Monthly Archives: June 2025

Chapter-a-Day

My Green Thumb Pursuit Continues!

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From [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:16 (NIV)

It’s summer, and here at Vander Well Manor my annual pursuit to develop a green thumb is in full swing. For anyone who has followed my posts or podcasts for any length of time has heard me speak of my life-long brown thumb and inability to keep plants alive and growing. But, I’m not giving up. This year Wendy got her cactus to bloom. I started an indoor herb garden this winter that has been highly successful for a long time. I even transplanted a couple of them and moved them outdoors and they are doing well. Then, the indoor herb garden became a breeding ground for little fruit fly type bugs, so I’m having to start over with that.

It’s a process. And, I’m getting better.

In today’s chapter, Paul shifts the subject of his letter to Jesus’ followers in Ephesus from the supremacy of Christ Jesus to the difference this should make in the lives of those who believe. Belief is not the endgame, but the entrance of a life-long journey that is a process of growing, maturing, developing, and becoming. Paul describes the endgame of this journey in today’s chapter too:

...so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

That’s like me and my brown thumb becoming a master gardener.

He goes on to describe the journey to that destination as one of a perpetual growth cycle in which I am constantly “putting off” things such as:

falsehood,
anger,
mooching off of others,
worthless and ‘unwholesome’ conversation,
bitterness,
rage,
slander,
and malice.

Instead of allowing those things to take over like weeds in my garden, I am constantly learning and growing in character qualities such as:

honesty,
truthfulness,
peace,
hard work,
generosity,
worthwhile conversation,
encouragement,
mentoring others,
kindness,
compassion,
and forgiveness.

It’s a perpetual spiritual growth process. It’s learning how to develop a spiritual green thumb in which my life becomes a garden of life-giving, growing, and fruitful thoughts, words, relationships, work, and community.

Like developing a green thumb it takes time. If happens in fits and starts. Mistakes are made. Things die. Weeds take over. Bugs breed. But lessons are learned, and as I persevere there is more growth than withering, more life than death, more fruit and blooms and less weeds and bugs.

This weekend in separate occasions we had friends over for some life-giving conversation and refreshment. I was able to offer and make some refreshing summer cocktails made with fresh basil and mint from my herb garden. It was a lot of fun.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that being a disciple of Jesus and developing a green thumb are basically the same pursuit.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

A collage of podcast and streaming service icons alongside a portrait of Tom Vander Well, featuring the title 'Wayfarer blog and podcast' in stylized text.
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
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Chapter-a-Day

Knowing, or Knowing?

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And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17b-19 (NIV)

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to reconnect with the man who was preaching the night Christ became Lord of my life in 1981. Bob was an evangelist and writer at that time, continuing his graduate studies. By the time I was half-way through my undergraduate studies Dr. Bob became one of my professors. He went on to teach at larger and larger universities. As we talked about our respective journeys, Dr. Bob told me that he had been called by God to bring a voice of reason, faith, and belief regarding the Bible, Christian history, and Christian theology into an academic world that is largely antagonistic to Christianity in every way.

God, bless him.

Along my life journey I have encountered many very knowledgeable people. In my formal education of the Bible and of theology, and in my experiences with church leadership in various denominations, I’ve known amazing, intelligent people with all sorts of knowledge about the Bible and Christian theology. I’ve observed, however, that intelligence and knowledge does not always directly translate into an actual relationship with Jesus.

In today’s chapter, Paul expresses his prayer for the believers in Ephesus. Paul has just got done explaining to the non-Jewish, or Gentile, Ephesians that they are now part of something that they previously knew nothing about. God had been working through the Jewish people for centuries to begin the Story and process of redemption. Despite having all of the knowledge of the Law and the Prophets, most of the Jews did not know or recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Paul goes on to explain that he had been called by Jesus to make Him and His love known among the Gentile world. A bit like my friend Dr. Bob, Paul was in many ways a lone voice in the antagonistic, educated cultures of both Jewish Orthodoxy and Greek philosophy.

