The Chosen Have a Drip — What God's People Wear Instead of Status

Central Image

Mr. T's gold chains: not jewelry but a deliberately embraced identity projected to the world — that's the lens for what Paul means by "clothe yourselves," because the chosen of God have a drip too, and it looks nothing like what you'd expect.

The Turn

When you hear "deck yourselves out as the chosen of God," you reach for a purple robe and a pinky ring. Paul hands you patience and meekness — and that's supposed to create tension, because it really is a new kind of human being.

Outline

"Therefore" — A New Species (Col. 3:12)

Paul's "therefore" reaches back to what he just finished: in Christ there is no Greek, Jew, Scythian, barbarian, slave, or free — a whole new race of people where those distinctions no longer organize anything. In the first century you knew someone's race and social standing by how they dressed, so Paul is about to tell the chosen how to dress. He tags them with language from the very beginning of the letter — "chosen, holy, beloved" — to signal: this is where I've been going the whole time.

The Drip of the Chosen (Col. 3:12-13)

Instead of a crown and a staff with a jewel in it, the wardrobe is: bowels of compassion (not hearts — their idiom for gut-level emotion), kindness, meekness, humility, patience. The list is supposed to land with a little jolt. Then the parentheses: bear with each other and forgive each other *in the manner* Jesus forgave you — not just because he did, but the way he did. That is a considerably taller order than the because.

Love as Ligament (Col. 3:14)

Above everything, put on love. Paul reaches back to a word he used earlier in the letter — ligament, the same word for what connects the body to the head. Love is not the belt you cinch over the outfit. Love is what holds the joints together and tells the body where it is in space. The ankle brace: when ligaments are wrecked you lose proprioception, the foot doesn't know where it is, the whole thing gets janky and prone to blowing out again. That's what strained love does to a church — it's not just looser, it doesn't know where it stands, and it becomes a pain for everybody.

Peace as Referee (Col. 3:15)

Let the peace of Christ *rule* — the word is umpire, referee, call the play. Every "you" in this section is plural; Paul is talking to the body assembled, not to individual private hearts. Church splits across two thousand years of church history have been over outward religious things — no one has ever split over whether to be kind. The referee is the peace of Christ. The call is: you were called to one body.

No New Leviticus (Col. 3:16-17)

God can give exact directions when he wants to — read Leviticus. Paul does not tell them one cup or many cups, wine or grape juice, what day of the week, which style of music. He says: let the word of Christ live in you richly, teach and admonish each other — teaching is the initial instruction, admonishing is "no, put your finger like this, not like that" — with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. What you sing over the long haul is what you actually believe: *lex orandi, lex credendi*. And whatever you do in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. That's not a pull-quote for a motivational poster — Paul is still talking about all the life-together stuff, all the church stuff. The standard isn't the day or the style. The standard is: does it bear the stamp?

The Landing

The chosen dress themselves in compassion, kindness, love-as-ligament, and grace slathered over everything — and whatever the church does together bears the stamp of Jesus Christ. That is the new world, and it is what is happening right now while Jesus reigns at the right hand of the Father and his enemies are being brought to heel.

1. Mr. T wore his gold chains as a deliberately embraced identity — not just jewelry, but a statement about who he was and what you'd have to deal with. Is there something you wear or carry that does that for you, even if no one else knows what it means?
2. Paul calls the wardrobe of the chosen "compassion, kindness, meekness, humility, patience" — Toby called it the drip. What's surprising about that list as the thing that's supposed to mark you as belonging to God?
3. Toby made a distinction between love as a belt (wraps over the outside) and love as a ligament (holds the joints together and tells the body where it is in space). What does that difference actually change about how you think about love functioning in a church?
4. Toby said Jesus has put up with more from him than he's usually willing to put up with from other people — and Paul says forgive *in the manner* Jesus forgave you, not just *because* he did. Where does that land for you right now?
5. You can lose proprioception — the ankle doesn't know where it is in space — when the ligaments are damaged even without a full tear. Where in a relationship is love strained enough that you've stopped knowing where you stand with each other?
6. Toby pointed out that virtually every church split in two thousand years has been over outward religious things — never over whether to be kind. What does that actually say about what we value?
7. Paul's "you" throughout this passage is plural — he's talking to the body, not to individual hearts. What would it look like for this congregation's life together to bear the stamp of Jesus in a way that's visible to someone walking in off the street?
8. You took a rubber stamp home today. Name one specific thing you're doing this week — not in general, a particular thing — and ask yourself before you do it: does this bear the stamp of Jesus?