You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.
Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, on a sunny day my body casts a shadow on the sidewalk. Yeah, and a shadow is an accurate outline, but it's lacking detail. So let me ask you this, would you rather relate to my shadow or to me? Oh, any day I'd rather have you than your shadow.
And what does that have to do with anything? We'll find out today in Colossians here on More Than Ink. Well, hello, this is More Than Ink. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy.
And we're glad you've joined us. By the way, in the background you may hear a wind chime going around. We're having a windstorm. Yeah, we're having a little bit of wind.
It's not the wintertime, it's the summertime. But every now and then this whips up. And we're not in a sound studio, we're just at our dining room table, so you get what you get. So when you hear the wind chime, just enjoy it and say, what a melodious kind of background we have right there.
This is wonderful. So yeah, we're studying Colossians 2. Last time we got together in the middle of Colossians 2, we talked about circumcision and baptism, but not the ceremonial side. No, these amazing things that God has done for us in Christ. These are things which happened to us.
We didn't do them. Circumcised, buried, raised, made alive, forgiven, all in Christ. Yeah, wonderful images of what Christ has done for us as we place our trust in him and identify with him and die on the cross with him and raised with him afterwards. So there's reality to these symbols which just kind of point you to the reality of the thing. And so that brings us today. He's going to talk about the fact that these ceremonies are not bad per se, but they're kind of shadows of the reality.
And now in Christ, we have the reality. So maybe the shadows are losing their thing. They point to something beyond themselves. A shadow is only an indicator that there is a bigger concrete reality. Something is casting the shadow. However, in modern day Christianity and even in false religion, we place a lot of emphasis on these shadows thinking that they're gaining stuff for us when really we're not looking at the heart issues. So that's what he's going to talk about today.
It's very practical and I think you'll be surprised. So we're in chapter 2, verse 16, and in light of what Christ has done for us in the previous section, in terms of bringing life to us when we were dead, he starts off in 16 saying, Therefore. Therefore. You've got to look and see what it's there for.
I've got to find out what it's there for. Right, what went before. And that's what we've just been talking about. So because of who we are in Christ and what has been done for us. Therefore. And what Christ has done and not what we have done. Right.
Yeah, very important. Therefore. Therefore.
Chapter 16. Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Okay. Can we stop? Let's stop there. Because this is actually the second of three really strong statements that Paul makes in the letter.
He told us back in chapter 2, verse 8. Let no one take you captive. Right. Right.
The empty philosophies. Right. That's a military metaphor.
Deception. Right. And here he says, don't let anyone pass judgment on you.
And then in the next verse he's going to say, let no one disqualify you. Right. So these are all really strong statements aimed at knowing what Christ has done for us and what that means in terms of how we live. Right.
And I'll just double down on that. Our defense against these accusations isn't what we have done or not done. Right. It's about what Christ has done.
That's how we defend. So in 16 he says, don't let anyone pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink. Well, wait a second. Weren't there food laws in the Old Testament? Well, there were very specific food laws. Right. Right. But in the book of Acts, God very specifically schools Peter about not deciding on people's righteousness according to what they eat. Right. And he declares all foods clean.
All foods clean. That's what Peter understood. Well, I don't have the reference in front of me, but you can find that in the book of Acts. Yeah.
I'm thinking it's around chapter 13. That's his rooftop event. Right. When Peter had that vision on the rooftop.
God declared all foods clean. Yeah. And in Mark, I don't know the passage in front of me either. Oh, we're really on top of things today. Oh, we're not doing to our own work today. But yeah, in Mark he says, as a parenthetical thought in one section, he says, thus he declared all foods clean. Okay. So there you go.
I mean, this is being declared during the time of Jesus. And is it because those things are bad or because as shadows, they're becoming obsolete to the reality that's casting the shadows? That's right.
See, that's what's different here. Those things aren't bad. They've just become obsolete as pointers to the reality, which is in Christ. Right.
Yeah. So, you know, Romans 14, Paul spends the whole chapter talking about food laws and food issues and making each other stumble over what you eat or don't eat. But he says in verses three and four, God has accepted you. You accept one another. And God did not accept you on the basis of what you eat or drink.
