Book of Colossians 3:15-17 Let the Peace of God Rule
[Study Aired November 10, 2026]
“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him” (Colossians 3:15–17).
Called in One Body
The last study ended with love as the bond, with the people held together whole. These three verses say what is to rule in the hearts of people held that way; what is to live in them, and what they act under. Peace is to rule in their hearts. The word of Christ is to dwell in them richly. The name of the Lord Jesus is the name under which they do everything. Thanks stands at the close of the first verse and again at the close of the last.
Verse 15 also says what the Colossians are. They are “called in one body.” They are not told to make a body, since they already are one. They are told what is to rule in their hearts, and the first answer is peace.
Let the Peace of God Rule in Your Hearts
Start with peace itself, because Scripture defines it. The Old Testament word is shâlôm (H7965) “peace”, and the New Testament word is eirēnē (G1515). Its plain sense is well-being, how a man fares. That is why the same Hebrew word is the question asked after a man’s health. Genesis 43:27 records it, “he asked them of their welfare (H7965), and said, Is your father well,” and Exodus 4:18 sends a man on his way with the same word, “Go in peace.” The New Testament word carries the same sense. In Mark 5:34 Christ tells a healed woman, “go in peace, and be whole of thy plague,” and in Luke 7:50 he sends another woman away the same way, “go in peace.” God is the one who gives peace, and it comes with safety. Leviticus 26:6 promises, “I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.” It goes with righteousness and trust. Isaiah 32:17 ties it to righteousness, “the work of righteousness shall be peace,” and Isaiah 26:3 ties it to trust, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” That is why it is withheld from the wicked. Isaiah 48:22 declares, “There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.” Jeremiah 6:14 warns of a peace that is only spoken, “Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” The word reaches past all this to peace between parties, as Ecclesiastes 3:8 shows, “a time of war, and a time of peace.”
The New Testament shows how that peace was secured. It came through a person, as Ephesians 2:14 puts it, “he is our peace.” Colossians 1:20 describes it as “having made peace through the blood of his cross,” and Ephesians 2:15–16 adds that Christ made “in himself of twain one new man, so making peace,” and reconciled “both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” Colossians 1:21 reminds its own readers of the same, “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.” Christ gives this peace, and he told his disciples it is not the world’s kind. At John 14:27 Christ states, “my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you,” and Philippians 4:7 adds that it “passeth all understanding.” So the peace of God in Scripture is the well-being God gives, made through the cross. The untroubled heart that goes with it is its effect, not its definition, and John 14:27 sets the two side by side, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” We read verse 15’s peace as this peace, though the verse does not itself say so.
The word the KJV prints “rule” means to decide and to direct. The Greek is brabeuō (G1018), and it stands once in the New Testament, here. There is no second use to set beside it, so the study takes the sense from the lexicon. Thayer gives three senses: to be an umpire, to decide or determine, and to direct, control, or rule, and he lists this verse under the third. Strong’s gives ‘to arbitrate and to govern.’ The Greek copies also differ on whose peace it is, reading “of God” or “of Christ.” Either way it is the peace the verse commands.
Part Ten pointed to this verse. It studied katabrabeuō (G2603), the word at Colossians 2:18 for deciding against a man, which the KJV renders “Let no man beguile you of your reward.” It said that Paul uses a plain form of the same root later in the letter. Thayer lists umpire as the first sense of this verb, so an umpire may well stand behind the word. Paul draws on the games elsewhere, too. He writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24, “they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize,” and Philippians 3:14 adds, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” In both, a noun of this same family names the prize, not the one who judges. In 2 Timothy 4:7–8 he looks back and ahead, “I have finished my course,” and “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.” There the crown is given by a judge, so Paul pictures the judge as well as the race. So the verb may carry the umpire’s picture, and Paul knew that picture well.
What, then, does the peace of God decide? Verse 15 states only that it rules “in your hearts.” Verse 13 spoke of forgiving “if any man have a quarrel against any,” and love was named as the bond of the people, so the nearest reading is that peace decides what a man does when his course touches others. Scripture shows what that looks like, a course settled by the peace they were called to. In 1 Corinthians 7:15, when an unbelieving partner leaves, Paul tells the believer “let him depart” and gives the reason, “God hath called us to peace.” In Romans 14:19, when brethren differ over foods and days, he urges “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.” In both, the course is chosen for the sake of peace, and in Romans 14 for the brother as well.
