Col 2:16-23
SS Lesson for 11/19/2023
Devotional Scriptures: John 15:18-25
The apostle Paul wrote the epistle of Colossians in the first half of the AD 60s. The recipients of the epistle were a community of believers in Colossae (see Colossians 1:1-2), a city in modern-day Turkey. When Paul composed this letter, he had not yet visited the area (see 1:4-7; 2:1). He likely penned the letter while under arrest (see 4:3) in Rome (see Acts 28:16, 30). Whether or not Paul ever visited Colossae is unknown, but he had heard from others about the faith of the Colossian believers (see Colossians 1:4). He intended the letter to encourage the Colossians (2:2-3) and address false teachings that had infiltrated the church (see 2:4-5). The exact nature of the false teaching in Colossae is unknown. Most of our modern-day understanding comes from reading the letter of Colossians and drawing informed conclusions based on the addressed topics. Taking this approach, we can assume that both Jewish and pagan teaching in Colossae threatened to lead the believers astray. This syncretistic belief system was comprised of various elements from different religious and philosophical traditions that were not rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The false teaching likely included aspects of Judaism. Paul provided correctives regarding lifestyle markers that distinguished Jews from Gentiles, such as circumcision (Colossians 2:11-15), dietary restrictions, and the observance of holy days (2:16). However, other aspects of the false teaching, such as angel worship (2:18) and misdirected fasting (2:23), mirrored pagan philosophies and cults. Paul proclaimed this belief system “hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition” (2:8). This belief system concerned Paul because it added requirements for believers beyond God’s work through Christ Jesus. Colossians 1:15-22 and 2:6-15 feature Paul’s corrective to the Colossians regarding Christ’s preeminence. Christ has made believers complete (Colossians 2:9-10) and raised them to a new life (2:12-14). Further, he has triumphantly “disarmed the powers and authorities” (2:15). These other philosophies, beliefs, and practices had taken the Colossians spiritually captive. If they continued to follow the false teachings, they would essentially deny the power of Christ’s work.
6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
(Scriptural Text from the New King James Version; cross-references from the NIV)
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths,
17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man,
20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; 16 wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, 17 learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.
13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
31 My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain.
23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me,
6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which God will bring about in his own time — God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.
20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations —
21 "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,"
22 which all concern things which perish with the using — according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
13 The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
17 I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.
20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
10 "You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?
17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires." 19 These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
1:19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son (literally, “in him”).
“For” is the subordinating causal conjunction hoti, which introduces the reason why the Son is supreme in the new creation. His supremacy is found not only in Who He is in His person as declared in vss. 15-18, but in God’s purpose to provide salvation totally through the reconciling work of the Son.
Literally, to draw attention to the emphasis, the text reads, “for in Him God was pleased.” This is followed by two declarations regarding what God was pleased to do: (1) that in Him all fullness dwells, and (2) through Him (also emphatic) to reconcile all things…
The subject of the verb, “was pleased,” is not actually expressed in the Greek text and is somewhat uncertain. Some take it to be “God” or “the Father,” others take it to be “Christ,” and some understand the subject to be “fullness.” The NIV and the NET Bible understand the subject of the passage to be God. God was pleased that in Christ all his fullness should dwell.
Perhaps the more difficult question centers in what the “fullness” refers to. “Fullness” is pleroma, and means “the sum total, fullness, plenitude.” “Dwell” is the aorist tense of katoikeo, “to dwell, reside, settle down.” When considered in the light of the simple oikeo “dwell,” or paroikeo, “dwell along side or near,” katoikeo indicates a permanent abode. The aorist here could well be what grammarians call an ingressive aorist, “to take up a permanent abode,” or it could be a constative aorist, a simple reference to the fact that “all fullness resides in Jesus Christ.”
