Becoming Like Christ Through Instruction (Col. 2:1-8; 3:16)                                             2009.05.03    Pastor Richard Yu

The Christian life is an on-going renewing process with a goal of growing into the full measure of the fullness of Christ, becoming more and more like him in everyway; focusing on the character and quality of his self-giving love. Furthermore, this takes place through worship, instruction, fellowship and evangelism. The idea behind this process is this: We become like what we worship, therefore we grow to be like Christ by worshiping God in a Christ-centered manner. And we become like what we feed our minds with, therefore we grow to be like Christ by filling our minds with his words and instructions concerning him.

In Colossians Paul responses to some false teachings and erroneous Christian practices at the time in that city. Believers were led to observe Jewish religious calendar, food laws, circumcision, superstitions about angelic powers and divine mystery. They were feeding their minds with these false teachings. Therefore, Paul deals with this situation by exhorting the believers to be rooted and built up in the complete understanding of Christ – the absolute supremacy and all-sufficiency of Christ, and the knowledge according to the image of the Creator. (cf. Col. 2:1-8; 3:9b-10)

With what Christians are to feed their minds? Paul says that believers are to feed their minds with all the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ (Col. 3:16). The “word of Christ” could be taken to mean the word that comes from Christ; but is best understood as “the message that centers on Christ, that word of truth or gospel,” “the objective, special revelation that proceeds from (and concerns) Christ.” It refers to the revelation about, and from, Christ, which is essentially the Scripture.

“Dwell” means to live in, or to be at home. Paul calls upon believers to let the Scripture take up residence and be at home in their lives in a “richly” fashion, which means to allow the truths of Scripture saturate every aspect of the believer’s life and govern his thought, word, and deed. “In you” means both “within you,” as individual Christians, as well as “among you,” as a Christian community. And in the context perhaps the collective sense is more important than the individual sense. So the idea is that let there be rich proclamation of the Christian message and the impartation of Christ’s teaching in the assembly of believers.

Instruction in the word of Christ, therefore, is the most prominent element in the continuing renewal of the Christian mind. Instruction on the word of Christ is the primary means by which we come to know God. How and what we come to know God affects everything else. Wrong notions about God lead to wrong Christian practice. It affects how we worship, how we pray, how we serve, how we give, how we make life choices, how we interact with each other . . .etc. Worship needs to be sincere and in truth. Fellowship needs to be done in grace and truth. And evangelism must be grounded in the truth claim of the gospel.

Too many Christians and churches want powerful experiences from above; but sadly, they show little interest in becoming deeply rooted in the word of Christ, in Scripture. It is good to desire wonderful spiritual experiences, but it’s better to desire a deep-rooted life with God through the ever more deeply implanted word of Christ, so that we might be conformed to Christ-likeness.

One other important aspect of this instruction is worth noting: The phrase here, “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” is identical in its meaning to being filled with the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5:18. From these two closed paralleled passages (Col. 3:16-4:1 & Eph. 5:18-6:9) we recognize that the outcome of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the same as that of letting the word of Christ dwell in one’s life richly. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be controlled by his word. To have the word of Christ dwelling richly is to be controlled by his Spirit. Love, peace, compassion, humility, selflessness, and all other Christ-like characters flow from a mind controlled by Scripture.

However, having a mind controlled by Scripture is not the same as reciting Bible verses all the time in all life situations. Rather, the Spirit-controlled, Scripture-filled, mind is best demonstrated in the practical living out of a solid Biblical worldview – judging all things through the lens of Scripture, living obediently to the mandates of Scripture and exercising discernment through the wisdom of Scriptural principles. This is the mind that would generate Christ-like lifestyle.

How are you feeding your mind? Are you feeding it regularly with the solid food of the word of Christ? How is your Bible reading habit? Develop the habit of feeding your mind with the word of Christ. The more we possess a mature knowledge of Christ’s self-giving love the more we’ll be able to live a self-giving life.