This in mind, I found it interesting that when Paul expresses his prayer for the believers in Ephesus he prays that they might grasp the immensity of Jesus’ love. He then prays that they might know Christ’s love. The word Paul uses for “know” is the Greek word ginōskō which is also used to describe the intimate knowing that happens in sex. He then goes on to describe the love of Christ as something that is incomparably surpassing of “knowledge” in which he uses the Greek world gnōsis which is simply human knowledge or understanding.

In other words, it’s one thing to know Jesus as in having a basic understanding of who Jesus is, His teachings, and what is believed about Him. It is another thing to know the love of Jesus intimately like the intimacy that happens when you have sex with your spouse.

My friend Dr. Bob was called by God to take the latter knowledge with him into an academic world that largely only experiences the former. In every church I’ve ever attended, I’ve observed many people who also appear to have only knowledge about Jesus without having experienced intimately knowing the love of Jesus that surpasses understanding.

In the quiet this morning, I pray that the intimate, experiential love of Christ that is beyond understanding will, as Paul put it in his prayer for the Ephesian believers, fill me “to the measure of all the fullness of God.” I pray that for you to, my friend.

After all, God is love itself.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
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Chapter-a-Day

A Larger Reality

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As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
Ephesians 2:1-2 (NIV)

A few years ago I had the joy of visiting the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College in Illinois which contains C.S. Lewis’ archives. Along with his letters and writings, I had a chance to see and touch both his desk and his wardrobe. For a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia it was a real treat.

Here in our home we have an enduring love of, and appreciation for, classic epic children’s fantasy stories like The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, and A Wrinkle in Time. As I’ve pondered these classic stories, it has struck me that there is a common theme. Children in this world discover that there is another world, a larger reality that most people know nothing about. As readers we are drawn into these larger worlds through a wardrobe or Platform 9 3/4 and we blissfully lose ourselves within them. They resonate deeply within us.

For C.S. Lewis, at least, the creation of Narnia was simply a reflection of a spiritual reality he discovered when he himself became a believer:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

To be a disciple of Jesus is to believe that there is a much larger Story being told outside the feedback system of our physical senses and human intellect. Jesus continually taught of God’s Kingdom, told His followers to seek that Kingdom, to store up treasures in that Kingdom, and understand that there is an eternal reality that is greater than we realize or can humanly comprehend. In fact, if we have faith to believe it, that reality is more real than this earthly reality in which we live each day. Those who have had Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and have had a taste of that reality often say that it’s really this physical world that is a mere shadow of the ultimate realities of God’s eternal Kingdom.

In Paul’s letter to the believers in Ephesus, I find that he is attempting to pull back on the lens of their understanding to see the much larger spiritual realities of the Great Story in which they find themselves. The Story begins in Genesis when humanity finds itself stuck in a conflict of good and evil. Jesus ministry begins with a confrontation between himself and evil one. Jesus earthly life ends acknowledging that His death is a part of this larger Kingdom conflict. The Story ends in Revelation in a final confrontation between Jesus and the evil one who gathers all of the kingdoms of this world against Him. The Story begins and ends in a reality that exists outside of our present earthly realities.

Paul tells the believers in Ephesus that they are part of a much larger Story than they ever realized. It’s a Story in which Paul and his ancestors have played a major part through history while the Gentile (e.g. non-Jewish) Ephesian believers have been largely clueless. Through Jesus, Paul explains, they need to understand that they’ve entered into this larger Story that God has been authoring from the beginning. They are part of it now, and they need to understand the larger spiritual realities they’ve entered.

Just like Lucy hiding in an old wardrobe and suddenly finding herself standing by a lamppost in the snow.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that this day, every day, there is more going on in the spiritual realm of God’s Kingdom than I can possibly, humanly know. This doesn’t make the mundane tasks of my to-do list meaningless. It makes them holy. The seemingly banal tasks of my everyday life become a liturgy of the ordinary that are part of a higher purpose. It’s what Paul was saying to the followers of Jesus in Colossae who were enslaved. Every day they were serving an expansively larger Kingdom amidst their limited earthly realities.

