In our world today there is a fight going on - which is more important, intellect, or faith? Especially amongst Christians these two ideas fight for preeminence. Some think the two are mutually exclusive - you either have blind faith or you have intellect - but not both. Others say that our minds are the most important - our faith must proceed from our understanding and if the two contradict then the mind must reign supreme.
This is especially born out of hundreds of years of rationalism in our western culture. If we cannot understand and explain something then it is simply not true.
Now I’m not going to argue for any of these points: in fact, I firmly believe that faith must precede understanding - that our goal should be to know Christ’s mind - not our own. And becoming more mature as a Christian doesn’t mean that we get smarter - it means that we think more like Jesus.
Now does that mean we throw away our minds? Certainly not - but we also don’t elevate the mind above our faith. Our faith must precede our ability to understand something completely - there are simply things we will not understand because God is too complicated for us - so he "dumbs it down" for us.
Isaiah 55:8-11
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Believing what God said should come before understanding the mind of God. After we believe, then we can understand.
1 Corinthians 2:13-14 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So why say all of this? Because the book of Colossians is all about which is more important - the mind or faith. It involves an early form of a heresy known as Gnosticism.
8 heresies Paul addresses (see THE COLOSSIAN HERESYS)
2 of them are in chapter 1: That spirit is good, flesh is evil. 2: That Christ could not be both human and divine.
It is a form of proto-Gnosticism - that spirit is good, flesh is bad and that there is a special kind of knowledge available only to the initiates in order to know God.
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints-
Paul had never actually been to Colossae - but it sure is nice when word of our faith and love gets passed on to others.
5 the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you.
Paul mentions faith, love, and hope - NOT knowledge. Our problem is that we put so much of a premium on our ability to understand and comprehend that when we don’t - we discount God instead of our intellect.
Faith and love spring from hope - not intellect. Notice how the hope has two components: "stored up in heaven" and "that you have already heard about in the word of truth."
Hope for Heaven - why bother becoming a follower of Jesus if this life is all there is? For the most part it’s a pretty sorry existence - surrounded by sin and temptation and the results of the fall. I certainly wouldn’t want to live forever in this kind of circumstance. But we have a huge hope that heaven awaits us where there will be no more sorrow or sin - only joy.
One of the points here is that there is more to heaven than we know about - Jesus talked more about hell than heaven - but trust me, it’s going to be great!
Hope from the Gospel - But notice that the source of the hope is not human generated emotion or philosophy. That’s the trap of Gnosticism and intellectualism - that our minds can figure out our future - the sort of "Star Trek" idea that man will eventually rise above petty differences and we’ll all get along together. The gospel is true - we just have to decide whether we are going to believe it or not.
6b All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
Once we believe the gospel - THAT is when we start bearing fruit and growing. One problem I see is that we have it backwards. We have intellect challenging faith, instead of faith informing intellect.
(vs 6) Understanding God’s grace - we have to admit that it is God’s gift to us - not something we can earn - when we really understand that it ought to hit us like a ton of bricks. This is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion.
Gnosticism, and today: pluralism teaches us to take a little from every religion - I call it "potluck religion." I usually get sick at potlucks - and "potluck religion" is not very nutritious nor satisfying. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me." (John 14:6).
Epaphras started the church in Colossae - he comes back later in the book.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Notice that he says "knowledge of HIS WILL through all SPIRITUAL WISDOM."
Don’t pray for smarts - pray for a knowledge of God’s will through the Spirit.
10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,
Life is not about how smart you get - but how your life mirrors that of Jesus Christ, and how He works through you, bearing fruit - that is the way to know God more.
The more you give Him access to your life and respond to His gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) prods - the more you know Him - having His heart of compassion and self sacrifice. But we’re not alone in that endeavor:
11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Sometimes the opposition to the truth is so pervasive and powerful that you feel like just giving up. Maybe its someone at work, maybe it’s a professor or teacher at school, maybe it’s your friends - but you need to know that God will give you both patience and endurance - patience is the ability to stand up against opposition no matter what, and endurance is the ability to continue on to a goal regardless of the circumstances.
God has rescued us - so we can give thanks with joy! That joy comes out of the fact that Jesus became a man - something that becomes crucial in standing against the opposition to the truth of the gospel.
So now He brings up the first heresies: That spirit is good, flesh is bad, and that Jesus could not be both human and divine:
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
In the Colossian church there were several misconceptions about Christ that Paul directly refuted in this section:
" Believing that matter is evil, false teachers argued that God would not have come to earth as a true human being in bodily form. Paul stated that Christ is the image -- the exact likeness -- of God and is himself God, and yet he died on the cross as a human being. (vs15)
" They believed that God did not create the world because he would not have created evil. Paul proclaimed that Jesus Christ, who was also God in the flesh, participated in the creation of the universe. (vs 16)
" They said that Christ was not the unique Son of God but rather one of many intermediaries between God and people. Paul explained that Christ existed before anything else and is the firstborn of those resurrected. (vs 18)
" They refused to see Christ as the source of salvation, insisting that people could find God only through special and secret knowledge. In contrast Paul openly proclaimed the way of salvation to be through Christ alone. Paul continued to bring the argument back to Christ. (vs 20)
Also note in verse 17: Jesus holds all things together. The Greek there suggests that Jesus holds everything together in a logical way, upheld and sustained so that we don’t dissolve into chaos.
