Free Bible Commentary
“Colossians 4:5-6”
Categories: Colossians“Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”
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Paul had given instructions for the proper treatment of brethren in Christ (3:17), family members (3:18-21), and “work” relationships (3:22-25). In today’s verses he encourages us to be wise in our “conduct” (verse 5) and our “speech” (verse 6) when we deal with “outsiders”. An outsider is a person who lives outside of the eternal security of a relationship with Yahweh through the Lord Jesus Christ.
We must remember that we were at one “time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). But, through the grace of God and the efforts of some loving “insiders,” those of us who are Christians were taught and obeyed the Gospel, and are now dwelling inside the fold of safety.
When talking to people who are not Christians, our speech should “always be with grace.” We should always try to speak graciously and humbly to lost people understanding that we have found something that they desperately need, and that we are to be Christ’s representatives on earth as possessors and exhibitors of God’s saving grace. Our words should be carefully selected and “seasoned” so that they can be palatable to the listeners. Just trying to ram God’s word down people’s throats never works and is actually counterproductive.
James, the Lord’s brother, tells us that “we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well” (James 3:2). When speaking to people, the wisdom from above dictates that we be “peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).
Please read Colossians 4:7-9 for tomorrow.
Have a blessed day!
- Louie Taylor
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