And so, I enter another day of this earthly journey doing the mundane tasks on my to-do list. The liturgy of the ordinary in God’s Kingdom work on earth.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
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Book Summary List, Chapter-a-Day

Ephesians (Jun-Jul 2025)

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Each photo below corresponds to a chapter-a-day post for the book of Ephesians published by Tom Vander Well in June-July 2025. Click on the photo linked to each chapter to read the post.

Ephesians 1: To Know Better
Ephesians 2: A Larger Reality
Ephesians 3: Knowing, or Knowing?
Ephesians 4: My Green Thumb Pursuit Continues!
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

To Know Better

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I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
Ephesians 1:17 (NIV)

Yesterday at my desk I received an invite on my computer. The invitation came from Wendy asking to meet for a pre-dinner beverage downstairs in the Vander Well Pub. As we settled in at the bar, Wendy said she wanted to discuss a question I raised in a message I gave yesterday amidst our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. The message was about prayer, and specifically about the phrase Jesus used in teaching His disciples to pray: “give us this day our daily bread.” The question I raised in the message was “What is/are the thing(s) with which you struggle most to trust God?”

Wendy wanted to have a V-Dub Pub conversation to talk about each of our answers to that question.

I have to tell you that the conversation got gut-level honest and transparent. As we talked about some of the (admittedly stupid) things that I struggle to trust God for, the onion of my soul got peeled back a few layers deeper. I confess that it was uncomfortable, even though there is no one on this earth who knows me, my struggles, and my foibles as well as Wendy does. She loves me anyway. It was a good conversation, even if it was uncomfortable. As we headed upstairs to make dinner we knew one another a bit better, and we had been given the opportunity to extend grace to one another in expressing our love for one another despite our respective faith struggles.

Today our chapter-a-day journey continues through Paul’s “Prison Letters” which were written while he was under house arrest in Rome. With time on his hands waiting for Caesar to hear his case, Paul took the opportunity to pen letters to the local gatherings of Jesus’ followers he’d established in his travels. With the exception of the personal letter to Philemon, the Prison Letters were written to address entire gatherings of people. As with the letter to the Colossians that we just finished on this chapter-a-day trek, Paul intended his letter to the Ephesians to be read to the entire gathering for the purposes of teaching and instruction. He also expected that the local gatherings in different locations would exchange letters once they were read so that all the different local gatherings would benefit from the teaching and instructions Paul wrote to each.

In today’s opening chapter, Paul establishes that he’s got some mind-blowing spiritual truths he wants to lay on the believers in Ephesus. He’s going to expand their minds and hearts to think about God’s plans and purposes for life on a cosmic spiritual level. As he’s introducing this, he states that his purpose in doing so is so that the believers might “know [God] better.”

Which immediately took my mind to my message yesterday. I observed in my message that Jesus perpetually uses the metaphor of marriage to describe the relationship He wants to have with His followers. Jesus described Himself as “the bridegroom” and we as His “bride.” Like a marriage, Wendy and I communicate in different ways at different times for different relational purposes. Despite the many years that we have been married, and despite the fact that Wendy knows me better than anyone, there are still opportunities to sit at the bar, have a gut-level conversation, and peel back another layer of the onion of our souls.

There is always an opportunity to know one another better.

In the quiet this morning, I simply find myself acknowledging that after almost 45 years of relationship with Jesus I still have opportunity to know Him better. Perhaps I should set an appointment to meet Jesus in the V-Dub Pub for a conversation before dinner tonight.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Uncomfortable History

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Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
Colossians 4:1 (NIV)

Late last week Wendy and I read a fascinating article by Coleman Hughes in The Free Press entitled What American Students Aren’t Taught About Slavery. Hughes taught a class for Freshmen at the University of Austin on the legacy of slavery. What he discovered was that most of his students were completely unaware that slavery existed outside of the United States. Hughes writes:

“What I learned from teaching slavery to a group of college freshmen is that many (perhaps most) American kids graduate high school believing, falsely, that slavery happened only in America. Their minds are not blown by rehearsing the brutal facts of American slavery. Their minds are blown to learn that other brutal slaveries also existed all over the world.“

Being a life-long student of the Great Story has forced me to grapple with the uncomfortable realities of history. Slavery is one of them. One of the things I’ve observed along my journey is that many people are wholly dismissive of the Great Story because its contents contain bits that are uncomfortable and politically incorrect to modern sensibilities and ideologies. I consider this tragic and it makes me sad.

