PT-4 "Intro to Colossians 2:8-10)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/8/2017 9:27 PM

My Worship Time                                                          Focus:  PT-4 Intro to Colossians 2:8-10

Bible Reading & Meditation                                            Reference:  Colossians 2:8-10

            Message of the verses:  “8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;”

            I think we will begin with a quote from John MacArthur as in this quote he gives us a little review from Colossians 2:1-7:  “In 2:1-7, Paul exhorts the Colossians to maintain their allegiance to both the deity and complete sufficiency of Jesus Christ.  He reminds them that, in contrast to the claims of the false teachers, in Christ ‘are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (2:3).  That statement is a profound summation of the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus.  That positive teaching is counterbalanced with a negative treatment in 2:8-23, where Paul tells them what to avoid.  In so doing, he fully refutes the claims of the Colossian errorists.  Against their claim to be a secret, superior knowledge, he has already pointed out that there is no hidden knowledge, apart from Christ (2:3).  Against their teaching that a series of lesser beings emanated from God, Paul emphasizes that ‘all the fullness of Deity dwells’ in Christ (2:9).They worshiped those emanations, which Paul describes in 2:15 as demonic beings, whom Christ has already conquered.  He speaks against the falsity of ceremonial, ritualistic legalisms and mysticism in 2:16-19.  Finally, in 2:20-23 Paul rejects their asceticism, since it is ‘of no value against fleshly indulgence’ (2:23).”  So as we look at this paragraph we have seen a review of the first seven verses of chapter two and then a preview, (a short one) of the rest of chapter two. 

            The way that Paul is dealing with the heresies in the Colossian church is seen in the rest of chapter two of which we will only look at the first one “false philosophy” in this section, verses 8-10, and then we will go on and look at more of these heresies in the later verses of this chapter which are spoken of in the quote from John MacArthur.  Now the way that Paul is refuting those false teachers and their heresies is by telling them the truth and this reminds me somewhat of the way that a bank teller is trained to identify counterfeit money.  They don’t learn by looking at all the different kinds of counterfeit bills that have been made, they learn everything there is to know about good bills so that when the look at a counterfeit bill they will know it is not real.  Paul is teaching the Colossians truth, truth that will refute the false statements and teachings from these false teachers.

            Now in the rest of our study on these verses, 2:8-10, we will be looking at two different main points, beginning with PT-1 of “The deficiency of philosophy,” and then once we are done with that we will look at “The sufficiency of Christ.”  3/8/2017 9:52 PM