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Things that Deceive: The Pagan Influence
Colossians 2:6-15
In today’s text we have a unique, yet familiar challenge. What was common to the recipients of this letter and to the Apostle Paul is more distant to our contemporary experience. We can bring some historical context to the passage, but in part (or in whole) we are seeking to understand pagan religious language and practice which is largely lost to us today. This dynamic is something we have seen in many portions of our study of the Scriptures. This does not however mean that there is a wealth of application which is maintained which thunders into our present lives.
We will begin with verse 6, which sets the verse we left off with last time. This is because it serves as the conclusion to the earlier passage and also forms the foundation for the verses that follow. In summary, we understand the view that Christ is supreme to all religious forms: those which have substance only in the thinking of the pagan mind (those forms which are imaginations) and those religious forms which touch the human experience on a substantive level - they are real, but wrong; they have form, but are forbidden. They have power and an authority, but have been dominated over by the living Christ at the cross.
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