God accepts you on the basis of faith in Christ. Full stop. Full stop.
Full stop. So Paul says here in Colossians, so don't let anyone pass judgment on you because God has already passed judgment and he has accepted you in Christ. Yeah. And also he's not going to judge you on food or drink. That's right. So, I mean, that's just extraordinarily clear here, not only food and drink, but we're talking about festivals and new moons or even the Sabbath.
Okay. So those are things that God commanded in the law. Right. He gave them festivals.
They're not bad. He gave them new moon celebrations. He gave them the Sabbath. Yes. And very importantly so. I mean, it's a big, big deal, but it's a big, big deal because it's a shadow.
It's extraordinarily powerful to point to life with Christ. Okay. So let's talk about a shadow for a minute because a shadow, how does a shadow appear? Well, a bright light shines on something concrete. On the real thing.
On the real thing. Right. And then the shadow is cast and you see the shadow.
Sometimes the shadow is very clear and sharp. Well, and it's exactly representative of the real thing. Right. So if you're trying to find out about the real thing, you wouldn't curse the shape of the shadow because it's given you all your information.
There's nothing wrong with that. But it's incomplete information. But it's incomplete.
Incomplete. And what if the real thing, instead of casting a shadow, comes and is right in front of you? Which one would you prefer, the shadow or the real thing?
Yeah, it's interesting because if you think about it, a shadow is flat. Right. The real thing is 3D. Yeah. Right.
Which would you... A shadow is usually gray or dark. The real thing is color. Yeah. Right.
So which would you rather have? And Paul says all these things, food, drink, festivals, new moons, even the Sabbath, are a shadow that indicates a greater reality. Right. And if you ask yourself when you're casting a shadow of something, what is the real thing?
Yeah. He says it in the verse 17, the substance, that's the real thing that casts the shadow. The reality.
That's right. The reality, the substance, is Christ himself. So all of that Old Testament food laws, Old Testament festival laws, circumcision, it all was pointing to the reality of what Christ would accomplish for us. And now for some of us who aren't Jews, we'd say, well, I don't get how that works. I mean, how does a food law point me to Jesus?
And how does a particular drinker not to drink something point me to Jesus? Or how about a new... Oh, that's a gigantic topic. It is. But you have to trust to a certain extent that to the Jews, this wasn't as mysterious as it is to us. I mean, they would get that.
They would get that. For instance, I mean, with the Sabbath, the Sabbath was a command from God to say, hey, take one day out of the week and rest. You need to rest. You need to not work. Well, that was really hearkening to the day in the new covenant when it's not about our work. Our work does not determine our salvation. Christ's work does. And so even in the Old Testament times, the Sabbath was not only just a time to rest, but it was a time to let God work, protect your fields, protect against the pests, and you can chill for a while because God is active and he's at work.
Will you trust him to engage on your behalf? And so the Sabbath was a lot about trust. Same is true with Christ. When it comes to salvation, we put our trust in what he's done for us and not we ourselves. So we rest in who Christ is. The Sabbath. So, I mean, we could go on with all of these things.
They all pointed quite distinctly, quite distinctly. Even some of the food laws. I mean, some of the shellfish. Can you imagine not having shrimp? Shrimp and crab and all that great stuff. Well, these are all bottom feeders. These are things that eat rotting material. There's a great picture in this about the fact that maybe your life shouldn't come from something that eats rotting stuff. So there's pictures in here.
I had long discussions with my friend David, you know, who is the best senior pastor. Oh, yeah, I remember. And he would just go through the simple ABCs of why these things as a symbol, as a shadow, really reflect well.
They're a good symbol. Yeah. I asked him once about why do you persist in not mixing the fabric in the source of the linen and flax.
Oh, linen and wool, I think. Yeah, so you don't interweave those things. I said, and so you still observe that, right?
He says, yes. Well, why do you do that? What's the big deal about how you make your clothing? And he says, well, because the one represents a life of sin, the other represents a life of righteousness.
