June 10 - Colossians 2:20-23
“Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”
Aren’t these verses great? They pretty much give you permission to do anything and everything, don’t they?
And therein lies the problem with taking scripture out of context.
But, I think we all run into trouble with the things Paul is talking about. We’re still talking about rules and regulations set before us by the world defining our relationship with God. It makes sense that we should fast and deny ourselves the pleasures of the world so that we can gain a better relationship with Him, doesn’t it?
One of the commentaries I read said that asceticism (denial of worldly pleasures to achieve spiritual perfection) is associated with guilt and Christ took away all guilt.
Since we died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, why do we still submit to its rules? As we get into the next chapter, we’ll see where Paul is taking this whole conversation, but right now he wants us to think about the way we allow the world to define our relationship with God!
We are more concerned with how our friends, our pastor, our fellow church members and our families see us as Christians than we are with how God sees us. Dad was always concerned that even the perception of alcohol in our home was a bad thing. He freaked out the first time that mom brought home a bottle of sparkling grape juice. People might see the green champagne shaped bottle and think we had real alcohol! (Mom pretty much handled his self-centered perception with a few choice words – probably using this verse and others by Paul.)
Using the world’s rules and perceptions of what a Christian should and shouldn’t do will not bring us any closer in our walk with Jesus. These rules won’t restrain our desires. Just like every diet out there known to man – they won’t stop us from desiring food.
The more time we spend on worrying about all of these things that the world (not Jesus, by the way) tells us to do or not to do so that we can live like Christians, the less time we spend on actually entering into a growing relationship with God.
“Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”
Aren’t these verses great? They pretty much give you permission to do anything and everything, don’t they?
And therein lies the problem with taking scripture out of context.
But, I think we all run into trouble with the things Paul is talking about. We’re still talking about rules and regulations set before us by the world defining our relationship with God. It makes sense that we should fast and deny ourselves the pleasures of the world so that we can gain a better relationship with Him, doesn’t it?
One of the commentaries I read said that asceticism (denial of worldly pleasures to achieve spiritual perfection) is associated with guilt and Christ took away all guilt.
Since we died with Christ to the basic principles of the world, why do we still submit to its rules? As we get into the next chapter, we’ll see where Paul is taking this whole conversation, but right now he wants us to think about the way we allow the world to define our relationship with God!
We are more concerned with how our friends, our pastor, our fellow church members and our families see us as Christians than we are with how God sees us. Dad was always concerned that even the perception of alcohol in our home was a bad thing. He freaked out the first time that mom brought home a bottle of sparkling grape juice. People might see the green champagne shaped bottle and think we had real alcohol! (Mom pretty much handled his self-centered perception with a few choice words – probably using this verse and others by Paul.)
Using the world’s rules and perceptions of what a Christian should and shouldn’t do will not bring us any closer in our walk with Jesus. These rules won’t restrain our desires. Just like every diet out there known to man – they won’t stop us from desiring food.
The more time we spend on worrying about all of these things that the world (not Jesus, by the way) tells us to do or not to do so that we can live like Christians, the less time we spend on actually entering into a growing relationship with God.
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