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Come to the Banqueting Table
(Why hope?)
June 4, 2006
Colossians 1:15-23
Please turn in your bibles to the book of Colossians and we’ll begin reading there in a couple of minutes.
Sometimes we fail to eat the main course of a Biblical feast because we choke on the hors d’oeuvres.
The meal is set before us - perhaps early in the morning alone in our study or sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee.
Perhaps late at night when others are asleep, or perhaps on Sunday morning in a sermon such as now.
You want to enjoy a feast of Biblical truth.
The main course is magnificent.
You catch a glimpse of it.
You are about to savor good meat.
You are hungry.
The anticipation rises.
You start chewing.
And suddenly you choke on an hors d’oeuvres.
In the end you get up from the banquet of Biblical truth and leave the table frustrated and still hungry.
While we’re talking about feasting, I’d like to read you an interview with an international authority on diet and fitness.
Those of you who are serious about the subject may glean something useful from this interview:
So, here is the interview with the revolutionary "health" practitioner Dr. Feelgood:
*Q: *Doc, will cardiovascular exercise prolong my life?
*A: *Your heart is only good for so many beats.
Don't waste them on exercise.
Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer.
That's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster.
If you want to live longer, take a nap.
*Q: *Should I cut down on meat and eat more grain, fruits and vegetables?
*A: *What does a cow eat?
Hay and corn.
And what are those?
Vegetables.
A steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism for delivering vegetables to your system.
Need grain?
Eat a chicken.
*Q: *Is beer or wine bad for me?
*A: *My point about vegetables.
Everything comes in three categories, animal, mineral, and vegetable.
Beer and wine are not animals or minerals.
Have a burger and a beer and enjoy your liquid veggies.
*Q: *How can I calculate my body~/fat ratio?
*A: *If you have a body and you have body fat, your ratio is one to one.
If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.
*Q: *What are the advantages of a regular exercise program?
*A: *None that I can think of.
My philosophy is "No Pain Is Good For You."
*Q: *If I stop smoking, will I live longer?
*A: *No.
Smoking is a stress reducer, unless you're trying to quit.
Try to quit, you'll stress yourself to an early grave.
Not to mention the pounds you'll put on.
*Q: *Aren't fried foods bad for you?
*A: *You're not listening.
Foods are fried in vegetable oil.
How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?
*Q: *Will sit ups prevent me from getting soft around the middle?
*A: *Definitely not!
When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger.
Only do sit ups if you want a bigger stomach.
I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you had about rigorous exercise.
I hope you health and fitness nuts found that helpful.
Now, on to some serious stuff.
I’m going to serve you a banquet this morning - a Biblical banquet from Colossians.
But before we savor Paul’s words, let me give you some background information.
The city of Colosse was 100 miles east of Ephesus.
It was not an influential trading center like Laodicea, but it was a crossroads for ideas and religions.
It had a large Jewish population.
The Christian church of Colosse was founded by Epaphros around 52 AD.
It is thought that Epaphros was a convert of Paul.
In the church at Colosse, heresy was rampant.
The believers of Colosse were meshing the truth about Christ with a mixture of Greek, Jewish and mystical ideas which came out of their religious background.
Paul wrote this letter to set them straight.
Although Paul had not visited Colosse, he was eager to refute the reported heresy about Christ’s power and position which was leading the Christians astray.
The heresy was an early form of gnosticism.
Gnosticism undermined Christianity in several ways:
First, gnostics believed salvation was through secret knowledge, hidden from all but a few believers.
Paul however states that Christ provides all the knowledge we need.
Christ uncovers the mysteries of the ages.
Second, gnostics believed all matter, including our bodies, was evil therefore could not be created by God because God would not create anything evil.
Paul had to counter this by telling them God himself lived in a human body and Christ was sinless with no evil.
Third, gnoticism contended that Christ only seemed to be human, but was actually spirit.
Of course, Paul insisted Jesus was fully human and fully God.
Because gnostics believed all created matter to be evil, the belief was that God could not have created our earth but instead He created it through intermediaries.
God created a layered spirit world - which had the power to create.
Christ would have been one of these created spirits with the power to create.
This was the gnostics attempt to reconcile a holy God with an evil creation.
Christ couldn’t be God so they made him a demi-god.
As you can imagine this leads to grave error about the person and work of Christ.
And here the gnostics formed two camps.
One camp based their belief on Jesus being God .
The other camp believed he was human .
Neither camp believed he was* both*.
Those gnostics who denied Jesus’ humanity gave him a phantom body.
According to them Jesus’ human form was just an illusion.
The other camp who believed Jesus was human had to deny Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah - God with us.
Of course both of these beliefs run counter to the truth: Christ is God in Bodily form!
He was 100% human and 100% God.
These heresies persist today.
JW’s deny the divinity of Christ.
Mormons make Christ a created brother of Satan.
Heresy is not new!
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