Most expositors understand “fullness” to refer to “the fullness of deity,” that in Christ, the incarnate Son, was the very fullness of God, all the qualities of God’s divine essence. As such it is a powerful affirmation of Christ’s deity, an affirmation that occurs again in 2:9. But this has already been stated in the immediate context and does not seem to fit the context of verse 20 where the subject is now the work of reconciliation. It seems that it might be better to understand “fullness” to refer to the fullness of God’s plan of reconciliation. In other words, Paul is declaring that the fullness of God’s saving grace and provision of salvation resides totally in the work of Christ through the blood of the cross. Nothing else can be added to the work of the Son. Johnson agrees and explains:
The interpretation of pan to pleroma (AV, “all fulness”) is something of a crux interpretum. Most interpreters take “all fulness” to be a reference to the fullness of the Godhead, making this equivalent to the closely related expression in 2:9, where the words tes theotetos (AV, “of the Godhead”) are added. Perhaps the first mention of the expression is to be interpreted by the last in 2:9, but I am not convinced that this is correct. In the first place, the context is not so suitable for a reference to the divine essence at this point. Paul is in the process of giving the reason for the Son’s pre-eminence in the church, and he has indicated that it relates to His redemptive labor (v. 18). To say that He is supreme in the redeemed new creation by virtue of His divine essence seems a bit out of place, especially in the light of the fact that in verse twenty he reverts to His redemptive work under the term of reconciliation. Since the expression probably was in use by the heretical teachers in Colosse in the technical sense of the totality of divine emanations or agencies, the hierarchy of mediators lying between God and man and under whose control men lived, is it not more probable that the expression has reference to our Lord’s redemptive power or position than to His essential nature? Furthermore, Paul has just mentioned Christ’s resurrection in the expression “firstborn from the dead” (v. 18 ). Must not the fullness, then, be that which arises out of His resurrection? By the resurrection He has been constituted God’s saving Redeemer, the one in whom dwells all saving power (cf. Act 5:31; 17:31 ).
In the second place, can it really be said that, in any sense, God was pleased that the divine essence take up its abode in the Son? Is not Eadie right in contending that “…the Divine essence dwelt in Christ unchangeably, and not by the Father’s consent or purpose. It is His in His own right, and not by paternal pleasure”? Were we not right in saying,
“The highest
place that heaven affords
Is His, is His by righe’?
Therefore, I think it best to take “all fulness” to refer to that which is official, and not that which is essential. It is the fullness of saving grace and power, which Paul has in mind. It is the fullness that belongs to one constituted a Savior (cf. Acts 2:36; 5:31; 17:31 ). God was pleased that all saving grace and power take up its permanent abode in Him. Then the following verses, which outline His reconciling work (vv. 20–23 ), expand and expound the fullness in its operation.
This is particularly significant since the false teachers were teaching that Christ’s death or work of the cross was not sufficient for salvation or for sanctification, and that one must also add some form of human religious or ascetic works into the equation for salvation and even sanctification (cf. 2:16-23 and 3:1-4).
1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross—whether things on the earth or things in heaven.
“Through Him” is emphatic for emphasis and points to Christ as the sole agent of reconciliation. The false teachers were saying that the angels and emanations could in some way bring men closer to God, but not so; Christ Jesus is the sole means of reconciliation and His death on the cross the sole method that God has chosen to use.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Habakkuk said, “You are too just to tolerate evil; you are unable to condone wrongdoing” (Ha. 1:13). The question, then, is how can sinful man be reconciled to a holy and just God? Those who believe in universalism, the belief that all will one day be saved or reconciled to God, often appeal to God’s love and argue that a good and loving God could never condemn His creatures to eternal separation or judgment. But such an argument ignores other aspects of God’s character as they are revealed to us in Scripture. God’s divine essence involves not only His love and mercy, but also His absolute righteousness, holiness, and justice. Universalists sacrifice God’s righteousness and holiness on the altar of His love and mercy. The result is a god different from the God of the Bible, a tactic that is very consistent with Satan’s distortions. One part of God’s character cannot bypass or ignore another part of His character without going against His very essence.
Is it possible that man can somehow please God by his own good works? No, not at all!! The reason is found in the facts that by nature, man is separated from God (Rom. 3:23; Eph. 2:3); by his deeds, he is alienated from God (Col. 1:21); and by his condition, being dead in sin and without life, man is incapacitated and unable to deal with his problem (John 1:12-13; 3:3-6; Eph. 2:1; 4:18-19). If there is to be reconciliation to God, it must come from God Himself.
With the term reconciliation, we are confronted with one of the key words of Scripture that deal with God’s salvation for man. Reconciliation means the sinner, separated and alienated from God by the barrier of sin, death, and God’s holy character, can be restored to fellowship with a holy God. How? Through that which God has done for man in His Son, Jesus Christ. This work of God in Christ results in the reconciliation of the believing sinner to God. But precisely and biblically just what does the doctrine of reconciliation include? What does reconciliation itself mean? Who is reconciled, how, when, and where? These are some of the questions that need to be answered.
The English word “reconcile” means “to cause to be friendly again; to bring back to harmony, make peace.” The Greek words for reconciliation are tremendously enlightening. There is katallasso, the verb, and katallage, the noun. These words come from kata, which means “down,” and allasso, which means “to change” or “exchange.” Thus, katallasso means “to change from enmity or disharmony to friendship and harmony,” or “to reconcile” (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-19). Then there is apokatallasso, the term used here in Colossian 1:20. This is a triple compound word because it adds the preposition apo, “from.” It does not occur in earlier Greek and seems to be used by Paul to express the idea of the completeness of reconciliation (Eph. 2:6; Col. 1:20-21). We can properly translate it “to reconcile completely.”
