Christians. How should they handle themselves in their work? In other words, we can learn from this passage how the phrase, “do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,” applies to our work.
Think about how much time you spend doing some kind of work. 40 hours per week. 45. 50. More? Some of you are part-time. Some are retired. This teaching could also apply to the volunteer organizations in which you are involved. And for you students, this applies to your attitude about school. You spend a lot of time in school and out of school doing homework. Kids, you have chores at home. That is like your work. How should you, a Christian, view all that time spent working?
In verses 3:22-4:1, Paul teaches the principle of working as unto the Lord. Look at verses 22-23, “Work with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.” That means we should work as if God is our boss. We should do our school work as if God is our teacher. We should do our chores as if God is our parent. We should use our retirement years as if God is in charge of them. It doesn’t matter if you are student in school, an athlete on a sports team, an employee on the job, a boss of a company, a teacher, a volunteer on one of our serve teams, or one of the church ministries, work as unto the Lord.
Now are you starting to see how this applies to you?
How do you work at your job in a way that is honoring to God? How about school? What does it look like to be a student that is honoring to God? Or think about retirement? Did you ever think that it matters to God how you retire?
Two weeks ago, in our study through Colossians, we learned, “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col. 3:17, read the first post in the five-part series here) Last week we looked at how Paul applied that principle to families (starting here). Now this week in Colossians 3:22-4:1, we are going to learn how he applies the principle to work. Students, we’ll also learn how this relates to your academic career. Not a student or a worker? Retirees, the principle will also relate to how you spend your retirement.
Fair warning, if you read the passage, you’ll notice the very first word is “Slaves.” Is Paul is writing to slaves? Yes, he is. And to their masters too. What do slaves and their masters have to do with workers, students and retirees?
Check out Colossians 3:22-4:1 ahead of time, then check back in to the blog on Monday as we talk about it further!
When our second son was in middle school, he wanted to go to a school dance. I don’t remember what our reason was, but we said No. This led to a long drawn out back and forth, highly emotional, discussion between us and our son, in which he was pleading for us to change. Parenting is filled with situations like that, isn’t it?
In yesterday’s post, we learned what Paul wrote in Colossians 3:20, where he taught children to obey their parents. Now look what he writes in verse 21, “Do not provoke your children, so that they become discouraged.” Go back to verses 12-17 (starting here) which we studied last week and put on the clothing of peaceful love, as you interact with your children. Gentle. Kind. Bearing with each other. Forgiving one another. Love them.
Verses 20 and 21 are linked, aren’t they? One of the ways that parents love their kids is by giving their kids boundaries, and holding their kids accountable by punishing their kids if the kids decide to break the boundaries. That’s why Paul says, “Kids, obey.” Because your parents will give you boundaries, rules, and while it will seem strict, it is because they love you and want your best.
As I mentioned already, parents are not perfect. I know that firsthand. Parents, Paul reminds us that we can exasperate our kids. So often, knowing where to draw the line on rules and punishments is incredibly difficult. We can be too strict or inconsistent.
Remember our son’s middle school dance? He is quite the lawyer, and we considered the case he made, changing our minds. I have often thought that while my wife, Michelle, seems so confident about making parental rules and standards and boundaries, as if they are absolutely correct, I am far more uncertain. Parents, it is a tough thing to balance two biblical principles: love covers a multitude of sins, and speak the truth in love. Should you be more gracious, or more strict? Each kid is different, even if they were raised pretty much the same way in the same family. What is clear is that you are not to discourage your kids. How can you discourage them? Many way. It could be by your strictness or your emotional distance or your up and down inconsistent behavior. Therefore, and this is important, if you have discouraged them, go to them and apologize. Likewise, kids, if you have not obeyed your parents, go to them and apologize.
Frankly, though, I think the burden is on the parents. Parents, think about the clothing of peaceful love that we talked about last week. We show that we put on that clothing when we bear with one another and forgive. As the older and likely more mature ones in the family, parents, take the initiative by going to your kids and asking forgiveness.
Husbands and wives, the same goes for you. Reach out in love to one another. Do the work of love, one to the other.
If you need to, go to your family member right now. Literally stop reading this post, and go to one another, confess your sins, ask forgiveness.
I was a teenager in the 1990s, wonderful years filled with grunge rock (or for me U2, REM and Public Enemy), Michael Jordan, and Bill Clinton. It seems like just a few years ago, but it was in fact 30 years ago. Those were coming of age years for me. On January 1, 1990 I was in 10th grade. By December 31, 1999, I had gotten my driver’s license, had it revoked, graduated high school, got my driver’s license back after three years of having it suspended, graduated college, got married, got my first full-time job and my wife and I had our first two kids.
Adults reading this, when were some of you teenagers? What decades? What did you experience in those years? Now think about your relationship with your parents. You never have disagreements with your parents when you were a teenager, right? You never got in trouble, I bet.
