Romans 13:14

13:14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to arouse its desires. ¹ 

Romans 13:2

13:2 So the person who resists such authority ²  resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will incur judgment

Colossians 1:7

1:7 You learned the gospel ³  from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave ⁴  – a ⁵  faithful minister of Christ on our ⁶  behalf –

Ephesians 6:11-18

6:11 Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes ⁷  of the devil. 6:12 For our struggle ⁸  is not against flesh and blood, ⁹  but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, ¹⁰  against the spiritual forces ¹¹  of evil in the heavens. ¹²  6:13 For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground ¹³  on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand. 6:14 Stand firm therefore, by fastening ¹⁴  the belt of truth around your waist, ¹⁵  by putting on the breastplate of righteousness, 6:15 by fitting your ¹⁶  feet with the preparation that comes from the good news ¹⁷  of peace, ¹⁸  6:16 and in all of this, ¹⁹  by taking up the shield ²⁰  of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation ²¹  and the sword ²²  of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 6:18 With every prayer and petition, pray ²³  at all times in the Spirit, and to this end ²⁴  be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints.

Colossians 3:10-17

3:10 and have been clothed with the new man ²⁵  that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. 3:11 Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave ²⁶  or free, but Christ is all and in all.

Exhortation to Unity and Love

3:12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, ²⁷  kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 3:13 bearing with one another and forgiving ²⁸  one another, if someone happens to have ²⁹  a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others. ³⁰  3:14 And to all these ³¹  virtues ³²  add ³³  love, which is the perfect bond. ³⁴  3:15 Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body ³⁵  to this peace), and be thankful. 3:16 Let the word of Christ ³⁶  dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace ³⁷  in your hearts to God. 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:1

Exhortations to Seek the Things Above

3:1 Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 1:8

1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

[13:14]  ¹ tn Grk “make no provision for the flesh unto desires.”

[13:2]  ² tn Grk “the authority,” referring to the authority just described.

[1:7]  ³ tn Or “learned it.” The Greek text simply has “you learned” without the reference to “the gospel,” but “the gospel” is supplied to clarify the sense of the clause. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[1:7]  ⁴ tn The Greek word translated “fellow slave” is σύνδουλος (sundoulo"); the σύν- prefix here denotes association. Though δοῦλος is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[1:7]  ⁵ tn The Greek text has “who (ὅς, Jos) is a faithful minister.” The above translation conveys the antecedent of the relative pronoun quite well and avoids the redundancy with the following substantival participle of v. 8, namely, “who told” (ὁ δηλώσας, Jo dhlwsa").

[1:7]  ⁶ tc ‡ Judging by the superior witnesses for the first person pronoun ἡμῶν (Jhmwn, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א* A B D* F G 326* 1505 al) vs. the second person pronoun ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “you”; found in א² C D¹ Ψ 075 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co), ἡμῶν should be regarded as original. Although it is possible that ἡμῶν was an early alteration of ὑμῶν (either unintentionally, as dittography, since it comes seventeen letters after the previous ἡμῶν; or intentionally, to conform to the surrounding first person pronouns), this supposition is difficult to maintain in light of the varied and valuable witnesses for this reading. Further, the second person is both embedded in the verb ἐμάθετε (emaqete) and is explicit in v. 8 (ὑμῶν). Hence, the motivation to change to the first person pronoun is counterbalanced by such evidence. The second person pronoun may have been introduced unintentionally via homoioarcton with the ὑπέρ (Juper) that immediately precedes it. As well, the second person reading is somewhat harder for it seems to address Epaphras’ role only in relation to Paul and his colleagues, rather than in relation to the Colossians. Nevertheless, the decision must be based ultimately on external evidence (because the internal evidence can be variously interpreted), and this strongly supports ἡμῶν.

[6:11]  ⁷ tn Or “craftiness.” See BDAG 625 s.v. μεθοδεία.

[6:12]  ⁸ tn BDAG 752 s.v. πάλη says, “struggle against…the opponent is introduced by πρός w. the acc.”

[6:12]  ⁹ tn Grk “blood and flesh.”

[6:12]  ¹⁰ tn BDAG 561 s.v. κοσμοκράτωρ suggests “the rulers of this sinful world” as a gloss.

[6:12]  ¹¹ tn BDAG 837 s.v. πνευματικός 3 suggests “the spirit-forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12.

[6:12]  ¹² sn The phrase spiritual forces of evil in the heavens serves to emphasize the nature of the forces which oppose believers as well as to indicate the locality from which they originate.

[6:13]  ¹³ tn The term ἀνθίστημι (anqisthmi) carries the idea of resisting or opposing something or someone (BDAG 80 s.v.). In Eph 6:13, when used in combination with στῆναι (sthnai; cf. also στῆτε [sthte] in v. 14) and in a context of battle imagery, it seems to have the idea of resisting, standing firm, and being able to stand your ground.

[6:14]  ¹⁴ sn The four participles fastening… putting on…fitting…taking up… indicate the means by which believers can take their stand against the devil and his schemes. The imperative take in v. 17 communicates another means by which to accomplish the standing, i.e., by the word of God.

[6:14]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “girding your waist with truth.” In this entire section the author is painting a metaphor for his readers based on the attire of a Roman soldier prepared for battle and its similarity to the Christian prepared to do battle against spiritually evil forces. Behind the expression “with truth” is probably the genitive idea “belt of truth.” Since this is an appositional genitive (i.e., belt which is truth), the author simply left unsaid the idea of the belt and mentioned only his real focus, namely, the truth. (The analogy would have been completely understandable to his 1st century readers.) The idea of the belt is supplied in the translation to clarify the sense in English.