Each of these Greek words primarily referred to a one-way kind of reconciliation, one accomplished by one person or party. This is important because the Greeks had a word, diallasso, that referred to a two-way or mutual reconciliation—one dependent upon the work of both parties. Diallasso “denotes a mutual concession after mutual hostility, an idea absent from katall-.” Though katallasso could be used of a reconciliation between people (1 Cor. 7:11), the exclusive choice of the katalasso family of words for the reconciliation of the sinner stresses that salvation is totally the work of God that man may either accept by faith or reject, but either way, salvation is a work not partly of man and partly of God as it might occur between people, but totally, 100%, a work accomplished by God through His Son, the Lord Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17-19; Rom. 5:11). This is why this section, vss. 19-20, has been defined in the outline as “The Plenitude and Description of His Work.”
It is, therefore, quite significant that Paul never looks at reconciliation as mutual concession after mutual hostility. Reconciliation is manward, not Godward, in its direction. It is God’s reconciling of man “unto himself” (v. 20 ). God never has had need to be reconciled to man; He has always loved man. It is easy to see the importance of holding right views here, since our attitude to Christ’s work and our very idea of God are affected. From the beginning of the revelation of God, when, after the fall, He came seeking the rebellious first man and his wife with the loving call, “Where art thou?” (Gen 3:9) to our Lord’s plaintive lament over Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt 23:37, italics added), the message of God is the message of a loving God who seeks and desires to save the lost. Our Lord did not come in order that God might love men, but because God loved men!
The concept of reconciliation is, of course, not limited to the words reconcile or reconciliation. When Scripture speaks of “peace with God” (Rom. 5:1), of Christ as “our peace” (Eph. 2:14), and of His work of “establishing peace” (Eph. 2:15-17), this is reconciliation, the work of God in Christ to remove the enmity and alienation that separates God and man (Rom. 5:1-11).
Since, for the apostle, reconciliation is always to God (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19; Eph. 2:16), the words “to himself” (eis auton) would stress this fact. God is not reconciled; He is propitiated. It is mankind, through faith in Christ, that is reconciled to God.
In short, reconciliation is the finished and whole work of God through Christ Jesus by which man is brought from the place of enmity to harmony or peace with God (Rom. 5:1). There are other terms used in Scripture of God’s gracious work in Christ like redemption, justification, regeneration, and propitiation, but reconciliation seems to be the over-all term of Scripture which encompasses all the other terms as a part of what God has done through the Lord Jesus to completely remove the enmity or alienation, the whole of the barrier (sin, God’s holiness, death, unrighteousness, etc.). It is this work that sets God free to justify the believing sinner by faith in Christ so there is peace with God, the change of relationship from hostility to harmony. “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9).
In the light of this definition and explanation of reconciliation, several things need to be kept in mind. First, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, like Colossians 1:19-20, teaches us that reconciliation is all from God through Christ. It is the work of God apart from man’s works. Second, as evidenced by the last words of the Savior when on the cross, “It is finished,” so 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 shows that it is a completed or finished work. It’s a done deal because the Savior has accomplished all that needs to be done to provide salvation. Third, as obvious from Colossians 1:20, the cross is the place, and a vital and necessary part of reconciliation. This is evident in the words, “by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20, cf. also Eph. 2:14-18). It is on the cross that Christ became our substitute and paid the penalty for our sin. Fourth, though it is a finished work, people must trust in this work of reconciliation by personal faith in order for reconciliation to be effective for any individual (Rom. 5:2-10; 2 Cor. 5:20).
Finally, this work of reconciliation extends to “all things…whether things on earth or things in heaven.” This shows that God’s reconciliation is not limited to humankind, but we must not assume that this verse teaches universalism or universal salvation, for this would be quite contrary to the rest of Scripture. As Wiersbe explains,
Universalism” is the teaching that all beings, including those who have rejected Jesus Christ, will one day be saved. This was not what Paul believed. “Universal restorationism” was not a part of Paul’s theology, for he definitely taught that sinners needed to believe in Jesus Christ to be saved (2 Thes. 1).
So what do the words “all things” and “whether things on earth or things in heaven” refer to? In keeping with the apostle’s own teaching, this must be understood in the light of Romans 8:18-23.
