Colossians: Household Rules Series

It was a struggle; I was thinking that this week I would preach from Colossians 4:5–6 Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.

I thought that I would speak on, the importance of our speech. How we speak to others and how we speak to ourselves. It’s an important message, and one I was looking forward to. Then I checked the schedule and saw that instead, months ago, I had indicated that I would preach from Colossians 3:18 to 4:1, and that passage included the dreaded “S” word.

We are coming to an end of our series, Colossians: Christ Above All. And over the past 8 weeks, Rob, Deborah and I have worked our way through the letter of Colossians and dug down into some of the subjects that Paul had included in this letter.

His main topic was addressing what would become known as the Colossian Heresy, and that was the teaching that belief in Christ wasn’t enough for our salvation.

But Paul made sure those early believers understood that his condemnation of legalism was not excuse for them to do whatever they pleased. Instead, it was tempered with a call to represent Jesus well. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

And that brings us to the scripture that was read for us earlier. The problem for many people is the “S” word, and it’s found in Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.

And they just stop, and they don’t go any further than that. It seems so foreign to us in 2025, that we can’t even get our head around it.

Nobody wants to submit to anybody. To submit means to lose, to give in, to give up and to surrender our authority.

No sir, we aren’t going to submit to anyone. It’s elbows up all the way.

But and you all know, after the but comes the truth.

Two of the things we’ve learned about reading the bible. The first is never read just a verse.

So, verse 18 doesn’t stand alone, it is part of section that includes seven other verses, and those other verses, help us to understand the statement that makes so many people bristle.

The second thing we need to understand is that the bible was written for us, but it wasn’t written to us.

The book of Colossians, like all the other letters in the New Testament, was written to a specific people, in a specific place, at a specific time, dealing with specific issues and problems.

Now, through the grace and wisdom of God, twenty-one of those letters were preserved for us today. And we know that there were other letters that were written. Some are mentioned in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians and further along in Colossians we read, Colossians 4:16 After you have read this letter, pass it on to the church at Laodicea so they can read it, too. And you should read the letter I wrote to them. But we don’t have the letter that Paul wrote to the church in Laodicea.

We can only speculate on what those letters contained. But the letter to the Colossians is available for us today, we know what it says, so, it was written for us. But it wasn’t written to us, in 2025 in our Canadian culture.

Let’s go back to Colossians 1:2 We are writing to God’s holy people in the city of Colosse, who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. May God our Father give you grace and peace.

The Then

The issues that Paul is addressing right then had arisen because the Colossians have taken to heart the entire concept of the new birth and all that entailed.

Earlier in this letter, Paul had told the Colossians, Colossians 3:11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

That was fleshed out a little more in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, when he wrote, Galatians 3:26–28 For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And Peter addresses the same issue in 1 Peter 3:7 In the same way, you husbands must give honour to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.