The Letter to the Colossian Church- 06

Subtitle: The Dangers around Them

Colossians 2:6-8.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, August 17, 2025.

As Paul finishes laying out his struggle to present them as complete in Jesus Christ, he now moves to instruct them about the dangers to their faith.

Let’s look at our passage.

Paul’s charge to them (v. 6-7)

Before Paul gets into the dangers specifically, he gives them a command or charge.  The best defense is a good offense.  Thus, Paul instructs them on what they should be doing.  If they will do these things, then it will be much easier for them to stand against the dangers to their faith.

He first tells them to walk in Christ in the same way that they had received him.  He knew exactly what they had been taught about Jesus the Christ.  Epaphras had been part of his ministry.  He had then gone back home to share the Gospel.  Since the churches started in Colossae and the areas around it, Epaphras had visited Paul in Rome, telling him of the faith of these Colossians.  It is good to have a good start, but he wants them to continue in it.

Now, there are lots of groups today that have received something different than the teachings of the Apostles of Jesus.  Some haven’t received anything, and others have been raised in a cult or drawn into one.  Paul is not telling them they can’t ask questions, and that they should do what he says.  Rather, he is addressing the dangers around them.

There is a strength to being busy about the things that you should be.  But, if I am lazy and don’t do “the chores,” if I am diverted and focused on amusements, then I am susceptible to many troubles.  If you have received the truth about Christ, then you have received all that you need; so, stick with him!

This metaphor of walking is used to describe a person who is living life in a particular way.  Our choices and actions are supposed to be based upon the teachings and the example of Jesus and his apostles.  The New Testament is the sure, confirmed, word of God.  People often mention that there are other books that were thrown out of the Bible, usually referring to the “gnostic gospels.”  These showed up in the second and third centuries by gnostic teachers who were trying to hybridize Christian teachings so that they would fit with their ideas.  Notice that we are in danger too!  We are in danger of being led to push the Bible aside and follow after other writings that have nothing to do with One True Jesus.

We are following Christ while we are also “in him.”  He is our ark of safety (think Noah) that will bring us through this world.  Thus, we are given multiple ways of looking at our life in Christ.  We are walking the path he has blazed before us, while he also helps us through the Holy Spirit, and we are in him like a branch is in the vine.

They had received the teaching of how to follow Christ.  They had also received Christ by the leading of the Holy Spirit.  It was not just a matter of information.  Thus, these people need to continue to be led by the Holy Spirit, instead of teachers who are led by a false spirit.

What does walking with Christ look like?  Be a person of the Word of God.  Study it prayerfully, seeking to know God’s character and will for you.  Be a person of prayer.  “Lord, I need you.”  Be a person of the Spirit, trusting God to lead you.  And, be a person who is living out the righteousness of Jesus.  Anything that pulls you away from these things is not of God.

Paul then introduces another metaphor: a plant, or a tree.  They had been firmly rooted in Christ.  This should remind us of the parable of the soils.  We want to be good soil so that the word of God can grow in our lives and bring forth a fruitfulness in our life that comes from Christ.  Our soil is not static.  We may need to roll some rocks out of our soil to increase the depth, and we may need to pull some weeds (the cares of this life) to increase fruitfulness.  We may need to even break up hardened soil in our life due to people trampling our hearts.  These dangers had been surmounted by them.  They had been firmly rooted.

A gardener doesn’t give up just because weeds keep cropping up.  They don’t try another plot, looking for one that doesn’t produce any weeds.  No, pulling weeds is part of growing a garden. 

There is a time to look at our roots and ask the question, “Am I firmly rooted?”  We should be stuck, or frozen, in this analysis.  Instead, we turn to God in prayer and ask Him to help you to become firmly rooted, past tense, so that you can move on to fruitfulness.

And then, Paul pulls out another metaphor, that of a building.  This is pictured as currently happening in their lives.  They are being built up in Christ.  Those who are firmly rooted in Christ will grow spiritually.  This growth of a plant can be likened to the growth of a building project.

Throughout this passage, Paul has been talking to them as a group, the “you” is plural throughout.  We can understand the growth of a plant in comparison to a building project.  Yet, this building metaphor reminds us how our individual growth is tied into and part of the group growth.  We are each like living stones that are being placed next to other stones.  This is Jesus creating a temple for God (in you as an individual, but also in us as a Church) out of believers.  This is what Peter is talking about in 1 Peter 2:4-5.

