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Colossians 3:8-11
Paul continues with a second list to discard, explaining the change through old and new identity and its unified community outcome.
Meaning in context
Paul continues with a second list to discard, explaining the change through old and new identity and its unified community outcome.
Section 3 of 7
Take Off the Old Self
Paul continues with a second list to discard, explaining the change through old and new identity and its unified community outcome.
Movement
Christ supreme over all
Artifact
Christ over all creation
Biblical Timeline
Apostolic Age
Colossians context: AD 33 - AD 100
Biblical Timeline
Apostolic Age
Colossians context
Apostolic Age / AD 33 - AD 100
Colossians context is set in the apostolic age, where The early church and the writing of the New Testament.
Scripture Text
Thesis
Paul continues with a second list to discard, explaining the change through old and new identity and its unified community outcome.
Verse by Verse
Put away harmful attitudes and speech Paul contrasts “but now” with their earlier life and calls for a decisive change. The items named move from inner heat (anger, wrath) to settled hostility (malice) and then to outward verbal damage (slander and shameful/foul talk). The focus is community-destructive behavior, especially what comes “out of your mouth.”
Stop lying, because the old self has been taken off He gives a direct command not to lie to one another, aimed at relationships inside the group. The reason is that they have already “put off” the old person along with the practices that belong to that old pattern of life. Their speech should match what they claim has happened to their identity.
Put on the new self, being renewed toward the Creator’s image Paul continues the clothing picture: they have “put on” the new person. This new self is not static; it is being renewed, and that renewal is described as “in knowledge,” moving toward the pattern or likeness (“image”) of the Creator (). The new life is portrayed as an ongoing reshaping of understanding and identity to match the Maker’s design.
Literary Context
This unit sits in the letter’s practical section, where Paul draws behavioral implications from the community’s new identity in Christ. Just before this, he urges them to put to death practices tied to their former life and warns about consequences that follow such behaviors (Colossians 3:5–7). Here he shifts from “kill off” to “put away,” focusing on relational harm, especially speech. Immediately after, he turns to positive virtues and a community life shaped by love and peace (Colossians 3:12–15), so 3:8–11 functions as the bridge from old habits to renewed communal patterns.
Historical Context
Colossae was a smaller city in the Lycus Valley of Roman Asia (western Asia Minor), connected to nearby urban centers and trade routes. The audience likely included both Jewish and non-Jewish members, and Paul assumes social stratification, including slavery, as a normal feature of the world he addresses. His list of identity markers (ethnicity, ritual status, cultural labels, legal status) reflects everyday ways people sorted themselves and others. Written around the early 60s AD, the letter speaks into a mixed congregation learning to live as one group under Roman rule while navigating cultural and religious diversity.
Theological Significance
Questions
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The renewed setting relativizes old identity categories Paul describes the sphere “where” this renewal is true: in that new-human setting, the usual dividing lines do not determine status—Greek/Jew, circumcised/uncircumcised, “barbarian/Scythian,” slave/free. The climax is that Christ is “all” and “in all,” meaning Christ is presented as the defining reality shared across these categories.
Colossians 3:8–11 presents a “before/after” contrast. The passage explicitly names practices that damage community life—anger, hostile intent, and especially speech that harms (slander, shameful talk, lying). The text grounds this shift in an identity change described with a clothing picture: the old self has been “taken off,” and the new self has been “put on.”
The new self is not described as finished; it is “being renewed.” This renewal is said to happen “in knowledge” and to move “after the image” (image) of the Creator. In that renewed setting, standard social labels do not determine standing: ethnic markers, ritual status, cultural labels, and legal status (including slave/free) are all listed as not defining the new community’s core identity.
1) “Put off / put on”: past event, ongoing practice, or both?
Some read the language mainly as something that has already happened to believers (a decisive identity change), and the commands flow from that settled reality. Others read it as also describing an ongoing process in which believers repeatedly “take off” old patterns and “put on” new ones in daily life. Many combine both: a real past change that must be continuously expressed.
2) “Being renewed in knowledge”: what kind of knowledge?
Some take “knowledge” primarily as moral and spiritual understanding that reshapes behavior. Others emphasize a relational or identity-forming knowledge—coming to see oneself and others through the Creator’s design, which then reorders community life.
3) “Christ is all, and in all”: how wide is the scope?
Some hear this as a statement focused on the church’s shared life—Christ as the defining reality for everyone “in” the community. Others hear a broader claim about Christ’s comprehensive significance and presence that extends beyond the church, while still having clear force inside the church.
The passage mixes completed language (“you have put off… have put on”) with ongoing language (“being renewed”), so readers weigh those verbs differently. Also, the closing line is compact and sweeping, leaving room for different judgments about how far Paul’s claim extends beyond the immediate community.
The text explicitly ties ethical speech and relational integrity (especially truth-telling) to a claimed change of identity: the “old self” and its practices no longer fit. It also clearly connects the “new self” to an ongoing renewal that aims toward the Creator’s pattern. Finally, it plainly states that, within the renewed setting, common identity divisions lose their power to define rank or belonging, because Christ—not those categories—anchors the shared identity (Colossians 3:8–11).
foul language (aischrologian)