Five-minute study · Day 308 · Colossians 3
Colossians 3:3
A word worth stopping on: hid κρύπτω krypto
'For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.' The Greek verb for 'hid' is krypto. To conceal, to cover, to keep secret. The word is the root of 'crypt,' 'cryptography,' 'encrypt.' Something krypto is placed where it cannot be found by those who do not know where to look. Paul wrote this to the Colossians in the perfect passive tense: kekryptai. Your life has been hidden, and it remains hidden. The action was completed in the past, and the state persists into the present. Someone else did the hiding. You did not hide yourself. You were placed somewhere secure by another hand, and you are still there.
Word study: hid
- Greek
- κρύπτω
- Pronounced
- krypto
- Strong's
- G2928
- Definition
- To hide, to conceal, to cover, to keep secret. Used for hiding objects, hiding persons, and hiding truth. The perfect passive indicates a completed action with an ongoing state: hidden and remaining hidden.
Krypto appears 18 times in the New Testament. BDAG defines it as 'to keep from being seen, to hide, to conceal.' The word covers physical concealment (Matthew 5:14, a city set on a hill 'cannot be hid'; Matthew 13:44, treasure 'hid' in a field), deliberate secrecy (Matthew 25:25, the servant hiding his talent in the ground), and divine concealment (Matthew 11:25, God hiding things from the wise and revealing them to babes; Luke 18:34, the meaning of Jesus's words 'was hid' from the disciples).
Wright's commentary on Colossians and Philemon (Tyndale series) examines kekryptai in Colossians 3:3 within the letter's theological argument. Paul has been countering a 'philosophy' (2:8) circulating in Colossae that apparently involved angel worship (2:18), dietary regulations (2:16, 21), and ascetic practices (2:23). Paul's response is to redirect the Colossians' attention to Christ, in whom 'dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily' (2:9). Chapter 3 opens with the practical implications: 'If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above' (3:1).
Wright notes that kekryptai in 3:3 is deliberately paradoxical. The Colossian 'philosophy' offered visible, tangible spiritual practices: rules, rituals, visionary experiences. Paul says your real life is invisible. It is kekryptai, concealed in Christ, who is himself in God. The hiddenness is protective. What is hidden in God cannot be reached by the forces Paul has been describing: the 'principalities and powers' that Christ triumphed over (2:15). The English descendants of krypto, 'crypt' (a hidden chamber, often underground), 'cryptography' (the science of encoding messages), and 'encrypt' (to render unreadable to outsiders), all preserve the root meaning: something made inaccessible to unauthorized access. Paul says your life has been encrypted in Christ. The key belongs to God.
Historical context · c. 60-62 AD, during Paul's Roman imprisonment
Colossae and the Syncretistic 'Philosophy'
Colossae was a city in the Lycus Valley of southwestern Asia Minor (modern Turkey), along with its neighbors Laodicea and Hierapolis. By the first century, Colossae had declined from its earlier prominence as a major textile center. The city sat on a secondary road, overshadowed by Laodicea's commercial and administrative importance. Paul apparently never visited Colossae personally (2:1). The church was founded by Epaphras (1:7, 4:12-13), one of Paul's associates.
The 'philosophy' Paul opposes in Colossians 2 has been the subject of extensive scholarly debate. The letter mentions angel worship (threskeia ton angelon, 2:18), dietary restrictions ('meat' and 'drink,' 2:16), festival observance (new moons, sabbaths, 2:16), ascetic practices ('touch not, taste not, handle not,' 2:21), and visionary experiences ('intruding into those things which he hath not seen,' 2:18). These elements suggest a syncretistic mixture: Jewish observance combined with local Anatolian religious practices, possibly influenced by early forms of mystical Judaism that emphasized angelic liturgy.
The Lycus Valley was geologically remarkable. Hierapolis was famous for its hot springs and terraced mineral deposits (the 'cotton castle,' Pamukkale, still a tourist site). Laodicea had an aqueduct delivering lukewarm water (the background to Revelation 3:15-16). Colossae sat near the point where the Lycus River disappeared underground into a limestone sinkhole. Wright notes the irony: Paul told a church near a disappearing river that their life was hidden underground, secure in Christ. The geological landscape provided an accidental metaphor for Paul's theology of concealment and future revelation (3:4: 'When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory').
For reflection
If your deepest identity is hidden in Christ and cannot be damaged by external circumstances, how does that change the way you respond to criticism or failure today? Write one sentence that begins: 'Because my life is hidden...'
The perfect passive means someone else secured you there. You do not have to maintain the hiding place.
Sources: BDAG; Wright, 'Colossians and Philemon' (TNTC)