“And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

He then mentions that they are established in their faith.  Established has the idea of that which has been made firm and sure.  The established person will not be moved away from their faith in Christ, in his work, and in his teachings.  He ties this back to the way that they had received Christ (“Just as you were instructed”). 

I am reminded of a saint named Polycarp.  He lived from 69 AD to 155 AD in the town of Smyrna.  At some point persecution came to his city, and Polycarp was challenged to renounce Christ or be put to death.  Polycarp was an old man and replied that he had served Christ a long time, and Christ had never done him wrong.  Why would he turn against Jesus now?  Of course, Polycarp was then martyred for his faith in Jesus.  His faith in Christ was well established, firm and sure.

How can you and I be like that?  We can be like that because it is not just you holding on to Jesus.  It is also Jesus holding on to  you.  Walk with Jesus, and he will draw you closer and closer to himself.

Paul then ends with reminding them to be overflowing with gratitude, thankfulness, or thanksgiving.  The things he has mentioned before this can lead to frustrations and difficulty.  However, the Christian is to walk, to live, with an attitude of thanks to God.

If we approach life as if we don’t have what we should have, then we are lying against God who supplies everything we need.  We also make ourselves ripe for charlatans who will come along and lead us away from Christ.  Instead of being satisfied with the supply from Christ, we are hungry for something more.  Beware, it will find you, and then you will find that it is not something more at all.

Instead of complaining, we can trust God.  “I don’t know how, but my God shall supply, and has supplied, all my needs!”

Instead of being infected with materialistic envy, we should not just be grateful.  We should be overflowing with it!

See that no one takes you captive (v. 8)

No matter how well you are walking, growing, and being built up in Christ, people will come along who desire to take you captive.  The picture is that of being dragged off into exile, out of Jesus (he is the Promise Land spiritually, until he returns to take up the kingdoms of the world).

These charlatans can drag unsuspecting Christians completely away from Jesus to something else, or they can convince us to believe a twisted version of Jesus and the Gospel.  This can be done in a way that is like the Greeks, and it can be done in a way that is like the Jews.  This form is really the most dangerous because it can claim that you are still walking in Christ.  Listen, just because a teacher uses biblical terminology doesn’t mean that they are actually giving you the words of Christ and his apostles.  You have to check it against the Bible itself.

Notice that Paul tells them to “see to it.”  We need to be vigilant and watchful so that we are not taken out of Christ.  Watchfulness means that we are in prayer about the things we believe.  We prayerfully watch our lives for what the Spirit of God says for us to do, and against what He may warn us.

He then warns them about the tactics or approach of these charlatans.  They use philosophies and empty deceptions.  The Greeks had many philosophical schools that attempted to give wisdom through human reasoning.  These were often attached to the religious ideas of a society.  Even some of the Jews, during the centuries leading up to the time of Jesus, had reinterpreted the Old Testament through the teachings of these philosophical schools.  These philosophical schools had an appearance of wisdom, but in the end, they were not source in the Jesus the Christ.

On top of the philosophical schools, there were teachers who dabbled in philosophy and religion to the point of teaching a hodgepodge of ideas.  They would attempt to wow people into listening to them and giving them accolades, power, even wealth.

In some ways, this is how the average American lives today.  We are very eclectic, picking and choosing from many different philosophies, religions,  and sources of knowledge.  We tend to believe what we feel sounds the best.  This is a good way to be misled.

The problem with these philosophies and empty deceptions is that their source is found in the “traditions of men.”  Even if you start with truth, traditions can build up over time and insulate us from truth and to something else.

The traditions of men use human reasoning in order to make the “system” better.  These are the accumulated ideas of smart guys over the years.  Over time, we can reason ourselves away from the trunk of the tree, out on a limb, and then saw the limb off behind us.

So far, I have focused on the human aspect of this.  Yet, there is a spiritual aspect.  The Greeks had the same dynamic as the Jews did in this regard.  Romans chapter one and two describe how our penchant for following our own wisdom instead of God’s, and worshipping the creation instead of the Creator, leads to a debased mind.  It leads to a person, a society, that is given over to the things they have chosen.

