Charles Ellicott Commentary Colossians 3:16

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms [and] hymns [and] spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God." — Colossians 3:16 (ASV)

The word of Christ.—Here again the definite phrase, “the word of Christ,” takes the place of the more common phrase, “the word of the Lord,” or “the word of God.” It is to dwell in their hearts. Therefore, it is the engrafted word (James 1:21)—the truth of Christ conceived in the heart, striking root into it, and making it its dwelling-place. It will be observed how all such phrases prepare for the full conception of Him as Himself “the Word of God.”

In all wisdom.—The symmetry of the original, in all wisdom teaching . . . in grace singing, suggests the connection of the words with those following, not, as in our version, with those going before. The indwelling Word of God is described as manifesting itself, first, in the wisdom of mutual teaching, and next, in the grace of hearty thanksgiving.

Teaching and admonishing . . .—Here again we have at once general identity and special distinction between this and the parallel passage in Ephesians 5:19-20. There, as here, we have speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing in the hearts to the Lord, and the spirit of “thankfulness.” But there the whole is described as a consequence of being filled with the Spirit, and as an outburst of that spiritual enthusiasm, of which the spurious excitement of drunkenness is the morbid caricature.

Here the thought starts from “the word of Christ in the soul,” realized through the gift of the Spirit by all our faculties; and it divides itself accordingly into the function of teaching, which bears on the mind; singing in grace of thankfulness, which comes from and goes to the heart; and doing all in the name of Christ, which belongs to the outer sphere of action.

Psalms and hymns.—The ascription to those of an office of teaching and admonition describes what is their real, though indirect, effect. In the Church, as in the world, he who “makes a people’s songs” really guides their minds as well as their hearts. For good and for evil the hymns of the Christian Church have largely influenced her theology.