Paul’s treatise to the Colossian Church celebrates a high view of Christology. He writes in a way to praise, encourage, and warn the church. Paul goes in great detail in revealing the beauty of the Gospel by stating such phrases, “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col.1:15), “The fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col.1:19), “And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (Col. 1:21-22).
As we are going to see, Paul was building his argument to challenge a false teaching/philosophy that was circulating in his day.
Indeed, in chapter 2 verse 4, he makes a pivotal statement. He begins by saying, “I say this in order” which implies the importance of his previous statements. Then he writes, “That no one may delude you with plausible arguments.” This is an introductory statement in which he fleshes out a few sentences later.
However, the term “delude” in Greek is paralogízomai which means, deceive close beside, reason contrary to truth in a misleading way, using what seems “plausible” but later lets the person down.” In other words, the philosophers/false teachers in Paul’s day had “seemingly” convincing arguments; yet, as we are going to see were full of deceit.
Paul goes on to write in verse 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.” Several items to observe before we dive into whom Paul was likely referring to.
- Do not become a captive. Remember before the above pivot, Paul was arguing for the supremacy of Christ and the unity of believers. However, Paul either has been informed, or discerned the church is in danger of being taken captive by a misleading philosophy. The term he uses for captive is, sylagōgéō, which expresses the imagery of, “to carry off like a predator with its prey; to spoil.” Whatever this “philosophy” was, it had the potential to “carry away” members of the Colosse church.
- Three factors make up this philosophy. The statements that Paul makes in the following gives us a peek into his worldview and what was causing the particular issue in Colosse. Paul writes “three accordings” in verse 8. Let’s view what he states. (A) Human tradition. Those who were arguing there philosophy, were drawing a lot of there information from human tradition. This is not to say that human tradition is bad in and of itself; however, when tradition is being used to oppose Christ and his purposes, we need to carefully probe what is being presented. It could be extremely dangerous (See Matt. 15:1-14). (B) Elemental spirits. The term that Paul used to describe these “elemental spirits” is “stoixeíon” which has a twofold meaning. On one hand, it speaks of the fundamental principles of the world especially in regards to pagan religion. On the other hand, it speaks of demonic spirits, potentially, in the rank of rulers and authorities (see verse 15). For those of us who are familiar with deliverance ministry, this makes perfect sense. Indeed, the Old and New Testament usually describe evil spirits in regards to there torment (i.e. deaf and dumb spirit, spirit of infirmity, lying spirit, spirit of antichrist, spirit of error, etc). These seem to be all elemental spirits. However, in addition, they are fundamental principles that also describe human functionality. This does not mean if one tells a single lie he has a lying spirit. However, what we can draw from Paul’s understanding is that our human behavior and the spirit world are closely related. Indeed, these elemental spirits can empower that of misleading philosophies or that of false teaching as Paul writes,
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” ( 1 Tim. 4:1).
(C) Not according to Christ. The philosophies that these teachers were espousing were contrary to Christ. Ironically enough, although there teaching were contrary to Christ, they used imagery and terms that seemingly were religious and closely related to Christian belief (see above term, paralogízomai). Paul mentions several categories that was likely incorporated in the “philosophy”. Those categories were circumcision (v.11), food and drink (v.16), festivals (v.16), new moon (v.16), Sabbath (v.16), asecticism (v.16), worship of angels (v.16), and visions (v.18). These categories were familiar to Jewish believers of the day due to the ceremonial and ritual functionality under the law (Gen. 17:1-4; Lev. 23; Num. 28:11-15).
It is likely that the people with whom Paul is addressing are Jewish teachers of the law that were attempting to introduce elements of the law that needed to be fulfilled, in addition to believing Christ for salvation. We know this was the case in Galatia approximately 15 years prior to his writing to Colosse (Acts 15:1-2; Gal. 1:6-9; 2:15-16).
I have taken time to layout Paul’s theology and admonition, “To not become captive” because many have become captive to the “social justice movement” that has invaded the church. Those who proclaim this philosophy and merge it with Christian theology are dangerous. And for those who listen and believe it, it can be fatal. We are not just dealing with an ideology in and of itself. We are dealing with the influence of demonic spirits or as Paul would suggest, elemental spirits.
In my next blog, I will share why this ideological philosophy is extremely dangerous and needs to be avoided at all costs.