Why would I ever want to intermix those? Go, oh, that's cool. So if it is serving you as a reminder of your reality and drawing your attention to Christ, then, A, if it's important to you and helpful to you, don't mix your cotton and your wool, right? Right. Right. But those things are set aside in Christ because it all pointed to Him.
Yes. And so we are no longer subject to the food laws, right? Jesus declared all foods clean. He set it to Peter. Paul repeated it. It shows up everywhere in the New Testament.
And I have actually 1 Timothy 4 in front of me. That's what I was – Okay, so I don't know that we want to read the whole four verses, but Paul says in verse 3 and 4, there will be those coming along who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it's received with gratitude.
Yes. For it's sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer. So what God has said, declared all foods clean, give thanks and eat.
Right. And you know it's fascinating in this modern age how many Christians will eat or not eat certain things and not because of reasonable health issues, but because they feel like somehow they're disobeying God by eating them or they're pleasing God by not eating them. Actually Paul talked about that also in Romans 14. He says, you know, your brother may have a conscience that is sensitive in that regard and so just if you're with him, don't eat what upsets his conscience, right? Your freedom is not determined by his conscience, but can you freely, out of love, accept him and lay down your right to freedom in order to just eat in peace with your brother.
So you know, it's just not that big a deal to eat a certain way, but the issue is are we loving our brothers? And the core issue is are we trusting Christ for everything that we need for salvation or somehow are we putting our hopes in these rules? And that's where we start pushing Christ away and we start putting ourself in place to accomplish what we think is going to please God, when in fact we were dead in our sins, we could not please God.
Everything and that's what he says in 16, therefore don't let anyone judge about these things because Christ has done everything for you. So why are you trying to still climb up this legalism ladder by doing these things? It doesn't make any sense. It's interesting that he doesn't say here, don't judge your brother. He says, don't let anyone pass judgment on you.
You be free and understand the truth, know what the reality is to which the food laws point. Right. And the fact that they pointed to the fact that Jesus has done all for us in the realm of salvation and we've come to understand the substance of these shadows, which is Christ. Okay, so if you pass judgment on somebody, you condemn them, right?
And now he's going to go on in verse 18 to say, let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with the growth, which is from God. So don't let anyone pass judgment on you. Here he says, let no one disqualify you. That's even worse. Well, yeah, if you're disqualified, usually it's on a technicality of somebody who's trying out for the Olympics, right, they can get disqualified if they wear the wrong thing or if they violate the rules, violate the rules in any measure.
Right, right. And that's what he's saying here, the whole issue of doing or not doing these things has nothing to do with qualifying you for heaven, because God has qualified you in Christ. He's qualified you and what Christ has done. So don't succumb to these kind of people wagging their finger and saying, you know, you've just disqualified yourself for being in heaven because you're eating shrimp today. Okay, but he's moved on to a different kind of behaviors now.
He's done with the food. Now he started talking about asceticism, worship of angels, visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. Yeah, this is one step up into the spiritual realm. Yeah. Or I should say the false spiritual realm. Yeah.
Okay, so. What's asceticism? Asceticism.
Yeah. What's asceticism? Self-denial. Self-denial. Yeah. And at its heart, it's about a false humility.
Right. You know, I'm so good, I'm going to deny myself these things. It's a false humility. Worship of angels. Why would you worship angels when you have Christ? Isn't that astonishing? And yet, even in the culture we live in, people talk about angels all the time.
All the time. Like, well, aren't you more interested in the one who created the angels and the one whom the angels serve? Yeah, yeah, exactly. What we're going on in detail about visions are actually this phrase, if you look at the Greek literally, it's making a parade of things which he has seen. So he takes things he has seen, supposedly.
In his imagination. Yeah, and then parades them in front of you. Look at all these things.
Look at this parade. And it's just imaginary kind of stuff. And Paul says the issue here is that the one who is preaching these things is not holding fast to the head. Who's the head? Christ is the head. Christ is the head. He already said it back in chapter one. He's the head of the body.
He said it earlier in chapter two. He's the head over all rule and authority. And then here, hold fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together grows with the growth that's from God. Yeah, because what these people are doing in verse 18 and verse 16 is they're dividing the body. They're dividing the body based upon these outward practices like, oh, you don't do this, but you do that.
