Colossians 4:5

Colossians 4:5-6 . Walk in wisdom toward them that are without — Your heathen neighbours; doing nothing to disgrace religion in their eyes, or unnecessarily to exasperate them against you; redeeming the time — Embracing and improving every opportunity of doing good, and particularly of gaining souls to Christ. Let your speech be alway with grace — Such as may manifest that the grace of God is in you, and may be calculated to win upon, instruct, and edify others; seasoned with salt — With wisdom and grace, as flesh is with salt, so that it may be savoury and useful to the hearers, tending to prevent or cure their corrupt principles or practices; that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man — May be able to speak pertinently and wisely upon all occasions, and especially when questioned about the grounds of your religion.

{4} Walk {b} in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the {c} time. (4) In all parts of our life, we ought to have good consideration even of those who are outside of the Church. (b) Advisedly and cautiously. (c) Seek occasion to win them, even though you lose something of your own by it.

Colossians WITHOUT AND WITHIN Colossians 4:5 . That is, of course, an expression for the non-Christian world; the outsiders who are beyond the pale of the Church. There was a very broad line of distinction between it and the surrounding world in the early Christian days, and the handful of Christians in a heathen country felt a great gulf between them and the society in which they lived. That distinction varies in form, and varies somewhat in apparent magnitude according as Christianity has been rooted in a country for a longer or a shorter time, but it remains, and is as real to-day as it ever was, and there is neither wisdom nor kindness in ignoring the distinction. The phrase of our text may sound harsh, and might be used, as it was by the Jews, from whom it was borrowed, in a very narrow and bitter spirit. Close corporations of any sort are apt to generate, not only a wholesome esprit de corps , but a hostile contempt for outsiders, and Christianity has too often been misrepresented by its professors, who have looked down upon those that are without with supercilious and unchristian self-complacency. There is nothing of that sort in the words themselves; the very opposite is in them. They sound to me like the expression of a man conscious of the security and comfort and blessedness of the home where he sat, and with his heart yearning for all the houseless wanderers that were abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm out in the darkness there.

The spirit and attitude of Christianity to such is one of yearning pity and urgent entreaty to come in and share in the blessings. There is deep pathos in the words, as well as solemn earnestness, and in such a spirit I wish to dwell upon them now for a short time. I. I begin with the question: Who are they that are outside? And what is it of which they are outside? As I have already remarked, the phrase was apparently borrowed from Judaism, where it meant, ‘outside the Jewish congregation,’ and its primary application, as used here, is no doubt to those who are outside the Christian Church. But do not let us suppose that that explanation gets to the bottom of the meaning of the words. It may stand as a partial answer, but only as partial. The evil tendency which attends all externalising of truth in the concrete form of institutions works in full force on the Church, and ever tempts us to substitute outward connection with the institution for real possession of the truth of which the institution is the outgrowth.