Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Colossians 3.16
Teaching one another. This might be a great challenge for many of us because we think only one person or maybe a few should be teaching in the church. This reality of shared teaching can run afoul in a few ways.
The teacher (humanly speaking) is always right. If any one person claims all Truth, they are either a liar or setting themselves up in the place of the Spirit. The Spirit will lead us to Truth. The human vessels used to share the depths and riches of God in Christ are frail and capable of mistakes. We should be able to receive correction and move forward. Then again, it’s about being loving and being made true.
Another difficulty is only one person in the church should (or can) teach. This undercuts the acquired wisdom from the sisters and brothers in the church. Likewise, it isn’t only in the power of the brothers to teach. The sisters should share their wisdom and brothers should humbly receive it. If we truly teach one another, we’ll all be involved in the process and conversation. Of course, those introverts might need to be drawn out. It’s not about one teacher but a learning community seeking Christ and His way.
A last issue to touch on is that of being unteachable. If you think you have come to the end of your knowledge of God, you think you have all that is neccessary, not only are you unteachable, but you have succumbed to spiritual pride and blindness. We will have eternity to search the depths of Christ so don’t claim to know it all. Be humble and charitable with the knowledge you have received from Christ. Some may have more wisdom and knowledge than others. When it comes down to it, it’s about life that incorporates that wisdom.
Ultimately, if the teaching does not lead one to Christ and the fellowship in the Trinity, it is majoring on minors. We so easily lose sight of God by focusing on the teaching and not the Teacher. Remember we are all on a journey and teaching one another along the way to love and be loved will resonate through Eternity.
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3.13
I’m not sure what it is. When I think of ‘bearing with each other’ I think in terms of ‘tolerating’ or ‘putting up with’ someone else. Sometimes it is the person who most irritates us that we need. They expose those areas in our life that we think have been changed or transformed. Not always but sometimes. Sometimes the other person needs change as much as we do. Luckily, we can embrace the grace of God in this process and walk it out together.
The ‘one anothers’ of the New Testament provide a way for us to engage in this spiritual journey together. Not only do we get to ‘walk it out’ together we can also ‘walk into it’ together. Figuring out our spiritual path is not one of isolation, although times of solitude play a part in spiritual formation. We need each other in all this. We can work it out together. We can bear others burdens. We can forgive. We can be forgiven. We can be reconciled. We can walk out love and forgiveness by the grace of God. We can walk into the grace of God and share divine love and forgiveness with others. May grace and love abound to us all….