These charlatans also emphasized the “elementary principles of the world.”  There is some debate about what is actually meant by this phrase, but the best understanding is that it points to the underlying assumptions that lie beneath the world view of a society and its religion.  In order to reason and apply logic, certain axioms and principles are generally accepted as true, whether they can be proven or not.  They are generally treated as self-evident on the level of one plus one equals two.

A common elementary principle of the Greek and Roman world is that matter and material things are bad, or at least tend towards evil.  On the other hand, the spirit is good, or tends toward good.  Such elementary principles often clashed with the revelation of God in the Bible and through His Apostles.  Did Jesus come in the flesh?  They would reason that if he truly was God, then he couldn’t be actually flesh.  

Teachers who ran into Christianity recognized that it was a powerful vehicle for promoting ideas.  They would then try to “perfect” it by making it fit into their elementary principles.  This retooling of Christianity brought about the gnostic gospels over the centuries following the spread of the Gospel of Christ by the true Apostles.

We see similar things in the American society.  Certain things have become so ingrained in the culture that people do not question it, and even twist the Scripture to fit with it.  An example can be seen in the American dream.  Typically, it is said that the American dream is for your kids to have it better than you did.  Stories of immigrants who have worked themselves to death to make it better for their kids are real and commendable.  However, the real American dream, the one that caused the first waves of people to these shores was much different.  It was all about the freedom to worship God without governmental interference and controlling national churches. 

The problem with all of these things is that Jesus Christ is not the source of them.  Thus, Paul ends verse 8 with the phrase, “not according to Christ.”  The Colossians had received truth that was built upon what Jesus taught through the work of the Apostles.  This is the truth that has been revealed from the One who created all things and is even now recreating them. 

Jesus is recreating all things, starting with humans, starting with us.  Humans were the last to be created in the old creation, but they are the first thing recreated in the new one.  The philosophers, proponents of false religions, and those pushing empty deceptions, have nothing to do with the new creation.  They are all stuck messing around with the old creation, which is passing away.

Philosophy and human reasoning have often been employed to first draw us beyond what Scripture says.  If we can be led to trust in things that are beyond Scripture, then we can be led to discount Scripture altogether.

There are lots of slick teachers out there who want to take you captive, whether for their ego, wealth, or pleasures.  We must walk in Christ as the Bible teaches and watch out for these charlatans.  Ask yourself this.  Am I a part of the New Creation of Jesus Christ, or am I a part of the old creation, which is destined to be destroyed?

Let’s put our trust in Christ and live in the joy that belongs to those who know that they have all they need for life and godliness in Jesus!

Dangers Audio

Gratitude

May 31, 2015- Luke 17:11-19

At this point Jesus turns south to head towards Jerusalem by going between Galilee and Samaria.  It is here that he enters an unnamed village and encounters 10 lepers.  Today’s passage gives us a lesson in gratitude or thankfulness.  Neglecting to give thanks where thanks is due is a poor habit that causes our character to deteriorate.  In fact, ingratitude tends to spoil the good things that we have.  It is very common for a person to care for a new vehicle with great detail.  However, as the car gets older our care for it can deteriorate.  It is easier to drive it around without washing it etc…  This ability to diminish in vigor towards the things we ought to do can affect even those who start out very thankful.  Now there are ten people in our story who receive an amazing gift of healing from a horrible disease, and yet only one of them glorifies God and gives thanks to Jesus.  Let’s look at that.

The Hopeless Condition

In verses 11-14 we see the encounter Jesus has with ten lepers.  To be a leper was to be in a very hopeless situation.  Though the Law of Moses has very clear instructions on how a leper could be declared clean by the priest, nothing is said on what to do to get clean.  The truth is that it was extremely rare for a person who had leprosy to get better.  It was practically a death sentence to see its beginning stages on one’s skin.  Nothing could be done medically for these people and their body would slowly deteriorate and waste away.

However, that is only the physical side.  There was also a social stigma.  It was required for lepers to be separated from the rest of the village or city.  Thus a leper is one who has had to break off close contact with family and friends and becomes an outcast.  This type of social quarantine is a very heavy burden for a person to carry because God has made us with an innate drive to socialize on some level.

Thus lepers would often end up in small groups far enough from cities to be separate, but close enough to be able to receive any gracious help from the righteous.  These small “outcast communities” were better than nothing.  Yet, the hopeless condition of each person and the approaching doom of death was a constant shadow over it.

