By Lauren Bassford
Synopsis: Expository study is important for women, too. This is illustrated by the lessons women will find in a whole-book study of Colossians.
Women in the Lord’s church rarely write about textual study. We don’t write workbooks or articles or much of anything that focuses strictly on the text and the analysis of it. We much prefer topical studies. How many Bible studies have women had on modesty, submission, being a good wife and mom, prayer, study, or many other great topics? How many Bible studies have women had on analyzing the text of a particular Bible book? Even when we study a text, usually Proverbs 31, it tends to be more topical than textual!
This topical-rather-than-textual approach leads to a lamentable belief among women in the church that we’re just not as capable as men of expository study. I’ve been in many ladies’ studies where a question comes up—sometimes difficult, sometimes not!—and after a moment of quiet reflection, some sweet sister says, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to ask Brother So-and-So!” Lack of practice at textual Bible study has led to a belief that we lack the capacity for textual study, and sisters, that’s just not so!
God has created His daughters with brains capable of understanding and engaging with the text. Romans 8:17 says that all of God’s children are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. We don’t get a pass on reading, studying, and understanding the text for ourselves! If we are heirs, it’s up to us to understand as well as anyone else. As daughters of God, we can and must learn how to engage with the word, and not rely on cherry-picked topical studies.
On the rare occasion that women in the church engage in a textual study, they typically end up using a book written by a man. This is a good option, but it leaves something out of the study. Women are created by God to be different. Not only do we look different, but we also think differently. We approach the Bible differently. We take different applications from Bible texts. We study differently.
Women studying the text together will find vastly different arguments and applications than a group of men might. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve left my husband befuddled by relating the way a group of women went about analyzing a text! It makes no sense to him, but it makes perfect sense to us, which is exactly why it’s important for women to study the text together.
Going through a text in its entirety changes the application of that text as well. Colossians is a prime example of this. The back half of the book of Colossians is full of practical applications! As women, though, those applications often morph into an intimidating, stressful to-do checklist. I must put sin to death, and put on compassion, and be at peace, and sing right, and submit, and be devoted to prayer, and. . . it turns our walk with God into a breathless sprint of inadequacy. If we start with the doctrine at the beginning of the book, though, that changes how we apply the back half of the book!
In Colossians chapters 1 and 2, Paul lays out the preeminence of Jesus, the first-place-ness of Jesus. He does this by comparing Jesus to other people or groups that we might think would take first place. According to Colossians 1:15, Jesus is better than the idols of false religions. Our Lord is better than our earthly rulers (1:16). He is even better than the wonderful men who serve as elders and leaders in the Lord’s church (1:18)! In fact, in Colossians 1:21-23, compared to the wretched people that we all are without Him, Jesus is incomparable.
That all establishes how great Jesus is, and how not-great we are. In chapter 2, Paul explains why that’s significant. We have been brought to fullness in Jesus. Jesus is where we find our salvation. He has changed everything about our life! The verbs in Colossians 2:10-14 are interesting, because they’re all past tense. This has already been done! God has done this amazing work through Jesus to redeem and purchase us as His people.
That completely changes the way we read the applications through the rest of the book. Suddenly, these instructions are no longer a panic-inducing list of things we must complete in order to be worthy and good enough for God. We don’t have to do all these things to pull our weight. Instead, the understanding of Jesus and the great work He has done turns the directions later in the book into a reaction of gratitude.
Even Paul’s language points us to this idea of obedience as a reaction. In Colossians 2:16, he begins his sentence with “Therefore.” That connects the action he prescribes in the rest of the context with the justifications he set up in the first part of the book. The rest of the book is a therefore, a because-of-this. He begins the section by talking about their concern with the opinions of others around them. Jesus, being the top of the heap, changes the way we think of the reactions of others to our religious expression. It doesn’t matter whether someone else approves of the way I “do church.” As long as I’m doing what God wants, the way He wants it, that’s the most important thing, because Jesus is the most important.
Most of chapter 3 is an exhortation to let Jesus change your perspective. If you’re with Jesus, you’re fundamentally changed, and that should change everything about you and your life. You shouldn’t be the old woman you were before Jesus. You should, according to Colossians 3:12-14, put on the things that make you look like Jesus. Instead of stressing and worrying and being frantic like the world around us, Jesus changing our lives means we can look to Him for peace, in Colossians 3:15.
No more does my speech focus on the world and its enticements. Instead, in Colossians 3:16, everything I talk about, sing about, teach about is Jesus! We appropriately use this familiar verse to teach against instrumental accompaniment to our song worship. In context, though—especially in the context of the whole book—that’s not what it means at all!! Instead, it describes our song worship as being Jesus-focused entirely.
Even beyond what we say and sing, everything we do should be about Jesus, too, according to Colossians 3:17, and we should be so thankful! This is a change of life that isn’t just about where we go to church on Sundays, or whether we do this or that worldly activity. Instead, accepting the life that Jesus offers alters the entirety of our lives, down to our attitude about the changes that have come about.
This relationship with Jesus also changes every other relationship we have. Colossians 3:18-4:1 covers many relationships, but in all of them, the message is the same: submit to the people around you. Wives, submit to husbands. Husbands, love your wives, but loving someone is another way of saying submit to what they need rather than what you want. Children, submit to your parents. Parents, submit to your children by teaching them what they need to know and doing what’s best for them. Slaves, submit to your masters in everything. Masters, submit to your slaves by treating them as people made in God’s image, and remember that you have a master, too! Every relationship we have should be characterized by submission, because we recognize that, with everything Jesus has done, our identity and security is in Him, not in proving ourselves superior in our earthly relationships.
Even in the way we interact with outsiders, we are to recognize Jesus as our Lord and let Him change the way we interact. No longer is it fine to grumble and complain with the other soccer moms at practice. Instead, I have to be wise in my interactions with those outside of Christ, because I am how they see Him! In Colossians 4:6, my speech must always be graceful. I can never let down my guard and stop speaking as someone who belongs to Jesus, because I never know who’s listening and what those outsiders may need to hear. My life has been redeemed by Jesus, and so I speak and act like I am His, all the time!
The doctrine of Colossians is pretty straightforward. I won’t vouch for other books, but in Colossians, the message is simple: Jesus is the very best, and His work for you changes absolutely everything about your life. Reading Colossians as a textual study, rather than looking to the back half of the book for topical applications, gives deeper meaning and motivation in following Paul’s instructions when we get to them in the course of the text.