Now Paul goes on the attack - the heresy said that the mind was supreme - but Paul shows that our minds are actually an enemy of the truth before we have faith in Jesus.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
" Isaiah 59:2 "your iniquities have separated you from your God." That’s what sin does - alienates, makes us "not a part" of what God is. It also makes us think unlike Him. So for us to imagine that our own philosophies can explain and understand God apart from faith then we are fooling ourselves.
22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation- 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
" (vs 22) Again, Paul comes back to the theme of the mind and the body. God brought us back into relationship - not through philosophy or thought or some spiritual mumbo jumbo - but through the physical body of Jesus Christ.
" We are "presented" to God totally pure, free from any accusations - again, not through a cleansing of the mind through pure thoughts - but a cleansing of the soul through the death of Jesus.
" (vs 23) Paul’s warning them in verse 23 not to waver from the true doctrine into this heresy - and he takes another swipe at it by showing that this gospel is available to all - regardless of who they are or what class they come from. The Colossian heresy taught that you had to be in the "in" group in order to be saved.
" One of our problems is that gospel is too simple. (see Message) Our minds are always trying to make things more complicated than they need to be. "Jesus died to make me alive - that’s all there is to it?" That’s when we get into trouble - making up stuff to fill in gaps that aren’t really there. We need to "continue --- established and firm"
24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
" This is a pretty complicated verse to interpret - and much has been written on the subject. Here’s my take:
1. Was there something lacking in the redemption of Christ that Paul was "filling up" (Catholic doctrine teaches this) - no. "Afflictions" (Gk 2568) was never applied to Jesus’ sufferings on the cross - only to His tribulations in life.
2. Was this a form of asceticism - self torture - that was a part of Gnosticism later on to gain God’s favor? No. The suffering was "for you" - for the Colossians.
3. I think the best we can say is that there is something happens when we suffer for Christ - something that He accomplishes in us - and something in others for whom we suffer. And in some way, Christ joins in our suffering.
2 Corinthians 1:5-7 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
Philippians 3:10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
So Paul rejoiced over suffering - for the fellowship and comfort it brings to those he cares about. You too can find that special joy if you undergo tough times for your brothers and sisters. You may not be in prison like Paul - but perhaps you are ridiculed for reaching out with the gospel to a hurting friend. Maybe you are ostracized from certain groups or activities because you’re one of those "fundamentalists." Be like Paul - rejoice that the suffering will bring merits to others and that Jesus suffers with you, and is there with you through it all.
Suffering isn’t self-inflicted as a way to righteousness - it is a natural course of following Jesus and draws us closer to Him and there is a component of suffering that helps us become more righteous:
1 Peter 4:1-2 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin . 2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
So suffering gives us a focus of purpose that we don’t give in to the world anymore - but do give in to God working in and through us.
25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness- 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
" (vs 25) Paul is serving the church. And I like what he says about "present to you the word of God in its fullness." That’s what we try to do here at Living Waters - we don’t water down the word, cherry pick what we like to hear, skip tough sections or topics or twist the word so that it agrees with us.
The word "fullness" means "to cram the net full" and its idea of completeness. We preach the "complete" Word of God - verse by verse, chapter by chapter so that nothing is left out. It also says that God didn’t leave anything out that He wanted us to know. The Message is complete. There is no "secret knowledge" waiting out there. Sure, God didn’t reveal everything - but He told us what we need to know - and He’s not going to tell us anything more until we get to heaven.
" The Gnostics taught that the gospel was a mystery - but to know the answers you had to have special knowledge open only to a select few. It’s awfully convenient - and a great way to avoid debate over the truth - but the truth is that the mystery - that God was saving man through a man Jesus - was hidden, but now fully revealed.
28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29 To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
" (vs 28) So Paul "warns" or "admonishes" the false teachers - and the Colossians - not to stray from the faith.
" He wants to present "everyone" - not just the select group.
" (vs 29) Paul is really into it - but notice it is God’s energy that works. There is a great partnership between the believer and the Holy Spirit in accomplishing God’s work - even combating false doctrine.
Conclusions
" The gospel is simple - don’t over complicate it
" The truth of obvious - don’t try to obscure it by false intellectual arguments.
" The problem is not with God - it is with us
Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."
God will reason with us - but it always leads to dealing with sin first - then more knowledge is revealed. So don’t expect an unsaved person to understand anything more than the gospel. (repeating from the beginning of our study)
1 Corinthians 2:14-16 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:
16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"
But we have the mind of Christ.
" Using human intellect to understand a divine God is a useless exercise - so just believe that He said! (again, repeating from the beginning of our study):
Isaiah 55:8-11"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
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