I did. (And I suspect most of you did too.) I think I was a generally obedient kid, but I had a couple major issues. First, I was a total jerk to my brother. Second, I would mercilessly tease my little sister, though it was literally how I was saying, “I love you” to her. Third, I was a very reckless and speedy driver, and that led to a horrible accident (which is why my driver’s license was suspended), which you can read about here. My point in sharing this is to say that, no matter when you grew up, the teenage years are often a time of major tension between parents and their teens. My parents were and are incredible people, and I always knew they loved me. But I disobeyed my parents, so I should not have been surprised when history repeated itself with my son. I remember many years with our oldest son where I thought for sure we had ruined him, that we had lost him, and we were utter failures as parents. The bickering and fighting at home was just so intense. As it turned out, I was wrong. He became a well-adjusted adult who is just wonderful. Each person, as you and I did, goes through a journey of maturity and leaving the home and growing up and becoming an adult, and that process is usually fraught.
As we continue our study through Colossians, this week on the blog we have been looking at chapter 3, verses 18-21, where Paul is helping people apply his teaching in verse 17: “Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” In verses 18-21 he is specifically illustrating how people can apply that teaching in the context of family relationships. In the first three posts this week (here, here and here), we looked at what he had to say in verses 18-19 about husbands and wives. Now in verse 20, Paul writes to the children: “Obey your parents in all things, for this is pleasing in the Lord.”
Kids, if we parents say, “Jump,” you say, “How high?” I’m just kidding! But this is an important passage. My wife, Michelle, and I have been parents for 23 years. We now have two adult children and two in their teens. We are also really looking forward to the grandparent stage. We’ve already picked out our grandparent names. Grammy and Pop-Pop. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Paul is talking to the kids. If any kids read this, I suspect they are likely teenagers, which is why I started talking about those teen years.
Teens reading this, therefore, obey your parents. If you think your parents are off their rocker with strict rules and they have no clue what you’re going through in life, still obey your parents. Of course they don’t know what you’re going through. They are not you, and they are not present with you every minute of every day. So give them grace. I was first born, and so my parents were figuring out parenting on me. Same thing with me and my own first born. Every single stage was new and felt ultra-serious and consequential. I remember when our firstborn came home from school one day, in an early elementary grade like 1st grade, telling us that his classmates watched Star Wars films. Michelle and I were dumbstruck. How could those parents be so irresponsible allowing their kids to watch movies that were clearly only suitable for older kids? By the time our youngest two were that age, something shifted. Now they were the kids watching the Star Wars movies at the young age. The funny thing is, as our rules and approach definitely softened with the younger ones, you know what the younger ones said? “You guys are the strictest parents of all.”
Kids, let me tell you a secret. We parents often don’t know what we’re doing. We screw up. Sometimes we are too strict. Sometimes we think we have a situation figured out, only to learn a few months or years later that we were wrong. You’ll have this same experience in a few years when you have your own kids. When that day comes, you will love your kids, and you will grind your teeth at night desperate for them to choose wisdom and to choose Jesus, because you know that way of life is so much better than any other way. Yet the other options for life are quite enticing, and you will be afraid that your kids, who you love, will choose less than the best. But you console yourself knowing that you also chose less than the best when you were a teen, and you probably had your parents up at night, a ball of nerves. So be gracious to your parents, kids. Obey them.
Yesterday I mentioned that have a surprise for you.
This week we have been looking at how to live the Colossians 3:17 principle of “whatever you do, do it all in the name of Jesus,” as it pertains to family relationships. Paul teaches that wives should submit to their husbands and husbands should love their wives. I also mentioned in the second post in the series that Paul repeats and expands this teaching in another letter he wrote around the same time, Ephesians. If you look at Ephesians 5:22-33, you can see it. So what is the surprise?
Look at Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” That’s the surprise. Paul wrote, “Submit to one another”!!! And he wrote that to people in a patriarchal culture! One way to apply “submit to one another” is in marriage. Submission in marriage can be mutual. Both submit to each other! In fact, I hope in this post to explain why I believe “submit to one another” is the ultimate and best Christian approach to marriage roles.
Are you thinking, “Wait a minute. Then why didn’t Paul write that in Colossians?” There are two things I want to say about that. First, these were circular letters. Just as you and I have access to both Ephesians and Colossians so that we can compare the teaching and fill in the gaps, they had access to both as well. Peek ahead to chapter 4, verse 16 to see what I mean. Paul didn’t have to write everything in both letters because he knew the letters were being passed around, and soon enough the people would hear both. There wouldn’t be any doubt that he meant “submit to one another.”