8:18 For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us. 8:19 For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly but because of God who subjected it—in hope 8:21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. 8:23 Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Johnson explains,
The answer to the problem is probably to be found in Paul’s words in Romans 8:18–23. The apostle sees man and the creation linked together, and man’s sin has affected the whole creation (cf. Gen 3:17–19). Since Paul elsewhere states that the church shall judge angels (cf. 1 Cor 6:3), apparently even the angelic world is involved in defilement (cf. Job 4:18 [?]; 15:15; 25:5). Answering to this, the reconciling work affects not only man, but the whole created universe. When man’s redemption according to the divine program for the age is completed, then that redemption shall be extended to the physical creation. Just as sin and creation’s curse occurred in history, so shall redemption and creation’s deliverance occur in history. The earthly kingdom, therefore, is a necessary issue of the redemption of man. The creation itself groans and travails in pain as it awaits the day of its redemption (cf. Rom 8:22). As sin brought upon it the curse, so redemption leads to the glorious day when “the wilderness and solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isa 35:1). The significance of this in the Colossian situation is patent: The angels, far from being true objects of worship (2:18 ), are themselves in need of the effects of the Savior’s ministry!
That Christ reconciles “all things…whether things on earth or things in heaven” points to the completeness of the plan of God for the universe. This will include the defeat of the enemies of God as described in Revelation 6-19, and the new heavens and earth to be created following the millennial reign of Christ (Isa. 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1), but we dare not miss the fact that the method and means for this is the blood of the cross (Col. 1:20) through God’s sinless Lamb (John 1:29). This truth is beautifully portrayed in the scene depicted in Revelation 5. In the right hand of the sovereign God who sits on the throne is a seven-sealed scroll. Many believe that the seven-sealed book contains the story of man losing his lordship over the earth to Satan, the usurper, and its recovery through the God-man Savior, the Lion who is also the Lamb. As the Lamb who was slain, but is alive, He alone is able to accomplish what no one else in the universe can. This is why John is seen sobbing. At first, it appears that no one can recover what has been lost. But through the judgments described in chapters 6-19, which are the judgments of the seven-sealed scroll, the trumpets, and bowls, the Lamb defeats all the enemies of God and comes forth as the King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16). Taken primarily from the book of Hebrews, the following may help to demonstrate the picture.
(1) As originally intended by God, the earth and its dominion properly belonged to Adam and to his progeny or descendants (Gen. 1:26-30; Heb. 2:7-8). In this we see the Divine Purpose for Man Decreed (Heb. 2:6-8a)
(2) God never intended for angels, either the good angels, or Satan and the fallen angels under his control, to rule over the earth and the human race (Heb. 2:5, 8b, 14-15; Rev. 9:1-11; 12:1-10). Because of the fall, we see the Divine Purpose Delayed (Heb. 2:8b), “But now we do not see all things subjected to him.”
(3) Therefore, someone must be found within humanity, a kinsman redeemer, who qualified to reclaim the lost inheritance, someone who was true humanity, yet free and able to redeem—not a sinful man or an angel (Heb. 2:9, 14-17). Note the elements of worthiness and redemption in Rev. 5:9-10. In this we see the Divine Purpose for Man Accomplished (paradise lost is regained) (Heb. 2:9, 14, 17).
(Adapted from URL:https://bible.org/seriespage/8-supremacy-work-christ-part-1-plenitude-and-description-his-work-col-119-20)
Some false teachers in Colossae had made the Christian life more complicated than what was required by God. They had added obligations beyond God’s to the Colossian believers. We do not know why these teachers presented the Colossians with these things. The false teachers had forgotten or altogether disregarded the importance of a connection to Christ, the head of the church. Instead of seeking life in Christ, they vainly sought wisdom through human regulations. It can be tempting to believe that we don’t add anything extra to our faith. Yet, the reality is that we often do. Sometimes, we set explicit or implicit rules on ourselves and, by extension, on other believers. Our observance of these rules or guidelines does not mean that our hearts are automatically more or less holy. But issues arise if we raise these rules to the same level as God’s Word. We or other believers may be spiritually harmed. We should carefully examine our behavior regarding such regulations. Ensure that you first maintain a relationship with Christ, the head of the church. What, after all, can be added to the gospel of salvation through Christ? What more do we need? Only when we accept that Christ’s work has accomplished what we needed for reconciliation can we be filled with his wisdom. Ask for the Spirit’s guidance to discern whether you are following the world’s wisdom or God’s wisdom. At the Spirit’s leading, we will be free to engage in practices that lead to the glory of God and the edification of other believers. Seek the Head! And heed the Spirit.