Col 3:16    Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

                       

Here we have a central instruction based on three activities. The central instruction is to let “the word of Christ” do something. Now I put it like that because this is so rich in meaning we need to look at each part. First of all this is about the word from Christ (the teaching he has delivered to us) and the word about Christ (what he has done for us), the truth imparted to us by the coming of the Son of God. It is this which forms the foundation of our lives as Christians. Now we are to let this word “dwell” in us “richly”. To 'dwell' means to live in, be established in and 'richly' simply means obviously, a lot. So here is this central instruction to let the truth, about Christ and about what he taught, live in us in large measure – let it be obvious in us, strong in us.

 

Now there are two groups of activities prefaced by ‘as you'. One of them is about imparting knowledge and the other is about expressing that knowledge in forms of worship. The imparting knowledge is about teaching and about exhorting, correcting etc. (admonishing). The worship one is about using different forms of song. The teaching comes with wisdom and the worship with gratitude. As we DO these things, they are to be filled with content, with content about Jesus – about who he is, what he has done and what he has taught us.

So again, as we have suggested before, there are ways we can do this: meditate on these things more and more. Take in God's word; read it, study it, meditate upon it and memorise it. Let it dwell in you richly! And as you did this, surround it by worship, let worship be the environment, if we may put it like that, in which we receive His word. i.e. with open, thankful, worshipping hearts towards God receive what He has to say to you.