ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
May 12, 2026
Have you ever had one of those really productive days? Now I won’t claim that yesterday was a “really” productive day, but it felt productive. And I even got to spend a little time with my wife. Productive is a good thing! Usually, your employer appreciates and might even reward productivity. In a world where things need to get done, products need to be created, items need to be moved to their destination, and ideas need to come to fruition, efficiency and fruitfulness are important. Yet there is this balance between an employer putting a value on your productivity and God speaking to your value as a human being. I find God to be gracious no matter what my productivity level might be. Yet in Colossians 3:23-25, we hear words that sound a bit more demanding. It says,
“Whatever task you must do, work as if your soul depends on it, as for the Lord and not for humans, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality.”
It sort of implies, though I could probably spin it another way, that our souls depend on the tasks we do. It sounds a little like what Reformation Theology called Works Righteousness. Yet a majority of New Testament scholars would argue that Colossians was not an authentic letter of the Apostle Paul. In fact, some would place its authorship around 20-30 years after the death of Paul. Those years were dramatic in regard to the development of Christianity. When Paul was executed around 65AD, the church was still in its infancy, but as it moved into the later part of the first century, it was beginning to get organized, with structure and even a hierarchy. In fifty to seventy-five years after Jesus, as the church tried to find legitimacy by creating clarity, it began to allow rules to supersede grace, power to replace mercy.
I believe Colossians remains a very important part of the New Testament, and for those who are willing to grapple with the complexities of scripture, there is a lot to glean from this letter. However, I find it nearly impossible to justify the words found just a few verses earlier in Colossians, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly” (vs.18-19) with the liberating and empowering words of Jesus. By the end of the first century, Christianity was becoming an institutional religion run by mostly men, something I do not believe Jesus intended.
For the way you unbound social systems that had for far too long lifted up only a few, we pray this day for a new redemption and liberation. O Living Christ, reveal to us once again your message that was first accepted and shared by those society least expected, as it was their witness that gave life to your words. Amen.
