Tag: imperatives

Colossians Imperatives

Gary Pollard

We can learn a lot about an epistle just by looking at its imperatives. An imperative is a command. Paul’s letters become especially clear when listing out the commands in them! There’s more to understanding a letter than this, but it’s a great place to start. For example, here are the imperatives in Colossians: 

  1. Follow Christ Only (2.6)
  2. Do not Follow Man’s Traditions (2.8)
  3. Don’t Let Anyone Force You into Traditions (2.16)
  4. Live for What is Above (3.1)
  5. Think Only about What is Above (3.2)
  6. Kill Every Immoral Behavior You Have (3.5)
  7. Throw Away Bad Behaviors (3.8)
  8. Do not Lie to Each Other (3.9)
  9. Adopt Godly Traits (3.12)
  10. Always be Grateful (3.15)
  11. Let Jesus’s Teachings Live in You (3.16)
  12. Wives, Submit to Your Husbands (3.18)
  13. Husbands, Love Your Wives (3.19)
  14. Husbands, do not do Things that Make Your Wife Bitter (3.19)
  15. Children, Submit to Your Parents (3.20)
  16. Fathers, do not Harass Your Children to the Point of Exasperation (21)
  17. Servants, Submit to Your Masters in Everything (22)
  18. Servants, Act as Though You Work for God, not a Human Master (3.23)
  19. Servants, Remember that You are a Slave for Christ First (3.24)
  20. Masters, Remember that You Have a Master in the Sky (4.1)
  21. Never Stop Praying (4.2)
  22. Make Sure You Behave around People Who don’t Believe (4.5)
  23. Say Hi to Everyone in Laodicea for Us (4.15)
  24. Read This Letter to the Church in Laodicea (4.16)
  25. Tell Archippus, “Do the Work God Gave You” (4.17)
  26. Remember Me in Prison (4.18)

See? You can use the commands to make a simple outline of the letter and get a good idea of what’s going on! There’s a good chance I’ve missed a couple, so if y’all find an imperative that isn’t on this list, shoot it my way. 

The Value Of Grace

Gary Pollard

Peter acknowledges the difficulty of living with faith in I Pt 1.8 — You haven’t even seen Jesus, but you love him. You can’t see him right now, but you believe in him. You are filled with a profound joy that can’t be explained. 

All of this is for a reason (1.9) — Your faith has a goal, and you’re getting closer to that goal: salvation. This isn’t something we’ll get in this life. Salvation in this and some other verses has the meaning “rescue”, rather than meaning salvation from our sins.  

1.10-12 — We only get this rescue because of God’s grace. That grace is extremely valuable. In fact, two major players were very curious about how exactly God was going to make this happen: all of the ancient prophets, and even God’s angels. 

In 10-11, it’s mentioned twice that the prophets really wanted to know more about the grace we take for granted. In 12, God had to put their curiosity in check by making it clear to them that their service was not for themselves. And, even the angels would like very much to know more about these things you were told. 

The point of these two verses is to show us how valuable grace actually is. We take for granted how easy it is to live a morally pure life with God’s assistance, even though we’re hamstrung by our struggle with sin. His grace is powerful, and the fact that we have it should make us feel very special. 

1.13-25 — These verses build off of the previous ones in that the sheer value of grace and the anticipation we have of our reward should give us the motivation we need to put up with anything the world throws at us. 

1.13 has one of those combat concepts — prepare your minds for action. Things were about to get very rough for those early Christians. There’s nothing new under the sun, and things might get rough for us, too. Our mindset going into hard times should be similar to the mindset of a good soldier: I might die doing this, but I believe in the cause, so it’s worth it. 

1.14 is a strong reminder that every one of us needs. The only thing that can and will get us through anything with our faith intact is our hope for Jesus’s return. Only when he comes back to get us will everything be ok (cf Rom 8.28). 

1.15-25 is about two points that will be repeated throughout the book — life is short and unpredictable, so live morally pure lives. It’ll be worth it because the next life will never end, unlike this one. The stakes are far too high to throw it all away on a self-indulgent lifestyle. 

Resolving Conflict

Gary Pollard

Philippians 2.12 says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” What does Paul mean by this? He just used Jesus as an example of selflessness, positing him as the ultimate authority. He just told them that they needed to put others above self and correct several issues. So this verse is a warning — if they didn’t work out their problems, they would die spiritually. 

Resolving conflict is not just a good idea, it’s unequivocally necessary. Paul wanted Euodia and Syntyche to appreciate how dangerous their feud was for their spiritual health. They were to be so afraid of eternal consequences that they drop everything to fix the issue. 

2.14-16 has even more imperatives — do everything without complaining about it so you’ll be blameless in God’s eyes. That’s the second time he’s said this, the first was in his prayer in chapter 1. In 2.16, Paul reminds them of how much he invested in them and hopes that he hasn’t wasted his time. 

We’re all familiar with Philippians 3.1, “Rejoice in the lord.” This isn’t a generic, feel-good reminder. This is an imperative! They weren’t finding their purpose in God, so Paul had to demand that they make a change. 

Then he uses three more imperatives in a row — keep an eye out for people who try to undermine your faith. This might seem like a typical ADHD tangent for Paul, but this is where he uses himself as an example of sacrifice and selflessness again. 

This is the heart of confrontation: 3.12-16 — “I don’t mean that I’m exactly what God wants me to be. I have not yet reached that goal. But I continue trying to reach it and make it mine. That’s what Christ Jesus wants me to do. It is the reason he made me his. Brothers and sisters, I know that I still have a long way to go. But there is one thing I do: I forget what is in the past and try as hard as I can to reach the goal before me. I keep running hard toward the finish line to get the prize that is mine because God has given me a higher calling through Jesus. All of us who have grown to be spiritually mature should think this way too. And if there is any of this that you don’t agree with, God will make it clear to you. But we should continue following the truth we already have.” 

The worst part about confrontation is that our own faults are at the front of our minds. Who are we to correct someone else’s imperfections when we have plenty of our own? Paul addresses that with this section. We’re never going to be perfect, but that shouldn’t keep us from trying. Our own imperfection also shouldn’t keep us from watching out for the spiritual health of our Christian family!