Slavery was a common part of every day life and society throughout the world in the first century. There was no emancipation because human civilization itself had yet to mature to a place that it could even envision a world without slavery. Expecting Paul and the early Jesus Movement to have taken up the emancipation of slavery as a cause is like me expecting my granddaughter, Sylvie (who turns 3 this week!) to be able to have an intellectual conversation with me about string theory.

In his letter to the believers in Colossae, Paul addresses six distinct people groups within the local gathering there: wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves, and slave masters. For some reason, those who added chapter and verse numbers to the text put five of the six into chapter three, and started chapter four with the sixth and final group: slave masters. Yet another reminder that sometimes the chapters and verses get in the way of understanding the text. (BTW, a dear friend gifted me The Lectio Bible for my birthday this year. It provides the text without the chapter and verse numbers and it is a fascinating way to read it!)

What is fascinating as I meditated on the text is that Paul expects the faith of the believers in Colossae to inform their behavior within the context of their life realities. And, in fact, based on the teaching of Jesus and practicing the love of Jesus, the Jesus Movement was already moved the ball forward on societal understanding in ways that were revolutionary and radical for their times. When the believers gathered together to share a meal, worship, and learn together everyone was welcome at the table together: Male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave master and slave. This practice, radical for its time, was a seed that would germinate, take root, and eventually bear fruit in the emancipation movement.

In the quiet this morning, as I meditate on these things, I’m reminded that while the societal realities of history are forever changing, the principle of what Paul is addressing with the Colossian believers never changes. My faith in Jesus should make a difference in my behavior and relationships, especially with my immediate and most intimate of human relationships with family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and colleagues. Paul tells slaves to serve well and with integrity, considering that they are ultimately serving “Lord Christ.” He then tells slave masters to treat slaves with fairness and justice because they also have a “master” in heaven, Christ, to whom they are ultimately accountable and answerable.

I also find myself regularly in circumstances and in relationships that I don’t control. In the midst of it, as a disciple of Jesus, I am expected to be accountable to control the things that I can: to be loving in my words and actions, to be servant-hearted and forgiving towards others, and to conduct myself with integrity.

This chapter-a-day journey moves to the next of Paul’s “Prison Letters” tomorrow:
Ephesians 1

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Dwell

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Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Colossians 3:16 (NIV)

Tomorrow is Saturday, which means that Wendy’s and my morning ritual of coffee and conversation will include the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. This always includes their “Mansion” section in which they do a spotlight feature complete with photo spread of an audacious mansion somewhere. Wendy loves her weekly trip down the rabbit hole looking at what people do with their mansions, the views, how they allocate space, how they decorate, and how the environment “feels.” My mind usually goes straight to calculating the maintenance costs and utilities on that much square footage.

While we will never know what it’s like to have a mansion at that level, Wendy and I have been truly blessed to enjoy some wonderful homes. In 2008, Wendy and I signed a purchase agreement with my parents to buy their place on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. For over 15 years, much of our summer was spent traveling back and forth to central Missouri and hosting family and friends at the lake. This past December, that season of our life ended and we sold our lake home to friends here in Pella who will carry the blessing of that home forward for a new generation.

With summer now in full swing, Wendy and I have been having many people ask us if we regret the decision and how we are faring not being at the lake. I’m happy to report that it really was a divine appointment and God’s timing was perfect. One of the things that Wendy and I have rediscovered as our time and attention has shifted back to our home in Pella is just how much we love our house which I have always referred to as Vander Well Manor. There have been so many little projects and things that we’ve put off for years because we were spending so much time and so many resources at the lake. It’s been fun to truly dwell in our home this summer and fully enjoy it inside and out.

