Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 · Passage · Kindness
Be Kind to One Another
Ephesians 4:31 to 32 and Colossians 3:12 to 14 are two commands of Paul, to the churches of Ephesus and Colossae, on the conduct of believers toward one another.
Before Paul tells the Ephesians to be kind, he names six things they must get rid of, from bitterness to every form of malice.
Be kind and tenderhearted to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.
- The passage
- Ephesians 4:31 to 32, Colossians 3:12 to 14
- Books
- Ephesians, Colossians
Summary
Ephesians and Colossians give one teaching in nearly the same words. A believer removes the anger and slander of the old life and becomes kind, tenderhearted and forgiving toward other believers. The reason in both letters is the forgiveness the believer has already received, since he is to forgive just as God in Christ forgave him.
- The word for kind, chrestos, describes a person who is useful and good to others, and Jesus used the same word of God, who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked (Luke 6:35).
- Tenderhearted translates eusplanchnos, which the New Testament uses only in Ephesians 4:32 and 1 Peter 3:8.
- Paul uses one verb, charizomai, for the believer's forgiving and for God's, and the same verb means to give freely as a favor.
Two Letters, One Command
Both passages follow Paul's words on the new self in Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10.
Each passage tells the members of a church how to be kind to each other. These verses belong to kindness, one of the values Scripture asks of every believer. They show what it looks like among believers who live and worship together, in what a believer stops doing, what he starts doing and the reason he is given for both.
Every reader lives among people who wrong him, and these verses tell him what to do with the wrong. The question this study answers is what each word of the two commands asks and why Paul ties them to God's forgiveness. It answers with a table of the two letters line by line, a reading of the Greek words, the garments of Colossians, the teachers who have preached the verses and the practice the letters name.
and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.Paul names the new self as created to be like God, and the commands of verses 25 to 32, kindness among them, describe how that self lives.
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.Colossians speaks of the new self as already put on and still being renewed, which is the ground of the garments of verses 12 to 14.
Ephesians and Colossians Side by Side
Colossians 3:8 and 3:12 to 14 repeat most of the words of Ephesians 4:2 to 3 and 4:31 to 32 in another order.
Eleven of the twelve lines use the same Greek word or root in both letters.
| Part | The line | Ephesians 4 | Colossians 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Put away | Rage and anger | rage and anger (thumos, orge), 4:31 | anger, rage (orge, thumos), 3:8 |
| Put away | Malice | every form of malice (kakia), 4:31 | malice (kakia), 3:8 |
| Put away | Slander | slander (blasphemia), 4:31 | slander (blasphemia), 3:8 |
| Put away | The other words of the list | bitterness and outcry (pikria, krauge), 4:31 | filthy language from your lips (aischrologia), 3:8 |
| Put on | Kindness | Be kind (chrestoi), 4:32 | kindness (chrestoteta), 3:12 |
| Put on | A tender heart | tenderhearted (eusplanchnoi), 4:32 | hearts of compassion (splanchna oiktirmou), 3:12 |
| Put on | Humility, gentleness and patience | with all humility and gentleness, with patience (tapeinophrosunes, prautetos, makrothumias), 4:2 | humility, gentleness, and patience (tapeinophrosunen, prauteta, makrothumian), 3:12 |
| Put on | Bearing with others | bearing with one another (anechomenoi allelon), 4:2 | Bear with one another (anechomenoi allelon), 3:13 |
| The measure | Forgiving | forgiving each other (charizomenoi heautois), 4:32 | forgive any complaint you may have against someone else (charizomenoi heautois), 3:13 |
| The measure | The pattern | just as in Christ God forgave you (kathos, echarisato), 4:32 | as the Lord forgave you (kathos, echarisato), 3:13 |
| Over all | Love | bearing with one another in love (agape), 4:2 | over all these virtues put on love (agapen), 3:14 |
| Over all | The bond | the bond of peace (sundesmos), 4:3 | the bond of perfect unity (sundesmos), 3:14 |
Put on, Put on, The measure, The measure, Over all, Over all
In the row that differs, Ephesians names bitterness and outcry and Colossians names filthy language from the lips. The virtues that Colossians lists in one verse are spread in Ephesians between the opening plea of chapter 4 and its last verse.
From Bitterness to Kindness
Two verses carry the reader from the speech of anger to the conduct that takes its place.
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, outcry and slander, along with every form of malice.The verse clears away the tempers and the speech that would make kindness impossible.
The verb over the six nouns of the table, artheto, is an aorist passive command, which the tagged text glosses should be removed.
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, answered the man who excuses his harsh words as his way of speaking: "Then unlearn that way". He read the six words as "a beautiful retrogradation, beginning with the highest, and descending to the lowest, degree of the want of love."
Verse 32 opens with ginesthe, a present command to be or to become, and gives three marks of the new conduct. The first, chrestoi, is the plural of chrestos, which the STEP Bible lexicon based on Abbott-Smith glosses as useful in manner or morals. The Berean text renders the same adjective easy in Matthew 11:30, "For My yoke is easy", and good in 1 Peter 2:3, "tasted that the Lord is good".
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.Here the same adjective describes the Most High, and Jesus makes His goodness to the wicked the pattern for disciples who lend and expect nothing back.
The second mark, eusplanchnoi, joins eu, well, to splanchna, the inward organs. The lexicon notes that Hippocrates used the word as a medical term and that the New Testament uses it for a heart that is compassionate.
Finally, all of you, be like-minded and sympathetic, love as brothers, be tenderhearted and humble.Peter asks the same tender heart of all his readers, so the word Paul gives the Ephesians is asked of the whole church.