Because this peace is God’s gift, it keeps company with what God requires. Psalm 119:165 declares “Great peace have they which love thy law,” Hebrews 12:14 instructs the reader to “follow peace with all men, and holiness,” and James 3:17 describes the wisdom from above as “first pure, then peaceable.” So the verse does not make a man’s own feeling the judge, and Jeremiah 6:14 shows what a peace is worth that God has not given. Philippians 4:7 is the only other place the KJV writes “the peace of God,” and it also puts that peace at the heart, promising that it “shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Verse 15 then gives the reason for the command. They are “called in one body,” and the “which” they were called to is the peace, as Paul told the Corinthians. They were not left to make it. Ephesians 4:3–4 sets the two halves of this clause side by side. It names “the bond of peace,” and then continues, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” Part Fifteen met that bond of peace as a bond around the unity of the spirit. So the calling, the one body, and the peace belong together here. Paul also asks peace of them toward one another, and 1 Thessalonians 5:13 puts it plainly, “be at peace among yourselves.”
So verse 15 says three things. God’s peace is to decide in their hearts, they were called to that peace, and the calling is in one body.
And Be Ye Thankful
Then comes a short command: “and be ye thankful.” It asks for thanks, and it comes at once after peace and the calling. The word for thankful stands nowhere else in the New Testament. It is a relative of the verb eucharisteō (G2168), “give thanks,” and the study rests on how that family is used in this letter, not on the one word.
That family sounds six times in Colossians. The verb stands at Colossians 1:3, 1:12, and 3:17. The noun, “thanksgiving,” stands at Colossians 2:7 and 4:2, “abounding therein with thanksgiving” and “watch in the same with thanksgiving.” The word for thankful stands here. Where the letter names the one who is thanked, he is called the Father. Colossians 1:3 opens with “We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Colossians 1:12 continues with “Giving thanks unto the Father,” and Colossians 3:17 ends with “giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” The other three places do not name the one thanked.
The letter also shows what the thanks answers. At Colossians 1:3–4 it answers their faith and love, “Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints.” At Colossians 1:12 it answers the inheritance, because the Father “hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” Colossians 2:7 goes with what they were taught, “as ye have been taught.” In each, the thanks answers something already there. Verse 15 does not say what it thanks, but it sets the command right after the calling: they are called first, and the thanks follows.
Let the Word of Christ Dwell in You Richly
Verse 16 names the second thing, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” “Dwell” means to live in, and “richly” means in abundance. The Greek for dwell is enoikeō (G1774), and it stands five times in the New Testament, so each use can be set beside the others. Each quotation below uses that same verb. Romans 8:11 speaks of “his Spirit that dwelleth in you,” and 2 Timothy 1:14 of “the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” In 2 Corinthians 6:16 God promises, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them,” and 2 Timothy 1:5 recalls faith that dwelt, “the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois.” In every one, the thing named lives in those the text names, and none speaks of a visit. So the word of Christ is not to pass through them. It is to take up residence.
“Richly” is the word of abundance, and 1 Timothy 6:17 uses it of God, who “giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” So the word is to live in them in fullness.
Ephesians 5:18–19 runs in nearly the same order as these verses, and it opens with a different command. Colossians 3:16 gives the command, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” and Ephesians 5:18 gives another, “be filled with the Spirit.” So how do the spirit and the word of Christ stand to each other? Scripture answers, and the answer starts with whose word it is. In John, Christ’s word is the word God gave through Him. Christ declares in John 12:49, “the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak,” and John 14:24 adds, “the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.” Colossians 1:25–27 speaks of “the word of God; Even the mystery… which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The word Christ speaks and the word that makes known Christ in you are both God’s word. The spirit’s words are Christ’s. John 16:13–14 declares that the spirit “shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,” and that “he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” Christ gives the reason in John 16:15, “All things that the Father hath are mine.” So what the spirit speaks and what Christ speaks are the same word, and the Father is its source. Hebrews 2:3–4 shows the order, with salvation that “at the first began to be spoken by the Lord,” and God bearing witness with “gifts of the Holy Ghost.” The word begins with the Lord, and God bears witness to it with gifts of the spirit.
The spirit is also the one who puts the word in the heart and gives it power. According to John 14:26 he “shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you,” and 2 Corinthians 3:3 describes Christ’s epistle as “written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God… in fleshy tables of the heart.” Paul reminds the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1:5 that the gospel came “not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost.” The two also come together in those who receive them. Galatians 3:2 shows the spirit received by “the hearing of faith,” and Acts 5:32 adds that he is given “to them that obey him.” The word is what is said, and the spirit carries it and writes it in the heart.