So the body's being divided. And he's saying, no, the body is whole and united under one head. So don't let anyone separate you from the body because we all have one head. And that head nourishes and knits us together. Yeah, the nourishment comes from the head, not from these ones teaching these strange forms of spirituality. Yeah, so don't be tempted to let someone judge you as not qualifying for being the body because the head has incorporated you into the body.
That's what he's saying. Great metaphor. It's a great metaphor.
We should go on to 20. Yeah, just before we leave this idea of the head of the body, let me just put out a couple of other references because Paul talks about this in much detail in Ephesians 2, 21 and 22, and Ephesians 4, especially verses 15 and 16. He kind of amplifies this idea of the head, knitting the body together and nourishing it through every cell and every nerve fiber of the body gets its nourishment from the head.
It's one of his favorite metaphors. Christ is the head, the church is the body. And I've always come back to this because in our modern age, we tend to look at church as being an organization, right? And the organization has a CEO, it's usually the senior pastor at the top, and there's something kind of wrong with this.
And I go shopping for an organization that serves me. Right, right. All right, well stay or not stay based on how the organization runs. What he's saying right here is it's not as much an organization as it is an organism. Or the living head, Christ is at the top, there doesn't seem to be any levels in between the head and the rest of the body. Christ is the head and we're all members of the body.
Now members have different functions and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's no distinction in terms of authority. There's Christ who's the head from whom we get all of our instructions and nourishment and guidance and everything, and then we are all knit together like a human body is, reliant on the head and no one else. It's a great picture. It's a wonderful picture. Okay.
Now we go into 20. Okay. Yeah.
Can I read it? Yeah, please. Yeah. So if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, then why as if you were still alive in the world do you submit to regulations? Like do not handle or do not taste or do not touch, but referring to things that all perish as they're used, according to human precepts and teachings.
I mean, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Wow. He's really leaning into this.
Leaning in. Do not. You hear people say do not, do not, do not.
Boy, he could have written that today. Do not, do not, do not. Oh, very much.
Don't taste it, don't touch it, don't get near it. Yeah, yeah. And so they are forceful in how they try and control your behavior, but that kind of behavior has nothing to do with eternity. No. He says that's the way the world functions. Right. That's the way the world thinks.
Yeah. So why do you operate that like you're still alive in the world? Because you've been transferred to another kingdom. Yes, exactly. You no longer live in this domain of darkness.
Now your body is resident here, but your citizenship is in another place. Yeah, and this is at the heart of what Jesus meant when he said that my apostles are in the world, but they're not of it anymore. So he's basically saying right here in verse 20, why are you acting like you're alive in this world? You're actually dead to this world. So why are you submitting to do not, do not, do not? What are you doing?
What are you doing? Yeah. And by the way too, he referred to himself as the Lord of the Sabbath, like I'm the boss of it.
Right, right. So, you know. I'm the ruler. I am the head.
I am the head. Of the Sabbath. Yeah, yeah. And I love in 22 he says all these do not, do not, do it. They refer to things that are going to perish, which means we're not talking eternal issues here.
Right. Indeed, you're going to use it up in the process of tasting it, touching it, whatever. Well, yeah, food is food until you eat it and then it perishes, which I think is kind of what he's getting at. I mean if you have a food law, even if you have a Sabbath law, you know, it comes and it goes.
It has such temporal value to it. What you really need to do is prioritize the substance, which is Christ, the eternal things. These things don't have any eternal matter at all. So he says these things that, you know, the world says are wise, don't do this, don't taste that, don't touch that. They have the appearance and appearance of wisdom, right?
They're all talk, but no substance. They might look good, they give you a sense of self-made religion, again, asceticism, severity to your own body. They seem to make sense. They seem to make sense.
Sort of, yeah. I mean they're not asking you to do things that you know are deliberately sinful, they're asking you to do things that just don't matter. And yet make a show of religiosity. So you know, Paul says they're of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. Why are they of no value in that? No value.