In some ways leprosy is a picture of the sin nature that riddles our human nature.  In this sense we are all spiritually lepers.  It cannot be fixed or healed by anything this world holds.  Only God can help us.  Yet, it is also a picture of the Church of Christ in its sense of being an outcast society.  Yes, from God’s perspective we are the called out ones and that is special.  But from the world’s perspective we are the outcast ones to which it says, “Good riddance!”  We can look at leprosy as a metaphor for being ostracized for one reason or another and learn a lot here.  In Hebrews 13:12-13 it says, “Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”  Jesus presents himself as the rejected one and offers us a place within his community of outcast ones.

So we have a physical problem, a social problem and lastly we have a theological problem.  Notice that the lepers stand afar off and lift up their voices to Jesus.  That is because they were under requirement by the Law of Moses and the traditions to not come close to a clean person.  Now this pictures the condition of all mankind.  We are spiritual lepers who dare not come close to a pure God.  Legally we are doomed (“the soul who sins will die”).  Yet, in Jesus, God not only comes close to the lepers (see Luke 5 where Jesus touches one), but He actually makes himself worse than the lepers and requires them to join Him by faith in an even deeper level of being outcast.  Though the Law walls us off from God and we are relegated to crying for mercy from afar off, the grace of God has brought Jesus to our side of the Law as he joins us in our hopeless condition.  The marvelous truth is that Jesus is the Lord of life and no condition can remain hopeless when he is there.  Yet, the spiritual healing of a believer in Jesus is seen by the world as a social disease more and more in this world.  At its core, the gospel calls the world to embrace a difficult situation in order to be healed.

The Strange Command

Jesus gives the lepers a strange command and, before we get in to its specifics, I want to show how what he does is so much like how God operates.  In the desert there was a time where the children of Israel were harassed by snakes that were biting a lot of the people.  God told Moses to make a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole.  He was then to instruct those who were bitten to make their way to this thing and simply look upon it in order to be healed.  We are not told that anyone refused to do so.  However, we must admit it was a strange command.  Similarly the Bible tells of a Syrian general named Naaman who happened to be a leper.  His skill as a general had spared him a life of poverty, but it could not completely remove the stigma of the disease he had and its destruction on his flesh.  A young Israelite tells Naaman that there is a prophet in Israel who could heal him.  Thus Naaman travels to Israel and is told to dip 7 times in the Jordan River.  Naaman is offended at being told to dip in the muddy Jordan 7 times and heads home.  It is then that a servant challenges him to at least do it.  Though it didn’t make sense it was actually quite easy to do.  Why not?  God often gives strange commands to test whether or not we trust Him.  What is interesting is that they are often easy to do, but on the other hand they are intellectually and emotionally hard.  Now when I call these strange commands, I will point out that God does not give commands that are contrary to His nature.  Yet, they are often contrary to our logic and require us to trust Him, i.e. exercise faith.

So here, Jesus tells them to show themselves to the priests even though they are still lepers.  Now the only reason for a leper to do this would be because they saw some signs that they were getting better.  Yet, these men are being told to do so without any signs they are better.  They simply must take the word of Jesus for it.  Now His word is pretty heavy because he has proven he can heal.  This call for faith or trust balances two outcomes.  If I trust Him and He fails then I will be humiliated and crushed.  But, if I trust Him and He heals me then I will be free of this cursed condition.  Even today the call of Christ is one that calls us to follow Him by faith, believing that he will do the spiritual work of cleansing us from our sins and healing our hearts (that he will make us to be like him).  You may feel that it isn’t working and are tempted to quit following him.  I would challenge you to listen to this story today and here what the Spirit is saying to you, “Trust me.”  If you will continue to walk in the path that Jesus is on and do the things that he has told you to do, you will find that he will give powerful healing to you in every way.

