Colossians 3:13: bearing with someone and forgiving them are two things
13Support one another, and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive one another. For just as the Lord has forgiven you, so also must you do.
Two verbs, not one. Supporting covers what will not change; forgiving covers what already happened. Confusing the two is what jams most arguments.
Short answer
Colossians 3:13 asks two things: support one another, and forgive whoever gave cause for complaint. The measure is not the size of the offence or the remorse of the offender — it is the forgiveness the reader has already received.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
The sentence is usually quoted only at the forgiveness half, which is where it becomes hard to apply. The first verb is what makes the second possible: not everything that irritates in shared life is an offence to be forgiven; much of it is difference to be carried.
Paul is writing to a small community in Colossae, and the whole paragraph is about living together. It is not a treatise on forgiveness in general; it is instruction for people who will run into each other again next week.
Where this verse appears
Colossians 3 is organised like a change of clothes. First comes the list of what is taken off — anger, malice, lying — and then the list of what is put on: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience.
This verse is the next item on the second list, and the only one that comes with its reason attached. Immediately after, the text adds love as the thing that ties it all together.
What it says
The word used is complaint, and it has a size. We are not talking about crime or violence: the setting is ordinary friction between people who share a community. That does not soften the demand, but it defines the field where it applies.
The two verbs do different work. Supporting is for what keeps happening and probably will not change — someone else’s manner, someone else’s pace. Forgiving is for what already happened and stayed. Trying to forgive a difference of temperament does not work, and trying to bear with a real offence only postpones it.
The measure of the forgiveness is the hard part. It is not the seriousness of what was done, nor the apology that came or failed to come. In this edition the standard is the forgiveness the Lord has already granted the reader, which takes the decision out of the field of negotiation.
What to do with it today
Before trying to forgive someone this week, sort the two columns. What about that person is an offence, and what is only difference? Most of the weight is usually in the second column, and for that the verse asks for something else, simpler and longer: endurance.
It is worth naming what the text does not cover. It does not tell anyone to return to a relationship that harms them, it does not address abuse, and it does not replace reporting a crime. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same word, and this verse asks for the first without promising the second.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, show me what I need to forgive and what I only need to put up with. Give me the measure you used on me, because mine is always smaller. Amen.