There are two types of people. OK, there are a million ways to say there are two types of people. I’m thinking about those who think in lists and those who think in pictures.
Give my wife directions to go somewhere, she just wants a list. I’ll use a turn-by-turn list, but I insist on have a map–a picture of the route.
Paul writes a lot of lists. I think maybe because he was writing letters and not stories. I have no idea what the education of a Pharisee entailed, but I have to believe it’s like the education of an MD today–memorizing lots of lists. So, it fit.
In Colossians, Paul makes two lists.
Here’s the list of bad traits: fornication, impurity, passions, evil desire, greed, anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language, lies.
Here’s a list of positive traits: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, love, forgiveness, peace.
Instead of memorizing these lists, try picturing people. Do you want to be around any of the first type? How about the second?
Paul had to have studied Aristotle. Here was a philosopher who loved lists. He also developed deductive reasoning–starting from general observations to discovering fundamental truths through logical reasoning. Paul does that. He always starts with Jesus–life, death, resurrection. Then he deduces from that the way we are to live our lives day-by-day.
If we want to model our lives on Christian principles, we could memorize the list and then try to do those acts.
Or, we could put a picture in our minds of the types of people these describe. Since we become what we think about, by constantly picturing the type of person described by the second list, we can slowly become that type of person.
Trust me, it takes a lifetime to get there–at least for some of us.
Faith Venture 
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