Thus all ten of the lepers decide to go and show themselves to the priest.  They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  We are told that they are healed as they go.  Although we are not told how far they went, it was close enough for one to come back and still find Jesus at the village.  I like to think that it was close enough to return and far enough away to be an inconvenience.  Can you imagine their journey?  First is the question, “Are we going to be healed?”  Then the doubts would come, “What if we get there and are still lepers?  Why did he tell us to do this?”  However, when they realize they are healed, I bet it was a Hallelujah moment.   Suddenly they know they can go back to their families and perhaps embrace a child they haven’t been able to touch or see for years.  Every fiber of their being wants to get back to a normal life and yet, what about Jesus.  Can I put my anticipated joys on hold long enough to go back and thank the one who made this possible?  Ours is not a geographical journey.  However, we are on our way to the celestial city to present ourselves to God.  We do this because we have believed what Jesus has told us to do.  Along the road of this life the mysterious power of Christ is working to bring healing to us in every way.  In fact Christ promises to make us every bit whole and complete.  Yet, it doesn’t happen the second we believe.  It happens as we go in faith following the command of Christ.  The joyful truth is that when we stand before the Father in heaven we will be completely clean!  Praise God.

Only One Was Grateful

Gratitude, thankfulness, probably all were thankful at some level.  Yet, only one took the trouble to come to Jesus and show it.  It is not enough to say that we have gratitude in our hearts.  True gratitude seeks opportunity to show itself to the One to whom we are grateful.

Now there is a difference between being happy for grace and being thankful to Jesus for giving it.  The difference is where our primary focus is.  Sometimes we find ourselves being happier for what we have received than we are thankful to God for giving it.  In that way we can be guilty of taking God’s gifts without regard for Him as the giver.  Which is greater, the giver or the gift?  We know the answer, but our life often shows a different answer.

Only one leper took the extra time to glorify God.  Maybe some others thought about going back to give thanks, but this man was the only one who actually did it.  It is sad how despicable our lust for good things can become when we see just how much we can become like an animal feasting on the carcass of Gods gifts.  Instead of taking the time to restrain our flesh and give thanks to God and glorify him for his gifts and then cooking a meal to enjoy, we can leap upon those gifts and suck them dry of any life they have in them.  In the passage the man first glorifies God and then thanks Jesus.  These two things are coupled together.  Thankfulness is between me and God and should be expressed often.  But glorification is between me and you.  It is our testimony of what God has done for us and how great He is.  Take time to Glorify God by declaring what He has done in your life and take time to express thanks to those through whom God has done them.  Though it may seem like wasted time, it is not.  It is time spent keeping our eyes upon the higher and more important things (relationship with God and his people).  It is time delivering our soul from the tyranny of the lust of our flesh for the lower gifts that God can and does give.  In fact it is a means of delivering ourselves from the sin of idolatry.  The good thing that God gives today can become an idol in my life that comes between me and Him.  In the day that we let God’s gifts become idols to us, they also become worthless to us.

A side note to this story is that the thankful leper was a Samaritan, which implies most of the others, if not all, were Judeans.  This Samaritan was even further away from God than the Judeans.  Of all the lepers this Samaritan would deserve it least and yet he is the one who returns.  In Luke 7 Jesus explained this dynamic before Simon the Pharisee, when a woman who was a sinner washed and anointed his feet.  He told Simon a story to illustrate this principle: The one who is forgiven much loves much, but the one who is forgiven little loves little.  Perhaps the Judeans felt they deserved a healing.  Perhaps a part of them was saying, “It’s about time!”  Yet the truth is that all of us are equally undeserving of the grace of God.  If we truly understood our sin we would know that God has given us far more than we ever deserved and could have hoped for.  We would run to him, tossing aside the gifts, in order to wash his feet with our tears and wipe it dry with our head.  The things of this world like different races, stations in life, etc. that make us think we are more deserving are a lie.  We are all the least deserving.  Until we see that we will be ungrateful or at best give it sparingly.  It will ruin our gifts like a cancer that goes untreated if we do not turn around and give God the glory with all our heart.

Jesus then tells the thankful ex-leper this, “Your faith has made you well.”  Now in the context all of the lepers had faith enough to obey Jesus.  Now it is important to remember that the word that is often translated as “heal” can also mean “save,” depending on the context.  It literally means to be safe or saved, whether from injury, disease, or sin, character deficiency, and emotional sickness.  Clearly Jesus means more than that the man’s faith had physically healed him.  Something more would happen in this man’s life than those who were ungrateful.  He would find a spiritual healing as well.  It is a tragedy to be physically healed and yet not be spiritually healed.  Have you settled for lesser things?  Let us all be quick to be more thankful that Jesus is in our lives than all the gifts he could ever give.

Gratitude audio