PAUL, AS WE’VE seen, has written to the Colossians about both vice and virtue, about the old nature and the new, about the things to which they have died and the way they should live instead. Much of the emphasis seems to be on the way they live in community as brothers and sisters in Christ. The anger they have toward each other, the desire to hurt someone back or talk badly about them, the lying, the social prejudice — all of these things are to be considered part of their old, earthly nature and stripped off like dirty clothing.

And in their place, they are to don what Eugene Peterson has called a “new wardrobe” of virtue. Here are verses 12 and 13 of Colossians 3 again, this time with the addition of verse 14, which rounds off Paul’s thought:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col 3:12-14, NIV)

As Paul has said repeatedly, the Colossians are “in Christ,” and in listing these virtues he is telling them to put on the character of Christ. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience: together, these might sound like a lofty ideal. And in a sense, it is, for Paul is directing them to aim higher than mere religion, to seek after heavenly things.

But reading between the lines, he knows who they are and what they struggle with as a community, even if he’s never met them personally. The advice to “put up with each other” in the midst of their anger and resentment is grounded and realistic, even as it pushes toward grasping and embodying the very forgiveness of Jesus. And all of this stretches toward the highest ideal of all: love.

Like other translations, the New International Version has to insert words for Paul’s Greek to make fluid sense in English. Where the NIV has “over all these virtues put on love,” the Greek reads more simply as “over all these love”; neither the word “virtues” nor the verb “put on” are there. But translators generally read the verse in a similar way: Paul is referring back to the qualities he’s already mentioned, and carrying through with his metaphor of putting on the character of Christ as one might put on clothing. Indeed, Paul uses the same verb to describe putting on the armor of God in Ephesians 6. Here in this passage, love, one might say, is the overcoat.

That second phrase, however, is a bit tricky. Love, Paul says, “binds” all these virtues together “in perfect unity.” Again, that’s the NIV. But more literally, what Paul says is that love is “the bond of perfection.” The NIV assumes that Paul means that love binds the list of virtues together, but he doesn’t actually say that. That’s why some other translations leave it ambiguous. The Common English Bible, for example, says simply that love is “the perfect bond of unity.” So what is Paul trying to say?

The word “bond” can be used in either a positive or negative sense; in Acts 8:23, it’s used to describe being in bondage to sin. But Paul, of course, means it in a positive sense. In fact, he’s already used the word once in the letter. In chapter 2, Paul describes people of false humility who think they’re super-spiritual but really aren’t:

They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. (Col 2:19)

“Ligaments”: that’s the same word translated as “bond” in chapter 3. Without ligaments, the human body would fall apart. It’s possible, then, that in chapter 3 Paul is saying that love is what holds the body of Christ together.

The immediate context of the verse, however, suggests that the NIV probably has it right — though it wouldn’t be wrong to say that love holds the community together! Just as it was common in Paul’s day for moral philosophers to make lists of vices and virtues, so too was it common to put forward one virtue as the supreme principle that unites the rest.

The difference is this: secular philosophers didn’t make love the supreme or uniting virtue. But how could Paul do otherwise? Jesus made it quite clear that the essence of the entire Law boiled down to two commandments: love God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:36-40; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27). With a little thought, it’s easy to see how love is expressed through each of the virtues Paul names: a loving disposition toward people in general, toward people in need, even toward people who have hurt or offended us.

But what does Paul mean by the “bond of perfection“? Those of us who are recovering perfectionists get a little nervous when we see that word, and indeed, I have to wonder if there were religious perfectionists in Colossae. Is Paul saying that to qualify as Christians, we have to love perfectly? Never be angry? Always be humble? Always forgive?

Not really. Again, “perfection” in a context like this doesn’t mean flawlessness; it means maturity, completeness. Setting our hearts and minds on things above includes having a big-picture, long-term perspective. True, we are not who we should be. But in Christ, neither are we yet who we will be.

Thus, we continually set our sights on the love and mercy of God, particularly as embodied in Jesus and seek to be more like him. We remember that love is the be-all and end-all of every other godly virtue, animating them, holding them together. We remember that the Spirit of Jesus lives in us. And we trust that the Spirit will keep us growing spiritually, both individually and in community, as we seek the things above.