Thursday 11 September 2025
Colossians 3:12-17. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! – Ps 150:1-6. Luke 6:27-38.
Put on love
In today’s reading from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, we find the entire radical teaching of Christianity in microcosm. The context of the reading is vital: Paul has just reiterated his theme that Christians are a new creation and have a new life from Christ; and he has affirmed his vision that there are to be no distinctions based on race, class or gender: Christ is ‘all in all’. So, what does that change mean for Christians? Today’s reading answers that urgent question: Paul says we are to ‘clothe’ ourselves with ‘compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience’, and he pursues the metaphor by saying, ‘over all these, put on love . . .’ There is no earthly reason a person would adopt any of these qualities naturally; selfish greed is good enough for most people. Only the new life of Christ, aligned with his Holy Spirit, allows a person to recognise the value of these attributes.
Email this Print This Page
