March through Colossians - 2:8-12

When you read a confusing passage like 2:8 (“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”), how do you go from “What in the world?!” to “Ah, now I get it!”? Here are a few steps:

-Don’t respond to a confusing passage by speeding up but by slowing down. Read it again, ask God for help, and read it again. Remember, we should be humbly listening to the Word and patiently sitting under it expecting God to teach us. We should not be trying to hustle on to the parts we understand or think we can apply more easily.
-Think like a Colossian. Remember that this is a real historical document, written by a real person who wrote to a real church in the city of Colossae in the 1st century. Try to think, “now how would a member of the church in Colossae have understood this when it was first read to the congregation?” Reading phrases like “philosophy and empty deceit,” “human tradition,” and “the elemental spirits of the world” may not draw us in like a who-dunnit but they would have been understood by a Colossian believer and they are important to our understanding of the letter today.
-Get some help. You can gain a whole lot by reading a good study Bible like the one I’ve been mentioning (the ESV Study Bible…click here for the note on the verse above). It won’t answer every question you might have, but it will explain a lot and will help you be drawn into the letter through understanding it better, rather than being repelled away by confusion.

Pretty cool to read that we’ve been “filled in him” (2:10), that we have everything we need in Christ and by virtue of our union with Christ.

2:13-15 tomorrow.