There is another factor that needs to get mentioned here: the prototypical means of joining clauses in English. Unless there is some good reason to do otherwise, we do not use conjunctions to join clauses in English. This absence of a connecting particle is called “asyndeton” by grammarians. This means that the only time you’ll hear conjunctions in English is where some relationship needs to be specified, most often subordination. So the frequency of use of connecting particles varies from language to language.

In narrative writing like the Gospels and Acts in Greek, and like the Pentateuch and Historical books in Hebrew, most every clause is joined by their equivalent of “and.” This is why is sounds like it is overused; by English standards it is. However, this does not make it wrong, just different compared to your English sensibilities. In the non-narrative writings in both languages, asyndeton is much more common.

I am traveling at the moment, but I’d suggest reading the article in the book “Language Typology and Syntactic Description” edited by Timothy Shopen on strategies for connecting clauses. It is a three volume set sitting on my book shelf, but not being there I can’t tell you the specific author and volume. You could also find an overview in an introduction to language typology, something that focuses on languages besides English.

I wonder: could it be that the use of kai is a literary device not used in speech? (just as we don’t say “period” in speech ordinarily). When my kids were preschoolers I’d have them dictate stories to me, and they had a tendency to start every sentence “And then…”.

Runge gives a clear discussion of the difference between καί on the one hand, and the English conjunctions “and” and “but” on the other. Here’s a brief excerpt from page 16.

Καί does not mark a distinction of semantic continuity or discontinuity, it merely indicates that the connected elements are to be closely related to one another. Stated another way, καί links two items of equal status.

Your question about versification raises another issue of structure imposed at a later date. Chapter and verse numbers were added to the New Testament texts long after they were written. None of the oldest manuscripts contain them. While legends exist about their origin, the truth is that we do not know who added them.

Most of the chapter and verse numbers are located in places that make sense in a very general way, but they are not always aligned with the most reasonable place to break a sentence. If you do not read Greek, you can see this easily by comparing a few of the more modern translations. You will notice that some verse numbers fall in the middle of the sentence in these translations.

I would definitely not recommend taking the verse numbers as an indication of where to break up a sentence.

Your proposed structure works as well as the one indicated by the verse numbers. The instances of καί link clauses together, and you have separated those clauses out on different lines. Notice, though that you have left one instance of καί in the middle of a clause:

εἰς ἣν καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι
to which indeed you were called in one body
to which you were called in one body (Col. 3:15)

This is one of those places where the usage of καί does not match English. Here it is sometimes translated as “indeed” or even left untranslated.

If that is true, it’s similar to something I’ve started doing myself with HTML. My webpage says: “My notes on Acrobat and Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and broadband connecting and Excel and Geometer’s Sketchpad and Google and HTML…” (Rasmusen.org) because each of the software names is in blue because it is a hyperlink, and I want to separate the blue words with black “and”s so readers will realize they are different hyperlinks.

Another thought. I know it’s presumptuous, but can Colossians 3:12 be split up differently than the verses do it. Here’s the versification:

Colossians 3:12. Ἐνδύσασθε οὖν ὡς ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἅγιοι καὶ ἠγαπημένοι, σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ, χρηστότητα, ταπεινοφροσύνην, πραΰτητα, μακροθυμίαν,

3:13 ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων καὶ χαριζόμενοι ἑαυτοῖς ἐάν τις πρός τινα ἔχῃ μομφήν: καθὼς καὶ ὁ κύριος ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς:
3:14 ἐπὶ πᾶσιν δὲ τούτοις τὴν ἀγάπην, ὅ ἐστιν σύνδεσμος τῆς τελειότητος.
3:15 καὶ ἡ εἰρήνη τοῦ Χριστοῦ βραβευέτω ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν, εἰς ἣν καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι: καὶ εὐχάριστοι γίνεσθε.

Here’s another way to slice it. Does this make any sense in Greek?

Ἐνδύσασθε οὖν ὡς ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἅγιοι καὶ ἠγαπημένοι, σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμοῦ, χρηστότητα, ταπεινοφροσύνην, πραΰτητα, μακροθυμίαν ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων.

καὶ χαριζόμενοι ἑαυτοῖς ἐάν τις πρός τινα ἔχῃ μομφήν καθὼς.

καὶ ὁ κύριος ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν οὕτως.

καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐπὶ πᾶσιν δὲ τούτοις τὴν ἀγάπην, ὅ ἐστιν σύνδεσμος τῆς τελειότητος.

καὶ ἡ εἰρήνη τοῦ Χριστοῦ βραβευέτω ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν, εἰς ἣν καὶ ἐκλήθητε ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι.

καὶ εὐχάριστοι γίνεσθε.

Does that make any sense, or not?

http://greek-language.com/grklinguist/?p=1141