Today’s chapter is one of those chapters that is so full of instruction and spiritual truth that I hardly know how to focus in on one thing on which to meditate and blog about. When that happens, I typically wait for Holy Spirit to cause something to deeply resonate in my spirit. This morning, it was this phrase: “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly…”

As Wendy and I have rediscovered the joy of truly dwelling at home, it provided a really powerful metaphor in the quiet this morning for what Paul is getting at as he uses that phrase. Along my life journey, my experience has been that relatively few people allow Christ’s message to dwell richly within them. I observe that Christ’s message pays a visit on Sunday mornings. It acts as a homey and inspirational message on a piece wall decor that fades into the background and is subsequently forgotten. To “dwell richly” has a much deeper connotation.

To dwell means to “live in.” Dwelling means residing, being fully present, and actively occupying. When someone dwells in a home, there is constancy and the perpetual impact of presence.

Which leads me to ask myself, are Christ’s words and message dwelling in me, in my life, in my marriage, in my home, among my friends, and in the community of our circles of influence? Is Christ’s message dwelling in me, not merely as wall decor, but actively occupying with constancy and perpetual impact of presence?

Tomorrow morning Wendy will show me photos of some mansion on Martha’s Vineyard or some such place and wax eloquent with her strong opinions regarding the space and decorations. I can tell you that the mansion will be empty, because there are never people in the photographs. Each week the photos are of a giant, opulent, perfectly appointed empty mansion in which no one appears to be dwelling. What a great metaphor for how I don’t want my life to be. If I have a great life and an earthly existence filled with all this world has to offer, but Christ and His message are not dwelling within, then my life is just an empty earthly mansion that I will have to give up one day.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Decapitated Religion

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See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
Colossians 2:8 (NIV)

The early years of the Jesus Movement were messy. You have to think about it. All of the scripture we trek through on this chapter-a-day journey, the texts on which Christian theology has been established for 2,000 years hadn’t yet been written. They were being written as handwritten letters by Paul and the other apostles, delivered by personal carrier, distributed to each local gathering of Jesus’ followers, and read to the believers.

The first century world in which the Jesus Movement emerged was filled with religions. There was certainly the Jewish religion from which Jesus and His followers emerged. There was a pantheon of Roman gods and Greek gods that each had their own temple, cult, worship, and traditions. There was a cult worshipping Caesar as god. There were also Greek philosophies that had all the hallmarks of being religions in-and-of themselves. As local gatherings of new believers in Jesus met on a regular basis to worship, learn Jesus’ teachings, and encourage one another to live their lives daily as His disciples, they were confronted from within and without with other religious and philosophical thoughts that some individuals wanted to connect to and with Jesus.

Reading between the lines of Paul’s letter to the believers in Colossae, it is obvious that he is addressing this very reality. Others were introducing religious thoughts, traditions, and philosophies into the local gathering that had nothing to do with Jesus. Over the centuries, scholars have argued about what competing religion or philosophy Paul is addressing. I don’t think it’s one. I think he’s addressing all of it: Jewish legalism, pagan rituals and traditions, Greek philosophy, and even the worship of angels are all described by Paul’s words.

What I have found fascinating while meditating on the letter yesterday and today is to circle and count the number of times Paul uses the word “Christ.” Ten times he uses it in today’s chapter. He’ll use it 30 times total in this brief letter. So, I took some time to consider what Paul is saying about Christ:

Christ is the mystery of God.
All creation was created in Christ, through Christ, for Christ.
In Christ, all of creation holds together.
Christ is the fullness of God in bodily form.
In Christ we are brought into that fullness.
Once dead in our sin, we are made alive in Christ.
Christ is the reality of God.
Christ is the head of all power and authority.
Christ is supreme.

I then listed and compared the adjectives Paul uses in describing these competing religious and philosophical thoughts that others are trying to introduce and merge into Jesus’ teaching:

fine-sounding arguments
hollow
deceptive philosophy
human tradition
elemental spiritual forces of this world
shadow
false humility
idle notions
rules of this world destined to perish
merely human commands and teachings
mere appearance of wisdom
lacking any value in restraining sensual indulgence

Wow, what a contrast. Paul then makes a point that all of these religious and philosophical notions have “lost connection with the head” and he had just identified “the head” a few paragraphs earlier as Christ. We all know of what worth the body is once it’s been decapitated.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on Jesus who is the Christ. Paul will make this point 30 times in this letter. He will make it 50 times in his letter to the believers in Ephesus. The point he is making is that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the “anointed one,” the “messiah,” the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, Reality of God, Mystery of God and Supreme Head over everything.

