Colossians 3:8 tells believers to put away anger, rage, malice, slander and abusive speech, the kinds of behavior that marked their life before they belonged to Christ. The verse is a command, not a suggestion: those habits no longer fit people who have been made new. Paul wrote it in a letter to the church at Colossae, a town in what is now western Turkey, and addressed it to Christians who were learning what their new identity in Christ should look like in daily life.
But now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.
Colossians 3:8 (WEB)
What Colossians 3:8 Means
The verse opens with “but now,” which sets a contrast with the verse before it. Verse 7 describes how these believers once lived, governed by the same desires and habits as everyone around them. Verse 8 says that is no longer the pattern. The word “also” signals that the change should show up in more than one area of their lives, not only in their worship or their beliefs.
Paul lists five things: anger, wrath, malice, slander and shameful speech. Anger is a feeling, and it can be a passing reaction. Wrath is anger that has hardened into a desire to hurt. Malice is a settled ill will toward someone. Slander is speaking falsely or damagingly about another person, and shameful speech is language that is foul or degrading. Paul puts the first three mostly in the heart and the last two mostly on the lips, but he treats them as one family of behavior that grows from the same root.
The verse does not promise that the feelings will vanish the moment someone becomes a Christian, and it does not say that anger is always sinful. It calls believers to refuse to let these things rule them and to stop feeding them. Verse 9 goes on to address lying, which fits the same pattern of truthfulness and care for others.
The Context of Colossians 3:8
Colossians was written by Paul, traditionally with Timothy named as co-sender, to a congregation he had not personally founded. Its concerns are the supremacy of Christ and the practical outworking of life “in Christ.” Chapters 1 and 2 establish who Christ is and what He has done, and chapter 3 turns to what that means for everyday conduct.
Verse 5 begins with the instruction to put to death the members of the earthly life, and verses 5 through 7 link these vices to the wrath of God coming on disobedience. Verse 8 then shifts from the sins of the body and appetite to sins of temper and tongue. Verses 9 through 11 explain the reason: the believer has put off the old self and put on the new, which is being renewed in the knowledge of its Creator. Read this way, the verse is not a random list of bad habits. It describes what a renewed person no longer does, because the renewal reaches the heart and the speech.
Key Phrases in Colossians 3:8
Ephesians 4:31
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander, be put away from you, with all malice.
(WEB)
Paul uses similar language here, listing bitterness, wrath, anger and slander as things to be removed. Reading it alongside Colossians 3:8 shows how central this kind of change was to his teaching about the church’s life together.
James 1:19-20
19 So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God.
(WEB)
James gives a practical strategy for handling anger: listen first, speak slowly, and remember that human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. It gives a useful picture of what putting away anger can look like in a conversation.
A Short Prayer From Colossians 3:8
Lord, you know the anger I carry and the words I have been tempted to use against people who have hurt me or let me down. Show me where that heat is coming from, and give me the honesty to name it to you before it spills out in my speech. Help me to set aside the habits of the old life and to speak only what is true, kind and useful for building others up. Renew my mind and my tongue day by day, so that my life reflects the new person you are making me to be in Christ. Amen.