Second, look at Colossians 3:19 again, “Husbands love your wives.” Do you think Paul meant, “Husbands, you love your wives, but wives, you don’t have to love your husbands”? Likewise, could it be that Paul meant that only the wives were to submit, and only the husbands were to love? That’s ridiculous, right? We would never say that. Instead we know that both should love each other. Paul doesn’t have to say “Wives love your husbands,” because it is obvious to all that they should love their husbands. Then why do we say, “Only wives have to submit”? When we do that, we are using an inconsistent approach to interpreting and applying the Bible.
We need to be consistent. We need to incorporate the passage from Ephesians and understand that wives’ submission is in the context of “Submit to one another,“ and both love one another. Both go both ways.
What Paul is writing is actually radical for that culture. Submit to one another? The typical Greco-Roman male would hear that and think, “What madness is this? I only submit to people who are leaders over me. There is no way I’m submitting to my wife.” And yet, clear as day, right there in Ephesians 5:21 we read the principle.
It was also radical for Paul to say to the husbands, “Love your wives, and do not be harsh with them,” because it was absolutely normal in that society for the husbands to treat their wives poorly. Love them? Men would respond, “Why?” The patriarchy of that society could be quite cruel. Paul, then, was teaching something radical for the husbands.
He was also teaching something radical for the wives, but in a different way. They had always lived in a patriarchal culture, so you might think that telling wives to submit to their husbands is simply perpetuating the norm. But remember that these are people who had been hearing a new teaching about a new life in Christ. That teaching was quite different from anything they had heard before. Women were now being told that they are in Christ, that God loves and prizes them, and they are made in the image of God. Those women had been learning that in God’s eyes, in every way that mattered, they were equal to men. After centuries of being downtrodden, you can see women excitedly embracing this new powerful teaching of equality, as they should. Paul knows this, and he wants them to embrace this new teaching, but he is also concerned about what could happen if they do not use wisdom in how they apply the teaching to their lives.
The women could respond, “What do you mean, ‘Submit,’ Paul? You have been teaching that we are equal to men, and we have been downtrodden for so long, and we are just loving this new breath of fresh air. Now you’re going back on your word. You’re contradicting yourself.” It could seem like that. On one hand Paul is saying they are equal, and on the other hand he is telling them to submit. Which one is it, Paul?
I believe Paul is looking at marriage roles from a Kingdom trajectory. In the Kingdom of God men and women are 100% equal right? The Kingdom of God is not patriarchal and it is not matriarchal. It is egalitarian. But Paul knows that the church is young, fragile, easily compromised, and so he has to contain his teaching to the point where it promotes the momentum of the growth of the Kingdom, and doesn’t do damage to the momentum and mission. If Paul teaches something so radically different from the patriarchal culture, the culture will likely react strongly against it, and the church could suffer as a result. Paul knows that he wants a different cultural reality in the future, a Kingdom reality of equality, and so he has to make sure the young church is moving toward that Kingdom reality at the right pace. Paul doesn’t want the church to be known as a cult of wild women who are disrespectful. So he makes sure the women are following the conventional norms of society, that of submitting to their husbands, while at the same time, he is embedding in the theology of the church, a new way. Mutual respect, mutual submission, mutual love. Egalitarianism. Total equality.
2000 years later, we are no longer living in a strict patriarchy. Our culture is much more egalitarian. Therefore I believe that Paul would not need to write verses 18-19 to the Christian church in the USA. I suspect, instead, that he would only write, “Submit to one another. Love one another.”
But don’t you need one person to be the final decision maker in a marriage? I get how that can make life easier in some ways. My wife, Michelle, has traveled quite a bit in the last 12-13 years because of her work in Cambodia. When she is halfway around the world, I am temporarily a solo parent. There are elements of being a solo parent that are easier than the normal, because as the only parent around, I just make decisions and don’t have to communicate or compromise. But there are also significant difficulties to being a solo parent, such as companionship, and the deeper wisdom that comes from the combined personalities, experiences and perspectives of two people. As a result, I have great respect for single parents, as they carry a massive burden, and we in the church family should support them as much as we can.
When Michelle and I do premarital counseling, what we say is that each couple needs to agree together on what roles and decision-making process they are going use. We know people who strongly believe in the male headship role, and that works for them. Most commonly they describe their position as the complementarian position, such that the husband and wife are 100% equal in God’s eyes, but they have different and complementary roles in the relationship. If that is how you want to look at it, and most importantly, if that is how both the husband and wife agree to look at it, then go for it. But if you prefer the egalitarian view, that is okay too. What is not okay, is when the complementarians believe their way is the only right way, or when the egalitarians believe their way is the only right way. Instead, there is room for both views! We’re not in the Kingdom yet. Let us be clear, no matter what approach you use, each spouse should be growing and guided by their love for one another.
Love is active, sacrificial, and nurturing. You might want to review 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, that famous passage about love. It’s not a marriage passage, but it surely relates to how husbands and wives should demonstrate their love for one another.
Engaging Scripture 