As a disciple of Jesus, I believe that if I diminish Jesus the Christ in any way, I’ve lost connection to the head and have become decapitated from the Truth.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Book Summary List, Chapter-a-Day

Colossians (June 2025)

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Each photo below corresponds to a chapter-a-day post for the book of Colossians published by Tom Vander Well in June 2025. Click on the photo linked to each chapter to read the post.

Colossians 1: Spiritual Health Assessment
Colossians 2: Decapitated Religion
Colossians 3: Dwell
These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Spiritual Health Assessment

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We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.
Colossians 1:9-12 (NIV)

Paul is a prisoner of Rome. In a way, this is a matter of his own free will and choosing. His crime was to show his face in Jerusalem where he had carried a financial offering collected from the believers throughout Asia Minor to help the followers of Jesus who were being persecuted by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem and throughout Judea. Paul had been one of those Jewish authorities and led the persecution and prosecution of Jesus’ followers. Then, Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and abruptly switched teams. His return to Jerusalem sparked a riot, and civil unrest was something the Roman Empire did not abide.

Paul, however, was a citizen of Rome, which was not very common. Being a Roman Citizen had tremendous privileges, and where Paul was from only 1-3 percent of the population enjoyed that status. One of the privileges of Roman citizenship was that if you were accused of a crime you could appeal your case to be judged by Caesar himself. Paul used his privilege and made his appeal. Now, he waits in Rome for his trial to make its way to the top of Caesar’s docket. While he waits, he lives guarded under house arrest.

There’s not much to do while you’re living under house arrest, Paul prays for all the believers he left behind in Greece and Asia Minor. Paul has a cadre of friends who have worked with him in sharing Jesus’ love and message wherever he went. They hang with him in Rome and keep him company. Friends from the local gatherings of Jesus’ followers travel to visit him and give him reports on how things are going back in their hometowns. They also provide financial support because Paul is required to pay for his housing while under house arrest. Paul writes letters for his visitors to take back with them.

In yesterday’s post/podcast, I shared the story of the runaway slave who ran into Paul in Rome. Onesimus had been the slave of Philemon, a believer Paul knew back in the city of Colossae. Onesimus became a follower of Jesus, and Paul sent him back to reconcile to his master with a letter in hand that we now know as Philemon. Also in hand, Onesimus carried the letter we begin our chapter-a-day trek through today, known as Colossians.

Today’s chapter is Paul’s opening greeting to the believers in Colossae. It is filled with both teaching and encouragement. Amidst the encouragement, Paul describes his desire for the believers by outlining four things he wants for them:

  1. Bearing fruit in every good work, fruit that he would define in his letter to the believers in Galatia as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
  2. Growing in the knowledge of God.
  3. Being strengthened to patiently endure trials and hardships.
  4. Giving joyful thanks to God for His gracious gift of salvation.

As I meditated on these four things in the quiet this morning, I thought to myself what a simple checklist they were to do my own spiritual health assessment.

What are the “works” that are currently on my task list? As I think through each project at work, at home, and in my community is there evidence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

Am I growing in my knowledge of God at all? How so? What am I intentionally doing to improve my relationship with God? Am I reading, praying, meditating, contemplating, or having conversations with others?

What challenges, trials, and hardships am I currently facing? Do my thoughts, words, and actions show evidence of spiritual strength, patience, and endurance – or complaining, grumbling, worrying, and whining?

Am I taking time to mindfully and consciously be thankful to God for all of the good things with which I am blessed every day?

In the quiet this morning, I thoughtfully pondered the honest answers to these questions. The good news is that I’m feeling positive about some of the answers. At the same time, it didn’t take long for me to realize I do have some simple growth opportunities ahead of me today.

Here I go.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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