Today, I am reading and commenting on  Colossians 1-4.

Paul warns the people of the Church in Colossae against allowing anyone to convince them into following hollow and deceptive philosophy.  So, what does Paul mean by “hollow and deceptive”?  Paul gives us some answers to that a little further on, but we can learn a little just from the words he chooses here.  Hollow suggests that the practices being taught are all for show and not really about what you do when no one is looking.  Deceptive tells us that the teachings really on misdirection and dishonesty.  An example of this would be: some religions teach that you must never lie, unless by doing so to outsiders you can advance the religion (it then goes on to define “outsiders” as those who do not follow the religion in the manner in which your group interprets it).  As I said, a little further on while expounding on this same teaching, Paul writes that we should let no one judge us by what we eat or drink, or by the religious rituals we follow, or don’t follow.  He exposes all such practices as having a surface appearance of wisdom and righteousness, but they lack any call to actually restrain our indulgence in sensual sin.

Paul teaches that, through our faith in Christ, we should have put to death our earthly nature.  Which he describes as sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed. As a side note I want to point out that on several occasions Paul tells us that greed is a form of idolatry, the worship of material possessions.  He goes on to tell us that we must put aside anger, malice, slander, and filthy language.  Instead we must not lie to one another as we are all being renewed and transformed into the image our Creator.  This means that in Christ we are all God’s people, not Gentiles and Jews, not slave and free, not black and white and Asian.   We are all together parts of the Body of Christ.  Paul calls on us to deal with each other in love.  Let us seek, with all of our hearts, to act with compassion, kindness, humility, and patience.  Let us bear with those who irritate us, and forgive those against whom we have a grievance.  If we do these things, truly do them, not just pay them lip service, God will transform us and we will experience joy.  I write this more out of having seen how it works in people whose faith I admire than out of personal experience.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.