NOTES for Col 3:17-4:1

If to do whatsoever in the name of the Lord, then are laid on certain restrictions to the word "whatsoever". Is it possible to do, by word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ – a dirty trick? Is it possible to kill, steal, commit adultery, commit perjury?! The aspiration in itself to do something in the name of the Lord already helps us in life, because the obviously incorrect decisions, incompatible not with some formal rules, but with the personality of Jesus are rejected.

Giving thanks to God is in general the basis of the foundations of Christian life, it is especially in thanksgiving that we are farthest of the opposition to Him, we do not simply understand His will (mole, you have no choice!), but accept with pleasure the fact that it {the will} is good for us. All the plenitude of the human, filial giving thanks is already expressed in the Eucharist, in the prayer and the sacrifice of thanksgiving - Jesus Christ, which is why our biggest "thanks" will be union with Him and giving thanks by Him.

For Paul, Christian life is life in Christ in the most literal sense of the word. It unfolds in the spiritual space of the relationships that bind the Son to the Father. And all relationships among Christians, as well as their very life, must exist precisely there. The apostle speaks of peace for a reason: inner peace is inseparable from abiding in the Kingdom as the space of the relationship of the Father and the Son.

But the fullness of the Kingdom is revealed in love. In the Kingdom, love becomes not merely a relationship; there it also becomes the environment within which all relationships exist: relationships among people, each person's relationship with God and with Christ, and finally Christ's own relationship with His heavenly Father. In itself, the Kingdom is the space of God's prevailing breath, but in the context of all interpersonal relationships possible in such a space, it is the space and environment of love.

God's breath is connected with His life, with His very existence, but when someone else is included in His existence, at the point of meeting there arises a space of love as the dynamic of that very meeting. Love itself, arising by God's will directed toward the one whom God loves, turns out to be the bridge that connects the uncreated God with all created beings loved by Him, including the human person. In relation to what cannot recognize God's will, His love is revealed as God's Wisdom, present in the world even where no one can recognize it; but in relation to a person who recognizes God's will and his own existence, it is revealed precisely as love.

And if relationships between people are built in the space of the relationships of the Kingdom, the relationships that bind the Father and the Son, then they too can only be relationships of love - not because in God's presence a person ceases to be a creature, but because in any relationships in which God participates and which He defines, it is His love that becomes predominant and forms the environment within which those relationships exist.

Such relationships cease to be purely human and become divine-human, since they are defined not only by people but also by God. This is the environment of love among Christians that Paul calls the addressees of his letter to form, whether in relationships between spouses, between children and parents, or between slaves and their masters. As long as these relationships remain purely functional, they cannot be relationships of love; but if the Kingdom comes to the forefront in each person's life, and relationships become relationships of the Kingdom, function, including social function, recedes into the background. It is precisely such relationships that the apostle speaks of in his letter to the Colossians.

Paul concludes the discussion of the Kingdom and spiritual life in his letter to the Colossian Christians with a call to prayer, so that when witness is required, everyone, including the apostle himself, may prove to be a worthy witness (vv. 2-6). This call of Paul's echoes another, in which the apostle calls his Colossian brothers to keep the word of Christ (Col. 3:16). Such a call is quite traditional with regard to the understanding of the sacred text and its role in spiritual life. Indeed, in Paul's day the rabbinic tradition saw in the Torah not only a text that required study and fulfillment, but also a way of communion with God and knowledge of God, which reading the Torah was for the believing Jew. Normal and full spiritual life required everyone to cultivate in his heart what was called the inner Torah: the spiritual core of the person, based on the practice of keeping the commandments and bearing witness to faithfulness to God and to the Torah, not only by word but by one's whole life.

Paul, however, as it appears, transfers this traditional idea of the inner Torah to those relationships of the faithful with Christ without which there is no Christianity. The inner Torah was always thought of as something inseparable from constant communion with God, so much so that in the Gospel era rabbinic circles even discussed the question of whether unceasing prayer was obligatory for the believing Jew. Paul also advises the Colossian Christians to remain constantly in prayer, perhaps having in mind some practice of this kind (v. 2).