Jerome, in his Commentary on Ephesians, drew the two verses together: "Paul wants us to be gentle, approachable people, people who have left anger, bitterness, wrath and slander behind."
The Garments of Colossians 3:12 to 14
Paul tells the church at Colossae to clothe itself in five virtues and to put on love over them all.
Paul wrote both letters as a prisoner, and both name Tychicus as the man who would bring the church news of him (Ephesians 3:1 and 6:21; Colossians 4:7 and 4:18). The church at Colossae had learned the gospel from Epaphras, and Paul wrote of his struggle for it and for all who had not met him face to face (Colossians 1:7 and 2:1).
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.Paul names who the readers are before he names what they wear, so the five virtues follow from God's choice and love.
The command clothe yourselves is endusasthe, an aorist middle form of enduo, the verb for putting on a garment. It is the verb of Colossians 3:10 and Ephesians 4:24 for putting on the new self. The readers are called beloved with egapemenoi, a perfect passive participle, which speaks of a love already given and still in force.
John Wesley wrote on this verse that "Holiness is the consequence of their election, and God's superior love, of their holiness."
The first garment, hearts of compassion, is splanchna oiktirmou, from the root of tenderhearted in Ephesians. Kindness follows as chrestoteta, the noun of the adjective Ephesians uses.
Bear with one another and forgive any complaint you may have against someone else. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.The verse joins patience with people who give offence to the release of the offence, and it gives the Lord's forgiving as the pattern.
Bear with is anechomenoi, which the lexicon glosses as to hold oneself up against, and so to put up with. The word for complaint, momphe, stands in the New Testament only in this verse, and the lexicon glosses it as blame or a fault.
And over all these virtues put on love, which is the bond of perfect unity.Love is the last garment and the one put on over the rest, and Paul gives it the work of binding the others together.
The word for bond, sundesmos, means a joint tie or ligament. It stands in four verses of the New Testament, and five verses earlier in the same letter the Berean text renders it ligaments, the ties that knit the body together under its head (Colossians 2:19). Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, called love "the cement and centre of all happy society."
Forgiving as God in Christ Forgave
Both letters measure a believer's forgiving by the forgiving he has received from the Lord.
The lexicon gives charizomai three senses: to show favour or kindness, to give freely, and to forgive freely. Its list for the third sense includes Luke 7:42 to 43, where a lender cancels two debts, and Ephesians 4:32 with Colossians 2:13 and 3:13.
When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses,One chapter before the command, Paul uses the same verb for what God has already done for the readers, so they forgive out of a debt that was cancelled.
In both commands the believer's forgiving is the participle charizomenoi, in the present, and God's forgiving is echarisato, in the aorist. The conjunction kathos, just as, joins the present act to the past one and makes the past one its measure.
Jesus told the same truth as a story, in the parable of the servant who was forgiven a great debt and would not forgive a small one.
Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?’The master sets the mercy the servant had received as the measure of the mercy he owed his fellow servant, the order of Ephesians 4:32.
What forgiveness releases, how often it is given and how it differs from trust restored are taught on Forgiveness and on Seventy Times Seven.
How Teachers Have Taught the Commands
John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas and Adam Clarke each commented on Ephesians 4:32, the first two on the good that replaces the evil of verse 31 and the third on a believer's manners.
died 407 · John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom preached on verses 31 and 32 in his sixteenth homily on Ephesians. He told his hearers that "it is not enough to abandon wickedness, but there must be abundant practice of that which is good also".
died 1274 · Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on Ephesians, read verse 32 as what belongs to the new man and answered each passion of verse 31 with its opposite. He began with the first: "Opposed to bitterness is kindness".
1762 to 1832 · Adam Clarke
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, read be kind as a rule for a believer's manners as well as his heart. He wrote, "A Christian cannot be a savage, and he need not be a boor. Never put any person to needless pain." On tenderhearted he gave the sense of the Greek, "having the bowels easily moved (as the word implies) to commiserate the state of the wretched and distressed."
Kindness in Speech and Manner
Ephesians, Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus, and 1 Peter name the daily forms of the command.
Paul and Peter turn the command into speech, temper and conduct toward every person.
| The practice | The words of the verse | Asked of |
|---|---|---|
| Speech that builds up | only what is helpful for building up the one in need and bringing grace to those who listen | The church at Ephesus (Ephesians 4:29) |
| Kindness to everyone | must be kind to everyone, able to teach, and forbearing | Timothy and every servant of the Lord (2 Timothy 2:24) |
| Consideration for all | to be peaceable and gentle, showing full consideration to everyone | The churches of Crete, through Titus (Titus 3:2) |
| Blessing for insult | Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing | All the readers of 1 Peter (1 Peter 3:9) |
Paul also writes that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness" (Galatians 5:22), so he counts kindness as the work of the Spirit in a believer. The words love is kind in 1 Corinthians 13:4 are taught on The Love Chapter, and the carrying of a brother's load on Bearing One Another's Burdens.
Be imitators of God, therefore, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.The verses right after the command name its source, since believers imitate the God who forgave them and walk in the love Christ showed in giving Himself.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The tagged Greek text of the New Testament, with Strong's numbers, morphology and glosses.
- STEP Bible TBESG lexicon of New Testament Greek, based on Abbott-Smith (1922), entries g430, g1746, g2155, g3437, g4698, g4886, g5483, g5543 and g5544 (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Ephesians 4:31 and Colossians 3:12.
- Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians, on Ephesians 4:32 and 5:1.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Colossians 3:14.
- John Chrysostom, Homily 16 on Ephesians, translated by Gross Alexander, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 13 (1889)
- Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Ephesians, on Ephesians 4:32.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Ephesians 4:32.
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