Colossians 3:16 Monday

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." Colossians 3:16

WOW! What a verse! I love this verse!

I want to introduce a Bible study "tool" I use, usually to get the Greek meaning of a word or to get someone else's interpretation of a word or verse. I have to go somehere else when my thoughts are scattered, usually because I'm so attached to the verse, and I need more focus. Where I go is called the Blue Letter Bible. It can be found online at http://www.blueletterbible.org.

Matthew Henry, minister of the gospel in Chester, England who lived in the 17th and 18th centuries wrote the following words about, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." (He is one of the commentary authors I usually go to.) I'm sure what I would have written today, had I been writing my own thoughts, would not have compared to what he wrote back in the 1600's. I hope it impresses you as much as it did me.

I'm so sorry this is late, but I wanted you to get the letter I sent you today, that you should have gotten via email.

"The gospel is the word of Christ, which has come to us; but that is not enough, it must dwell in us, or keep house—enoikeitoµ, not as a servant in a family, who is under another’s control, but as a master, who has a right to prescribe to and direct all under his roof. We must take our instructions and directions from it, and our portion of meat and strength, of grace and comfort, in due season, as from the master of the household. It must dwell in us; that is, be always ready and at hand to us in every thing, and have its due influence and use. We must be familiarly acquainted with it, and know it for our good, Job 5:27. It must dwell in us richly: not only keep house in our hearts, but keep a good house. Many have the word of Christ dwelling in them, but it dwells in them but poorly; it has no mighty force and influence upon them. Then the soul prospers when the word of God dwells in us richly, when we have abundance of it in us, and are full of the scriptures and of the grace of Christ. And this in all wisdom. The proper office of wisdom is to apply what we know to ourselves, for our own direction. The word of Christ must dwell in us, not in all notion and speculation, to make us doctors, but in all wisdom, to make us good Christians, and enable us to conduct ourselves in every thing as becomes Wisdom’s children."

Don't you love that? I couldn't have said it better.