Colossians 3:2
What does Colossians 3:2 mean?
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
The short answer
Colossians 3:2 gives a short, striking command: "Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth." At first glance it can sound like Paul is telling Christians to check out of ordinary life — to think about heaven so much that earth stops mattering. But that reading gets the verse almost exactly backwards.
The key is the verse just before it. Paul says to seek the things above because that is "where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God." The "things above" are not clouds and harps; they are wherever the risen Jesus now reigns. To set your mind there is to orient your whole life around a living King — one who, as Paul says elsewhere, will come from heaven to transform the world and raise his people with bodies like his own. The Christian hope is not evacuation from earth but the renewal of it.
That is why this verse is better described as future-shaped realism than as escapism. Like a runner whose eyes are fixed on the finish line, believers let a certain future — resurrection, renewal, Christ appearing in glory — shape how they run right now. Paul says in the next verses that our life is "hidden with Christ in God" and will one day be revealed with him. The things above are not a distraction from the present; they are the truest thing about it.
So the contrast in Colossians 3:2 is not between caring about heaven and caring about earth. It is between two ways of living on earth: one governed by the old, dying order of things, and one governed by the risen Christ. Setting your mind above means letting his reign, and his coming future, set the agenda for your days here.
What scholars say
Here N.T. Wright answers a question this verse often raises: is the Christian goal to leave earth for heaven? He argues the opposite — the hope is Christ coming from heaven to transform the world and our bodies — and notes that Paul makes much the same point in Colossians 3:1–4.
“In verses 20 and 21, which we shall come to in the next section, he speaks not of our going up to heaven, but of the Lord, King Jesus himself, coming from heaven to earth, in order to transform the world and change our bodies so that they are like his own resurrected and glorified body. Living in ‘heaven’ isn’t the goal we are aiming at; rather, it’s living in God’s new world with our new bodies. So the ‘upward call’ seems to be the resurrection life itself. Straining forward towards it, like an athlete aiming at the finishing line and the prize that waits beyond it, means living in the present in the light of that future. (This is very close, in fact, to what Paul says a bit more fully in Colossians 3.1–4.)”
What it means for you
If your hope is that Christ will one day remake this world, then this world — your work, your relationships, your body, your neighborhood — is not disposable. It is the very place resurrection life starts showing up. Setting your mind on things above is less like daydreaming and more like an athlete's focus: a fixed point ahead that changes how you move now.
Practically, that might mean beginning the day by remembering who is actually on the throne, and letting that loosen the grip of anxiety, ambition, or resentment. Heavenly-mindedness, rightly understood, makes people more patient, more honest, and more useful on earth — not less.
Colossians 3 in context
Colossians 3 opens the practical half of the letter. In chapter 2, Paul warned the Colossians against man-made rules and philosophies that promise spiritual progress but can't actually change anyone. His alternative begins in 3:1–4: you have been raised with Christ, so seek and set your mind on the things above, where he reigns; your life is hidden with him and will be revealed with him in glory. From there Paul turns immediately earthward — put to death what belongs to the old self, put on compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and love. Heavenly-mindedness, in this chapter, produces down-to-earth holiness.