Colossians 3:8 Meaning But Now You Also Put Them All

Pahāna: Abandoning Abandoning is the deliberate setting down of a defilement. Putting them all away is the motion of peeling off a heavy coat worn all winter, one sleeve at a time, once the weather has changed. Anger is not reasoned with here, it is taken off, and hands that have let go of one thing are free for the new garment being held out.

Dosa: Aversion Aversion is one of the three roots from which unwholesome states grow. Anger, wrath, and malice sit on the list as three separate items, though a single stump underground sends up all three shoots. Snapping off shoots keeps a person busy for a lifetime; the whole list comes away when the stump is dug out.

Byāpāda: Ill will Ill will is the wish that another person come to harm. Malice is quieter than anger, which flares and burns itself out, while ill will keeps a low fire going and waits for someone else's bad news. It travels easily through a whole afternoon of courteous conversation, so it has to be looked for rather than noticed.

Pisuṇā vācā: Divisive speech Divisive speech is talk that pulls people apart. Slander does its work while the one slandered stands somewhere else, so the speaker never watches the face that receives it. In a household that shares a table, a single sentence can seat two friends at opposite ends of the room for years.

Pharusā vācā: Harsh speech Harsh speech is language that wounds by its roughness. Shameful speaking includes the words that feel satisfying to say and are aimed to sting, and the mouth gets named because the harm lands the instant the sound leaves it. A word goes out the way a stone leaves the hand: quick to throw, impossible to call back.

Anusaya: Underlying tendency Underlying tendency is the leaning that lies dormant between outbursts. Stripping off the five named items cleans what shows, while the pull toward aversion waits underneath in the mildest person until an insult wakes it. The half second after a driver cuts you off reveals more than a week of carefully managed speech.

Anger, wrath, malice, the sharp word thrown from the mouth, these are not the man himself. They are a worn coat he has worn so long he mistook it for his skin. A self-image built on injury keeps reaching for these reactions, because a person guards fiercely whatever he believes is small and under attack. When the picture underneath shifts, the old habits loosen like a garment slipping off the shoulders.

Each of these things was put on once, learned in some season of hurt, and what was put on can be taken off. A man who sees himself as large enough and safe enough stops needing the armor of rage. His speech clears. The heat drains out of him, because the frightened self that once required the heat is no longer there.

Anger and spite settle like soot on a heart, and a fouled heart hands back a smudged picture of everyone it meets. The mouth only pours out what is already stored inside, so cleaning the speech must begin further in. One practice does the quiet work: before answering in heat, wait, name the feeling honestly, and let it cool before a word leaves.

Even the face of the one who provoked the insult is not empty of God. He is present there too, waiting to be reflected clearly instead of through the grime.