Verse of the Day for April 9

Paul gives three instructions in three verses, and the order is easy to reverse in practice.

Put off the old man. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new man.

The renewing sits in the middle, between the two changes of clothes, and it is the only one of the three that is passive in the Greek.

Most people attempt the first and third and skip the middle. They stop a behaviour and start a better one, and wonder why the old thing keeps returning.

The spirit of your mind is an odd phrase — not the mind's content but its disposition, the attitude underneath the thoughts.

Behaviour change without that is a wardrobe change on an unchanged person, and Paul's clothing metaphor is precise enough to make the point on its own.

Stopping something and starting something else is management. Between them there is meant to be a change of disposition.

That middle verb is the one you cannot do to yourself, which is probably why it gets skipped.