Yet in this case the apostle considered the chief task to be not only the formation of the inner Torah in the hearts of his addressees, but also their rooting in the life of the Kingdom. This was the continuation of the former tradition, newly understood in the light of the new messianic revelation and the experience of the life of the Kingdom. And now the faithful were called to bear witness not only to their faithfulness to God and to the Torah, but also to the Kingdom of which they had become partakers. The apostle calls his Colossian brothers to such witness, considering it the chief task of every Christian in our transforming world, which has not yet been transformed to the end.

Like any letter, the Epistle to the Colossians ends with friendly wishes and instructions, greetings from those who are near the Apostle, and brief news. Everything is as in an ordinary letter, apart from several aphoristic phrases that have become laws of Christian life. Again and again, Paul reminds us that a person's daily duty and need is prayer with thanksgiving—that is, unceasing communion with God, a dialogue in search of truth, and gratitude that this possibility has been given to us. We can continually contemplate the One who is Truth. Through this, our whole life is transformed into something wonderful and, as the Apostle puts it, we can conduct ourselves wisely toward outsiders.

Today’s text is quite straightforward. Not because it is easy to accept, but because everyone has parents, and many have wives, husbands, and children. Consequently, it is very easy for us to see how often we fall short of what we read. If things are not right with our parents, then they are not right with our children; if not with our children, then with our wives or husbands—somewhere, something is wrong. Yet there is a precedent: people have succeeded in realizing relationships like these within a family, when an inexhaustible reserve of goodwill made it possible to live in peace and love and, when necessary, in forgiveness. In the Holy Family we see that it is genuinely possible for a human being to live this way. Someone may say, “Of course—Mary and Joseph were raising Jesus, the perfect Man, whereas my children are nothing like that.” Yet this was more likely an additional difficulty in living the life of the Holy Family, for they bore responsibility for the Savior. What parents usually find hardest to accept is that their own child follows his or her own path and chooses it independently. In this case, the parents had to accept Jesus’ way of the Cross and help Him along that way.

Speaking about spiritual life, Paul draws attention to the relationships that form the basis of both the family and the social environment of his era: marital relationships (vv. 18-19), relationships of children with parents (vv. 20-21), and relationships of slaves with their masters (3:22-4:1). The apostle's turn to this theme might be considered quite traditional: after all, the prophets too often turned in their preaching to social themes. But for them it was never an end in itself; the prophets only emphasized the need to follow the Torah not only in personal life but also in public life, considering the Torah an entirely adequate basis for the ordering of society. One could say that Paul too follows this prophetic tradition. But he goes even further. Indeed, the prophets who lived before the coming into the world of the Messiah, Christ, spoke of what was available in their time: the path of righteousness and following the Torah as the means that allowed one to walk that path.

Paul, however, speaks of something greater: the path of the Kingdom, which opened to humanity only with the coming of Christ. It is no accident that he introduces the discussion of relationships in the family and in society with a description of the life of the Kingdom, at the center of which stands the mention of the love that unites its citizens (vv. 12-17). For in the Kingdom love is no longer simply a relationship binding people together, as it is in our world, still not transformed. In the Kingdom, love is also the spiritual environment in which all relationships exist, a kind of spiritual substance without which there is no Kingdom. And the Church, as a community of people living in the Kingdom, is called to be the manifestation of the Kingdom in our transforming world, which has not yet been transformed to the end. It must become for everyone an example showing that it is already possible to build relationships according to the laws of the Kingdom, and that no social structures in themselves are an obstacle to this, provided that people are truly bound to one another by the relationships of love proper to citizens of the Kingdom. Then everyone seeking an alternative to the laws of the untransformed world will see that such an alternative exists, that one can live by the laws of the Kingdom here and now.

The expression “put on,” which the apostle Paul uses, can stir our imagination. To put something on means to abide in it. We then find ourselves inside a kind of covering that filters our interaction with the world around us. Paul lists some qualities, or properties, of this filter, placing love above all as the perfect expression of perfect relationships. Within this covering Paul establishes a state of peace that comes from God, which calls to mind the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov about the Christian life as the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of peace. And this is what passes through the covering to the heart: the word of Christ. Then everything that comes from us becomes a deed done in the name of the Lord and thanksgiving to God. It seems that this thought is developed in the passage from the Gospel of Luke, which speaks of the deeds to which we are called, deeds of love, because it is precisely through love that we become like the Father, drawing nearer to His perfection (compare verse 36 with Matt. 5:48).