There are many good things this earth have to offer…but they pale in comparison to the heavenly realities of Jesus Christ. Join us in Colossians chapter 3 as the Apostle Paul points us to the greatnes of Christ and encourages us to set our minds on Him.
So, you want to go through Army Jump School, or the Basic Airborne Course, to become a parachutist. What will happen to you over the next three weeks? Here is what Google AI tells us:
Ground Week
Focuses on building basic skills, confidence, and muscle memory through intensive training.
- Parachute Landing Falls(PLFs): Training on how to land safely without injury.
- Mock Door Training: Exiting from a simulated aircraft door.
- Harness Training: Proper donning of the T-11 parachute and reserve.
- Apparatus Work: Using the lateral drift apparatus (simulating wind).
Tower Week (Team Effort/Mass Exit)
Focuses on mastering, in-air procedures, and building comfort with heights.
- 34-Foot Tower: Practicing jump commands, exiting, and proper body position (mock door).
- 250-Foot Tower: Simulating a real parachute jump to practice canopy control.
- Swing Lander Trainer(SLT): Practicing landings from a swinging harness.
Jump Week (Qualification)
The final, high-performance phase where students perform five parachute jumps from C-130 or C-17 aircraft at 1,250 feet.
- Hollywood Jumps: Jumps without extra combat gear.
- Combat Equipment Jumps: Jumps while wearing a MOLLE rucksack and weapon case.
- Night Jump: Executing a jump in the dark for full mission training.
- Recovery: Learning to gather and recover equipment on the drop zone.[1]
Sounds exciting. I’m just thankful for the multitude of soldiers in our church who have been through this training. Because of you, we not only have one of the most premier fighting forces on the planet, but also a spiritual application to the book of Colossians. How so? Let me show you.
Note how the military properly gives you jump school doctrine first, and then practice second. If it had occurred the other way around, we’d have a whole lot of soldiers in the infirmary. Learning the philosophy of jumping must always precede acting on the philosophy for things to go well.
The same is true spiritually. Spiritual doctrine always precedes spiritual practice. Paul understood this, and this is why his books, like Colossians, are purposefully written like a jump school training manual. First, you learn who Jesus is and what He has done for you (chapters 1-2), and then you jump out of the door of the spiritual C-130 to go and live your Christian life to His glory (chapters 3-4). We know that Paul moves in chapter 3 to the practical application of doctrine because of what he teaches here. His main idea in the first four verses introduces us to the nitty-gritty side of belief with this personal challenge:
Because of Who Jesus Is to You, Live Like You’re Heavenbound, Not Earthbound (Col. 3:1-4)
See how the main motif switches from doctrine to practice? How Paul sets up this pedagogical transition in these opening four verses involves two movements:
The Rules (Col. 3:1-2)
If Christ is fully God and fully man, if He is the Creator and glue of the cosmos, if He is the only one qualified to die as our sin substitute and thereby defeat sin and death, then, by definition, this information, once embraced by faith, should change how we live each day as saints. To motivate us to put these grand doctrinal themes into real action, Paul starts with a command:
1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. (Col. 3)
Permit me to show you the Greek text, which, I believe, will enhance our understanding and appreciation of what Paul teaches here.
Εἰ οὖν συνηγέρθητε τῷ Χριστῷ, τὰ ἄνω ζητεῖτε, οὗ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ θεοῦ καθήμενος·
The first word in the Greek sentence is not “therefore.” It is the conjunction “Ei,” which introduces a conditional clause. Now, please, follow me on this. In Greek, there are four ways to set up a conditional sentence. From the first to the fourth, we move from what is most likely, or assumed to be true, to that which is not known. Put differently, it moves from “Let’s assume this is true,” to “Let’s assume this is probably not going ever to happen.”
The kind of grammatical conditional clause Paul sets up here is what is called a First Class Condition. This type of sentence is identified by the first part of the sentence (the protasis) containing the “if” marker plus any tense or mood, followed by the “then” half of the condition that contains any tense or mood.[2] Why identify this? We do this because it indicates that the sentence should not be translated as a conditional, as if it were not true, but rather as “since.” Hence, since Jesus is everything Paul just taught in chapters 1 through 2, and since we, as Christians, believe this teaching is true for ourselves, then it logically follows that we “have been raised up with Christ.”
What is this in reference to? It denotes our physical baptism, which was an outward illustration of our spiritual baptism that we experienced at the moment of faith. Paul just taught about this in chapter 2, verse 12. Going under the water, therefore, illustrates that our old, sinful, spiritually dead self was buried, as Christ was buried, and now our new, holy, spiritually alive self is risen to real life as Jesus raised Himself from the grave.
Paul talks about this magnificent transition from spiritual death to life in Ephesians 2:
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in ChLS