Teaching and Admonishing One Another
The rest of verse 16 turns to what they do with the word. Two of the verbs are ones Paul used of himself. In Colossians 1:28 he describes his own work, “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom.” The word the KJV prints “warning” there is the one it prints “admonishing” in verse 16. It is noutheteō (G3560), and each quotation below uses that same verb. So the work Paul names as his own at Colossians 1:28 is now handed to them for each other, “teaching and admonishing one another.”
The verb stands eight times, and the uses divide. Paul does it. He recalls in Acts 20:31, “I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears,” and he tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 4:14, “as my beloved sons I warn you.” Leaders do it, as 1 Thessalonians 5:12 shows, “are over you in the Lord, and admonish you,” and the brethren do it. Romans 15:14 tells the Romans they are “able also to admonish one another,” 1 Thessalonians 5:14 asks the Thessalonian brethren to “warn them that are unruly,” and 2 Thessalonians 3:15 instructs, of an erring man, “admonish him as a brother.” So not every use is mutual. Romans 15:14 and Colossians 3:16 give the same teaching from different letters: members admonish one another.
One thing about the sentence needs saying before going on. The command “let dwell” is about the word, but “teaching,” “admonishing,” and “singing” speak of the people. So the verse does not say whether the word dwells by their teaching, or shows itself in it, or whether these are three more commands. Each reading is open. “In all wisdom” can go with the dwelling or with the teaching, and Colossians puts it both ways: at Colossians 1:9 it follows “filled with the knowledge of his will,” and at Colossians 1:28 it stands with the teaching. In the same way “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” can be the means of the teaching, as Ephesians 5:19 puts psalms with “Speaking to yourselves,” or can belong with the singing. What every reading holds is that these are things done by the people, toward one another and toward the Lord.
The three kinds of song are named together only here and at Ephesians 5:19. The noun hymn stands nowhere else. Psalm and song each stand elsewhere on their own, and 1 Corinthians 14:26 shows that at Corinth each member had a psalm when they met, “every one of you hath a psalm.” The text draws no line between the three. The Greek copies also differ on whether the song is to “the Lord” or to “God.” Either way it goes to God, because what is done to the Lord ends in the glory of God, as Philippians 2:11 shows, “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” and Matthew 10:40 adds, “he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.”
Singing to God is joyful noise. Psalm 66:1 invites, “Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands,” Psalm 95:2 joins it to psalms and thanksgiving, “Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms,” and James 5:13 puts it plainly, “Is any merry? let him sing psalms.” Psalm 100 shows what that looks like.
“A Psalm of praise. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing” (Psalm 100:1–2).
So verse 16 hands the whole body a work Paul named as his own at Colossians 1:28. The word lives in them, and they teach, warn, and sing to one another and to the Lord.
In the Name of the Lord Jesus
Verse 17 draws the widest line yet, “whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Nothing is outside it, and “whatsoever” and “all” both mark it. Paul gives the same reach to another standard in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
To do a thing in someone’s name is to do it as under him, on his word and through him. Two kinds of text show it. One is authority. In Acts 4:7 the rulers ask the apostles, “By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?” and they are asking what stood behind the deed. Peter answers with a name in Acts 4:10, “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, “we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” a command given on His word. The other is access. John 16:23 promises, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” So what the Colossians do in word or deed is done as under the Lord Jesus. This verse is about whose word they act under, and what they offer goes to the Father through him.
The verse ends where verse 15 ended, with thanks, “giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” This is the same verb as in Colossians 1:3 and 1:12. The words “by him” mean through him, and the KJV prints the same Greek word as “through” in Romans 1:8, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all.” The writer of Hebrews adds in Hebrews 13:15, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.” Ephesians 5:20 puts the same thanks “unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” so the name and the “by him” point the same way. The thanks are offered to God and the Father, and it goes through the Lord.
What These Verses Establish
Read whole, the three verses name three things: the peace of God ruling in their hearts, the word of Christ living in them richly, and the name of the Lord Jesus, under which they do everything. Thanks closes the first and the last of today’s verses.
What these verses add is a way of life for people who already belong. They were called in one body, and peace is to rule in their hearts. The word lives in them richly, and they teach, warn, and sing. Nothing they say or do falls outside the name of the Lord Jesus. Paul does not ask them to make the body. He tells them what rules in their hearts, because they are called in one body.
Verse 18 turns to wives and husbands, and the next study takes it up.
Next study: (Colossians 3:18–21)
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.”