Colossians 4:4

The word eucharistía means gratitude, and in its active sense grateful words spoken to God as an act of worship. Paul gives thanks the same place in Philippians: “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6–7).

Thanks turns a list of requests into worship. When we thank God for who he is, for his faithfulness in the past and for what he gives us today, our attention moves from what we lack to what he has already given, and trust, contentment and joy grow even in trials. Thankfulness also guards us against coming to God with demands, as though he owed us what we ask.

Jesus lived this verse. “He withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed” (Luke 5:16), and at the tomb of Lazarus he thanked the Father for hearing him (John 11:41). He is also the reason our prayers reach God at all. Through his finished work on the cross we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). He “ever liveth to make intercession” for his people (Hebrews 7:25), and the Spirit he sent “helpeth our infirmities” when we pray (Romans 8:26). So our praying, watching and thanking rest on Christ’s work and are offered through him, and at the head of all our thanks stands God’s “unspeakable gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

A door of utterance is an opportunity to speak the gospel, opened by God, together with the ability to speak it well. Paul asks “that God would open unto us a door of utterance”. Theós is God, anoígō is to open, and thýra is the ordinary word for a door, the same word Acts uses for real prison doors. Here Paul uses it as a picture of opportunity. Lógos, “utterance”, is something said, the word or message, and here it is the message of the gospel. So he asks God for the chance to speak, for the power to speak freely and clearly, and for hearers whose hearts are ready to receive the word.

Paul speaks of doors in the same way elsewhere. “A great door and effectual is opened unto me,” he writes (1 Corinthians 16:9), and at the end of his first journey he reported how God “had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). The door is God’s to open, and every opening for witness is his gift. Paul makes the same request in Ephesians, asking prayer “that utterance may be given unto me” (Ephesians 6:19). Jesus said of himself, “I am the door” (John 10:9), the one through whom anyone enters and is saved, so a prayer for an open door is finally a prayer that Christ himself be made known.

The mystery of Christ is God’s saving plan in Jesus, once hidden and now made known. Mystḗrion means a secret of that kind, kept hidden by God in earlier ages and revealed through Christ and his apostles, so that it can now be understood and preached. “The mystery of Christ” (Christós) takes in his person and his saving work, and above all the truth that Gentiles, once far off, are now through the gospel fellowheirs with Israel, of the same body and partakers of God’s promise in Christ (Ephesians 3:3–6).

Earlier in this letter Paul sums up the mystery as “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), and he says that in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Christ is also the Word, the Logos, who was God and became flesh, God’s own utterance to us (John 1:1, John 1:14).

“For which I am also in bonds” uses déō, to tie, bind or fasten. Paul is literally bound as a prisoner, and the reason is the very message he wants to preach, above all his mission to the Gentiles, which stirred up opposition from Jewish and Roman authorities alike. The man in chains asks for an open door, and his chains hold him while the word of God goes on. He told the Philippians that his imprisonment had turned out for the furtherance of the gospel (Philippians 1:12–14), and he counted suffering for Christ part of knowing him and “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10).

Jesus is the one who made God manifest: “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). He spoke always as the Father commanded him (John 12:49–50), and he taught “as one having authority” (Matthew 7:29). The message Paul longed to make plain is the righteousness of God revealed through faith in Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 3:21–26), which broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14) so that the Gentiles share the promise (Ephesians 3:6). Paul prays to speak with the same clarity and faithfulness Christ showed.

Redeeming the time means buying up each opportunity before it is lost. Exagorázō is a word from the marketplace, to buy up, and figuratively to rescue from loss, to make good use of an opportunity. Kairós is an occasion, a set or proper time. Greek usually names the steady passing of hours with another word, chronos, and here Paul speaks of occasions. So the phrase reaches beyond managing a schedule. It means noticing the occasions that come, a conversation, a chance to serve, a moment for a kind word, and using them well, especially with those who have yet to know Christ. In Ephesians Paul adds the reason: “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).

Jesus walked in this wisdom. As a boy he “increased in wisdom” (Luke 2:52), and he spent his ministry among tax collectors, sinners and Samaritans, for “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The verb of this verse is the one Paul uses for Christ’s own saving work when he writes, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). We walk this way because we have received Christ Jesus the Lord and walk in him (Colossians 2:6–7).

Speech seasoned with salt is wise and wholesome, and it gives the hearer something worth having. Artýō, “seasoned”, is to prepare food so that it tastes good, and hálas is salt. In the ancient world salt kept food from spoiling and gave it flavour, and it could stand for wisdom, purity or covenant. So salted speech has flavour and keeps from corruption. It is thoughtful, fitting and clear, sometimes with a gentle challenge in it. Paul writes elsewhere, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 4:29). Jesus told his disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13), and their words are part of that saltiness.

Grace and salt belong together. Grace is the manner and tone of what we say, and salt is its substance. Grace without salt grows bland and thin on truth, and salt without grace turns harsh. Together they are “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

Colossians 4:6 reaches every conversation we have. It follows the charge about outsiders and matters most there, but its last words are “every man”, and its call to gracious, wise speech fits our families, our fellow believers, our colleagues and the people we disagree with. It shapes how we settle quarrels, encourage one another, give opinions and talk about ordinary things.

The goal is “that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man”. Eídō is to know, and “how ye ought” is pōs deî, with the same deî Paul used of his own speaking in verse 4. Apokrínomai is to answer, and hékastos heîs means each one. Paul asked prayer that he would speak as he ought, and he wants every believer to know how to answer as they ought. Peter says, “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

Jesus is the pattern for this verse, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Of him it was said, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46). He silenced those who tried to trap him over tribute to Caesar (Matthew 22:15–22), he talked at length with Nicodemus (John 3:1–21), and he comforted his troubled disciples (John 14:1–3). Speech like his comes from a heart he has renewed, “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34), and the Holy Spirit who lives in us forms his way of speaking in us.