October 23, 2011 · Colossians 2:8

In Christ, Fullness

Italic. ⭑ RULE ZERO. ⛔ Nothing composed, nothing bridged. --> [A] Hollow and Deceptive Philosophy So I don't have any interesting little story to start off with today. It's one of those times I just can't reflect on the Scripture — I just feel like I need to jump right in.

“That's the type of philosophy which we must refrain from. There's another form of philosophy which the early church actually embraced. In fact, some of the early church fathers would describe their own lives that way — they'd say, and then he became a follower of our philosophy, which meant that they became Christians, they entered the church, were baptized, received Christ, the Holy Spirit. And they thought of that as their philosophy. Why? Well, philosophy means love of wisdom — and the Scriptures say that Christ is the wisdom of God. So if you know what the Bible says wisdom is, Christ, and you understand that philosophy is love of wisdom, then for the Christian, philosophy means love of Christ. That's why I would consider myself a Christian philosopher. So I want to point out, because there is a real danger in this church at Colossae. There is philosophy flying around which Paul sees as hollow and shallow and deceptive and misleading, and he's warning his people against it. What is this philosophy? The philosophy depends on human tradition. depends on human thoughts rather than Christ. They're hearing this worldview that's built about humans trying to be as smart as possible, and some of them are actually trying to combine this deceptive philosophy with Christ. So it's not like they're saying not Christ. They're kind of saying: Christ and. Christ and mystical twists. Christ and astrology. Christ and layers and layers of secret mysterious rituals. Christ and obsession with angels. Christ and ways to purify yourself by thinking excessively high and lofty thoughts. See how suddenly they just add it? They don't throw Christ — they just slip something else in there. Christ plus your thoughts.”