[6:15]  ¹⁶ tn The definite article τοῖς (tois) was taken as a possessive pronoun, i.e., “your,” since it refers to a part of the physical body.

[6:15]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “gospel.” However, this is not a technical term here.

[6:15]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “in preparation of the gospel of peace.” The genitive τοῦ εὐαγγελίου (tou euangeliou) was taken as a genitive of source, i.e., “that comes from….”

[6:16]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “in everything.”

[6:16]  ²⁰ sn The Greek word translated shield (θυρεός, qureos) refers to the Roman soldier’s large rectangular wooden shield, called in Latin scutum, about 4 ft (1.2 m) high, covered with leather on the outside. Before a battle in which flaming arrows might be shot at them, the soldiers wet the leather covering with water to extinguish the arrows. The Roman legionaries could close ranks with these shields, the first row holding theirs edge to edge in front, and the rows behind holding the shields above their heads. In this formation they were practically invulnerable to arrows, rocks, and even spears.

[6:17]  ²¹ sn An allusion to Isa 59:17.

[6:17]  ²² sn The Greek term translated sword (μάχαιρα, macaira) refers to the Roman gladius, a short sword about 2 ft (60 cm) long, used for close hand-to-hand combat. This is the only clearly offensive weapon in the list of armor mentioned by the author (he does not, for example, mention the lance [Latin pilum]).

[6:18]  ²³ tn Both “pray” and “be alert” are participles in the Greek text (“praying…being alert”). Both are probably instrumental, loosely connected with all of the preceding instructions. As such, they are not additional commands to do but instead are the means through which the prior instructions are accomplished.

[6:18]  ²⁴ tn Grk “and toward it.”

[3:10]  ²⁵ sn Put off all such things. The commands in vv. 8-9 are based on two reasons given in vv. 9-10 – reasons which are expressed in terms of a metaphor about clothing oneself. Paul says that they have put off the old man and have put on the new man. Two things need to be discussed in reference to Paul’s statement. (1) What is the meaning of the clothing imagery (i.e., the “have put off” and “have been clothed”)? (2) What is the meaning of the old man and the new man? Though some commentators understand the participles “have put off” (v. 9) and “have been clothed” (v. 10) as imperatives (i.e., “put off!” and “put on!”), this use of participles is extremely rare in the NT and thus unlikely here. It is better to take them as having the semantic force of indicatives, and thus they give an explanation of what had happened to the Colossians at the time of their conversion – they had taken off the old man and put on the new when they trusted in Christ (cf. 1:4). While it is difficult to say for certain what the background to Paul’s “clothing” metaphor might be (whether it is primarily Jewish and comes from the OT, or primarily Gentile and comes from some facet of the Greco-Roman religious milieu), it is nonetheless clear, on the basis of Paul’s usage of the expression, that the old man refers to man as he is in Adam and dominated by sin (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22), while the new man refers to the Christian whose new sphere of existence is in Christ. Though the metaphor of clothing oneself primarily reflects outward actions, there is a distinct inward aspect to it, as the rest of v. 10 indicates: being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Paul’s point, then, is that Christians should take off their dirty clothing (inappropriate behavior) and put on clean clothing (behavior consistent with knowing Christ) because this has already been accomplished in a positional sense at the time of their conversion (cf. Gal 3:27 with Rom 13:14).

[3:11]  ²⁶ tn See the note on “fellow slave” in 1:7.

[3:12]  ²⁷ tn If the genitive construct σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ (splancna oiktirmou) is a hendiadys then it would be “compassion” or “tenderheartedness.” See M. J. Harris, Colossians and Philemon (EGGNT), 161.

[3:13]  ²⁸ tn For the translation of χαριζόμενοι (carizomenoi) as “forgiving,” see BDAG 1078 s.v. χαρίζομαι 3. The two participles “bearing” (ἀνεχόμενοι, anecomenoi) and “forgiving” (χαριζόμενοι) express the means by which the action of the finite verb “clothe yourselves” is to be carried out.

[3:13]  ²⁹ tn Grk “if someone has”; the term “happens,” though not in the Greek text, is inserted to bring out the force of the third class condition.

[3:13]  ³⁰ tn The expression “forgive others” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. It is included in the translation to make the sentence complete and more comprehensible to the English reader.

[3:14]  ³¹ tn BDAG 365 s.v. ἐπί 7 suggests “to all these” as a translation for ἐπὶ πᾶσιν δὲ τούτοις (epi pasin de toutoi").

[3:14]  ³² tn The term “virtues” is not in the Greek text, but is included in the translation to specify the antecedent and to make clear the sense of the pronoun “these.”

[3:14]  ³³ tn The verb “add,” though not in the Greek text, is implied, picking up the initial imperative “clothe yourselves.”

[3:14]  ³⁴ tn The genitive τῆς τελειότητος (th" teleiothto") has been translated as an attributive genitive, “the perfect bond.”

[3:15]  ³⁵ tn Grk “in one body.” This phrase emphasizes the manner in which the believers were called, not the goal of their calling, and focuses upon their unity.

[3:16]  ³⁶ tc Since “the word of Christ” occurs nowhere else in the NT, two predictable variants arose: “word of God” and “word of the Lord.” Even though some of the witnesses for these variants are impressive (κυρίου [kuriou, “of the Lord”] in א* I 1175 pc bo; θεοῦ [qeou, “of God”] in A C* 33 104 323 945 al), the reading Χριστοῦ (Cristou, “of Christ”) is read by an excellent cross-section of witnesses (Ì⁴⁶ א² B C² D F G Ψ 075 1739 1881 Ï lat sa). On both internal and external grounds, Χριστοῦ is strongly preferred.

[3:16]  ³⁷ tn Grk “with grace”; “all” is supplied as it is implicitly related to all the previous instructions in the verse.