Verse explainer
The verse isn't about despising daily life — it's about where your mind's deepest loyalty and longing are anchored.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
BSBSet your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
The plain meaning
Paul is writing to people who had been told that elaborate earthly rituals — food rules, festival days, bodily disciplines — were the path to spiritual maturity (Col. 2:16–23). His answer: those things belong to a shadow world. The real substance is Christ, who is above (v. 1, "where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God"). So the command is not to float through life ignoring bills and relationships, but to anchor your fundamental desires, values, and loyalties to what is permanent rather than what is perishing. The Greek word behind "affection" and "minds" is phroneo — it covers not just feeling but the whole orientation of thought and will. You can fix a leaky roof and still have your mind set on things above; what you cannot do, in Paul's terms, is arrange your deepest hunger around earthly status, earthly rituals, or earthly security as though this world were your final home.
The common misreading
What the commentators say
Clarke reads the command as a direct inversion of the believer's former life: be as earnest and wholehearted in pursuing heavenly things as you once were in pursuing earthly ones. The conversion of life means a conversion of appetite — not a mild preference for spiritual things, but an engrossment of heart that used to belong to perishable goods.
Gill notes that phroneo goes beyond warm feeling — it means to think on, approve, prize, and be affectionately concerned for heavenly things. He also ties "things on the earth" specifically to the false teachers' program in Colossae: worldly lusts, but especially the ceremonial earthly ordinances — food, drink, sabbaths, new moons — that Paul has just dismissed as shadows (Col. 2:16–17).
JFB contrast this verse with Philippians 3:19 — those "whose god is their belly" and "who mind earthly things." The warning is that whatever commands our deepest mental and emotional attention becomes, in effect, our idol; for the believer, that object of ultimate attention belongs to Christ above, not to the provisional arrangements of earthly existence.
The word behind it
Usually translated "set your mind" or "set your affection." It covers more than emotion — it means to think toward, to be disposed toward, to regard as important; the whole orientation of mind and will, not just a passing feeling. This is the same word Paul uses in Philippians 4:8 ("think on these things") and Philippians 3:19 (those who "mind earthly things"). Seeing that the KJV says "affection" can make readers think Paul is only addressing emotion, when he is targeting the entire bent and loyalty of the inner life.
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