Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Today we are going to be walking in some kind of controversial territory with the text we are in but it is in scripture and that is one of the beautiful things of looking at passages exegetically.

It forces you to tackle and discuss difficult passages.

Our passage for today continues to build on what we have been learning in Colossians.

Specifically it is a continuation of the warning that Paul and Timothy began in verse 8 of chapter 2.

This verse laid out the central concern that Paul had in writing to the Colossians.

As we look

Paul first expanded on Christ in verses 9-15, which we looked at previously and why it matters that we are in Christ.

Jesus is the only alternative to the false teaching.

The fullness of all spiritual experience is found in Christ, in whom the fullness of God’s deity dwells.

Paul is now turning back though to further explain the false teaching, the philosophy and empty deceit.

In doing so he is also reiterating what the solution is to this problem.

That solution of course is Jesus.

The false teachers were trying to convince the Colossians that the head is not enough.

Paul though wrote to remind them to not let anything rule their hearts and lives except Jesus.

Read

The Colossian readers.

We must first dive into our passage by trying to look at and understand what the message meant for its original readers.

We can break it down into a few different parts.

Paul’s Second warning.

V.16-17

Paul begins verse 16, let no one pass judgment on you, specifically in regards to food, drink, festivals, and a sabbath.

We have to remember where we are coming from in our reading,

Because it is in Christ that you have spiritual fullness, Paul is saying, do not let anyone impose upon you a program of spiritual development that does not have Christ at its heart.

This is really a continuation of why it matters that believers are in Christ.

There were beliefs and practices that were being forced upon the Colossian believers by outside sources.

Be they Jewish or pagan or a mix of both we don’t know for sure.

The source is not as much the issue as the fact that they were there.

For the Jews, purity in food was very important.

It was one of the main ways that they showed their holiness before God.

There were food laws but not much in the way of drinking.

The law prohibits drinking only on certain specific occasions: the people are not to drink contaminated water (Lev.

11:34–36); the priests are not to drink wine when entering the tent of meeting (cf.

Lev.

10:9); and those who take a Nazirite vow are to drink no wine for the period of their vow

There were also Greco-Roman philosophical and religious traditions that also placed limitations on eating and drinking.

The next thing that Paul and Timothy warn about is keeping specific religious days.

The three that he speaks of are festivals of sorts, new moon celebrations, or sabbath days.

Special days were of great importance to both Jewish and pagan religions.

If you did not observe the day, you were not a holy or devout person.

These things were in view because there were easily viewed externally.

What a person eats or drinks, the things they attended, would make them appear either more or less holy.

One thing that is implied then from this understanding has to do with the role of the sabbath then in the church.

As was the keeping of the Sabbath.

Holy days and

Pagan beliefs also had different festivals

Paul is seeking to remind his readers of the truth.

The things mentioned in this verse are not bad in of themselves.

The difficulty comes when someone is passing judgment on the Colossian Christians because they are not following the same things they are.

Taking this idea and expanding on it a little we could take the observance of the sabbath to be entirely optional.

Some might say, during that time, that they didn’t observe the sabbath because it was it was all a show.

The requirement of Sabbath observance that Paul was writing about though was that of a sabbath that was caught up into a greater mix of ideas and beliefs.

Verse 17 helps the readers to clear up some of this confusion.

The language and logic of v. 17 suggest that the primary problem with Sabbath observance was a failure to reckon with the “fulfillment” of such institutions in the new era of salvation.

Paul did not see the observance of a Sabbath in a classical Jewish way as binding and that a continuation of the Christian first day to be such.

The Jewish Sabbath was but a shadow of Christ.

The false teachers were convinced in their own minds but they were convinced wrongly and were passing judgment on the Colossian believers.

it is wrong for anyone to pass judgment on someone else over the matters mentioned in v. 16, because these matters are only the “shadow” of the reality that Christians now find in Christ.

This of course does not mean that Paul did not see meeting together of no value.

Only he questioned the peoples motives of meeting together.

As continues

This is the idea that Paul is trying to get at through his warnings.

Paul’s desire is that these things not get in the way of Jesus.

Believers who belong to the new era through their incorporation into Christ therefore experience the reality to which the Old Testament and its law pointed.

And they are no longer compelled to follow the laws of that earlier era.

The Colossian Christians should not let anyone insist on their observing the rules and ceremonies of the earlier era that has now passed.

Heb.

10:1

The desire is that Jesus rule the hearts of His followers, not food, drink, or special days.

The only thing that can change the believer is Jesus work in them.

The goal then is to not let anything rule your heart then except Jesus.

Paul’s third warning.

V.18-19

First off we should define some terms.

Asceticism -

The term is derived from Gk. ἄσκησις (‘exercise’, ‘training’) already applied by the Greek philosophers to moral training, often with the connotation of voluntary abstention from certain pleasures; it denotes (1) practices employed to combat vices and develop virtues and (2) the renunciation of various facets of customary social life and comfort or the adoption of painful conditions for religious reasons.

Essentially living the life of a monk.

This third warning though shifts from talking about what the teachers were imposing on the people to the teachers themselves.

Looking to some other translations helps us to see this a bit better

The NASB translates the word for asceticism as self-abasement.

This brings to mind practices such as fasting, as was mentioned in the definition for asceticism.

The NIV translates the word to be humility.

The false teacher themselves found delight in the monk like practices.

And they found delight in imposing their beliefs and their convictions on others.

Paul places their humility in question.

The humility is that they are showing is wrongly directed.

Paul pictures the opponent as setting up “humility” as “his own goal.”

The opponent then insists, “My way is superior to yours; it achieves goals you fall short of.”

Continuing in the verse Paul gives us some further description as to why their practices fell short.

Their idea of humility was often part of preparations for heavenly visions and revelations that the false teachers were seeking after.

This was all meant as a holier than though facade which continued into the worship of angels.

Angels held multiple different purposes in cult religions.

They were believed to play important roles in governments and the world, and they were sought after to ward off evil effects as well as to give protection.

the false teachers are “hung up on” the visions that they have been receiving, relating them endlessly to anyone who would listen and perhaps bragging about them as well

The PNTC summarizes this verse rather nicely.

the false teachers are “hung up on” the visions that they have been receiving, relating them endlessly to anyone who would listen and perhaps bragging about them as well

To summarize this difficult verse, then, we find Paul to be asserting four things about the false teachers: (1) they put a great deal of stock in ascetic practices, perhaps to induce visions;

2) they are so concerned with calling on angels as a means of protection from evil forces that they are virtually worshiping them;

3) they focus on visions they have experienced, perhaps citing the content of those visions in their teaching;

Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub.

Co., 2008), 228.