Yesterday, as I was pondering why I blog, I realized that one of the things I have not written about here is why I named this blog as I have, Colossians Three Sixteen. The verse itself reads:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

This has been a verse that I have meditated on much over the past several years. I’ve always found it interesting that Paul would include the idea of using music as a form of “teaching and admonishing one another.” Music is a very integral part of my own life. There are very few times when I am not in the presence of some music. I play music while I study, while I write and it is often in the background in the car and at home. But the importance of Paul’s phrase seems to lie deeper than just being a reminder that music is important.

Paul, in a sense, is reminding his readers that not only is all of life worship (whereas we often simply think of the singing on Sunday mornings as worship) but that it is also communal. Over the past couple of years I have been particularly struck by the importance of community in the Scriptures. Paul’s inclusion of the “one another” assumes that the Christian life will be lived out in the context of a loving community that will be seeking to hold one another accountable. The fact that Paul includes singing as part of this process is a reminder of how encompassing he viewed it to be and how minimal we often see it to be.

Paul says that the attitude behind all of this that is to color the lives of believers is thankfulness. Thankfulness implies humility as well because it is a continual recognition that we have been given something. The more I think about Paul saying that we ought to live with “thankfulness in our hearts to God,” I can’t help but think of the Cross. No matter what our circumstances, Christians are to be thankful because of the Cross. Believers, in every situation, live in the shadow of the Cross which certainly gives us much to be thankful for.

Notice that everything we’ve discussed is an explanation of just how we are to “Let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly.” I love this phrase. It’s not just enough to know the word of Christ, it’s not even enough to memorize it, it is to dwell in us richly, it is to thrive in our lives. This is so often the point of meditation that I come back to, how do we bring all of life under the reign of the Gospel? Paul provides at least some initial steps towards that goal.

When others see my life, I want them to say that the word of Christ dwells richly in me. This blog is a small step for me (out loud and with the feedback of others) towards that goal and the name, for me, serves as a perpetual reminder of its purpose.

• Read Living the Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing by C.J. Mahaney
• Read The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel by Mark Dever