Wealth, deception, lies and deferred hope are all mentioned throughout this chapter. However, I believe if the chapter has a central theme it would be of the importance of words and the heart geography from which they come.
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Author Archive: Pastor Mark
Binding the Sabbath
As we progress through the letter to the believers in Colossae we run into an often misunderstood statement regarding Sabbaths. Written in the plural as it is, distinguishes it from The Sabbath day all by itself, but rather than rely upon this alone, we dug a little deeper.
Now I covered this topic back a few years ago in a mini-series and also in two (now three) articles on our website. Included in this study is an article and teaching on the subject of binding and loosening. If one does not know about this latter topic, they will be at a severe disadvantage in thoroughly studying out the former regarding The Sabbath.
It is my encouragement that you set aside all prejudices and preconceived ideas and enter into this teaching and those its references with a mind devoted to discovering what it is that God has really said regarding this topic. Remember the encouragement from James that the wisdom that comes from above is first pure, teachable and willing to yield. Those who approach any topic with the idea that they already know – cut themselves off from wisdom and the grace (influence) of God which is never wise.
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Wisdom affects your words
This chapter covers wisdom which has some very practical, everyday applications. Of particular note among them are the proper response to instruction and correction if one’s goal is to be wise.
It is quite possible that the Bible offers more in the way of HOW TO RESPOND to correction than it does about correction itself. And this makes sense since the purpose for correction from God is to redeem the wayward soul from destruction. So the way we respond determines if correction obtains its intended purpose in our hearts.
The next instruction is found in the verses about what we say. Much healing and harm can come from our words. More importantly for the student of wisdom is from what heart geography those healing or hurtful words come.
Moving these instructions to the New Covenant we see we have received the Holy Spirit from God by which we can conform to the inward image of Jesus Christ, and save our souls by the revelation of God’s word the Spirit offers.
It isn’t enough to place a guard on our mouths, though that is not a bad place to start. In the end, we require a heart change so that what is in our hearts is good. When that finally happens, our words will reflect wisdom and bring healing, restoration and a recovery to righteous paths to make life’s journey upon.
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The Supremacy of Jesus
This week we studied how Paul began addressing the pagan and false doctrines which were seeking to infiltrate the church in Colossae and quote possibly the church of Laodacia. These were the doctrines of asceticism, ritualistic and ceremonial aspects of Judasim and an early form of Gnosticism.
Paul confronts these head on by weaving key and focal components of all these beliefs and practices into his teaching about Jesus, revealing that in Him, are the realities which these other pursuits are seeking.
We ended in Colossians 2:14-17 which required a little investigation. In it, Paul speaks of a “certificate of indebtedness” – a list of requirements which were contrary to our nature before Christ. He says that these have been removed and nailed to the cross of Christ. But what are they?
The scriptures talk about two “requirements” of the Old Testament – one is to be fulfilled IN us as we walk by the Holy Spirit. The other is mentioned here and it was “taken out of the way” which means it was destroyed, wiped out and lifted off of us. Clearly these two cannot be the same “requirement” of the Law. So we spent some time looking into their meanings.
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The actions and rewards of the righteous & the wicked
The first verse in chapter 11 prompted me to do a brief lesson on the 613 commandments which are supposedly in addition to the 10 given to Moses. All the proverbial statements can be found in these commands. While the great majority of these are still a matter of righteous behavior for God’s children, some have been rescinded or replaced with the person and work of Jesus through the New Covenant, ratified in His blood.
After this introductory teaching, we went on to see how Solomon compares the actions and rewards for the righteous and the wicked throughout the chapter as well as the entire book of Proverbs.
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