Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (ESV)

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. (NIV)

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. (NLT)

Dive Deeper:

We’ve reached the last memory verse of this 7-month series on the full armor of God. Whether you’ve memorized every verse along the way or are just jumping in, Colossians 3:16 provides the perfect capstone to these seven months and 28 verses based on the ideas of Ephesians 6:14-17 (the full armor of God).

In Colossians 3:16, Paul helps us understand what ought to happen to us when the Word of God (the Sword of the Spirit) rightly impacts our lives as followers of Christ. We don’t simply read the Word like a novel, a textbook, or an article about our favorite sports team. Instead, the Word deeply impacts every part of our lives, changing how we live.

The Word Takes Up Residence

When something dwells in us richly, it doesn’t just pass through town like it’s on a weekend trip or a summer stint. Instead, it takes up residence and makes itself at home. It unpacks its bags and moves in. When translated from Greek, the word “richly” carries a distinctive nature—it sets itself up to be different. Think of someone really wealthy—like a millionaire with nice cars and a big house. Now take it several degrees further to a billionaire. The billionaire doesn’t just have one house with a few cars. They have multiple homes in the most desirable locations around the world with MANY cars. When the Word in all its richness fills us up, it’s not just millionaire different, but billionaire different!

When the Word impacts us this way, it deeply impacts us, pushing past the surface. This means you must let the Word inform every part of your life. I admit I sometimes want to pick and choose what Scriptures to pay more attention to—but Paul says the Word is to affect and impact us completely. If we are a home where the Word takes residence, we can’t seclude it to one room, keeping it separate from the rest of the house. Instead, we say, “Make yourself at home. You have access to everything; take up residence here.”

The Word Changes the Way We Live

The Sword of the Spirit changes how we live. We are to teach and instruct others. We allow the Word to indwell us and then pass on to others what we learn. This might be our community or someone in our family. We don’t learn in order to get puffed up but to love others and build them up (1 Corinthians 8:1).

We allow the Word to help us admonish others. We need to challenge others, and sometimes we need to be challenged. This happens when we warn or instruct others to help them when tempted to give in to sinful desires (1 Thessalonians 5:14). We admonish each other in wisdom.

The Word leads us to sing to the Lord and worship Him! The proper response to the Word is to worship the Lord more than we worship ourselves or any other thing or person in the universe (Luke 4:8, Psalm 42:1-5). It should lead us to sing songs to the Lord, declaring who He is and what He has done.

The Word Fills Us With Thanksgiving

Paul wraps up this verse with a call to heart-filled gratitude—the correct response is thankfulness to God. Our hearts are not marked by greediness or envy but by gratitude. When the Word dwells in us richly, we’re instead marked by a spirit of thankfulness, which, once again, makes us distinct from the rest of the world.

Written by Scott Kedersha

Challenge:

Does the Word of Christ dwell in you richly? Examine your life to see if the Sword of the Spirit has taken up residence in your life—if it truly changes the way you live (as evidenced through teaching, admonishing, and singing), and if it fills your heart with thanksgiving. Pray that the Word will allow you to be changed and transformed.