No value. Because that, you know, what happens when you center on asceticism, severity to the body? Center on your own clean eating, right? Or your own, what I was going to say, self-will in a way, self-determination. As you begin to place confidence in yourself, effort, you begin to grow a pride in your self-righteousness, right?
So Paul says, you know, that's the real issue here. Yeah, and you know, if you're going to make a list of do-nots, do-nots, do-nots, and you struggle to do the do-nots, you'll find yourself failing quite a bit. And you know, this kind of self-determination really is not the magic sauce, it sounds like it ought to be. Because in the end, the flesh will sin, and any amount of self-determination and self-will is powerless against it sinning. The only really recipe for conquering sin is Christ himself, Christ in you. So if you're going to ascribe to a list of do-nots, do's or do-nots, I'm sorry, you probably will put on the list things that you can accomplish. But the things that you really need to accomplish, like stopping sinning, you won't be able to do.
They're deceptive. Indeed. You're just going to get more creative about the way you sin. Yeah, exactly.
And to make it harder to see, but just as vicious and just as deadly. Exactly, exactly. And it tends to make you think you can be a self-made person in the Kingdom of God.
And you can't. Something else occurred to me with asceticism and self-made religion, these things tend to be void of love. Right? Especially when you judge each other. Yes. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, you know, if I have, speak with tongues of angels, if I have gifts of prophecies, if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, but I have not feed the poor, but have not love, profits mean nothing. Yeah, so all those things you do, what does it profit you if you're not loving in the process? You know? I mean, that's what he's getting at. There's more important issues here than toeing the line on all these observances. And don't let anyone condemn you for them because you know better than anyone else that it's not what I achieve, it's what Christ has achieved for me.
That makes a difference. That's what you'll need to come back to over and over. Jesus said, they're going to know you're my disciples, not by what you eat and don't eat. They're going to know you're my disciples by how you love. Right, right, right. So I'll put that on my do list.
Love? My do list, I mean, my do list. No, I just, I'm just coming down to the self-efforts, which Paul's much more clear talking about in other places, especially 1 and 2 Corinthians, he talks about the fact that it's a delusion for us to think that we can somehow earn our relationship with God, our salvation based on us doing things and in the religious context, those things aren't just helping old ladies cross the road. They're actually doing certain religious observances and we think we're getting somewhere with that. Paul says, no, you got to come back to the fact that it's all about what Christ has done for you. It's not what you are doing for Christ. And it's about maintaining that intimate organic connection with the head from whom our life comes. Right, right.
It's relational, it's relational. So there's no way in which, you know, when we get to heaven, God's going to ask us, so how many Coca Colas did you drink? Because I'm sorry, if it's over my limit, you can't come into heaven. That's nothing to do with anything.
Or how many days did you miss your quiet time? Right. Because that speaks to a particular era. Right. And that's one of the things that has the appearance of wisdom and I mean, it doesn't sound bad. No, well, it's a good thing to sit with the Lord and the Word every day. But we can reduce it to our seven minute religious duty, rather than an intimate conversation with the one who breathes life into.
Right. And if you check off the list saying, I've done my Bible readings, I've read my 10 verses, I must be better than I was when I wasn't doing this. We're just talking about the rules again, we're talking about legalism, we're not talking about the very heart of the thing. And the heart of the thing in the Bible reading is it draws you closer in relationship with God. That's just, that's the heart of it. So we talked about heart issues in relation to baptism and circumcision. We're talking about heart issues here in the midst of these outward observances.
The heart issues are the real issues in all of this. Those are the concrete things. Those are the concrete things. Those are the things that are eternal, rather than passing away, like He said right here in this passage. So don't be distracted by these temporary short term things. Don't be distracted by people pressuring you to do or not to do some of these observances.
They don't have any weight. And Paul is extraordinarily clear saying that right here. I bring people back to this all the time. This passage. So focus on the substance, not on the shadow. Because next week we're going to talk, we're going to move into chapter three when Paul says, you know, your life is hidden with Christ in God. Right? Right.
Where are you? You're there because of what He has done for you. Yeah. And in fact, he's going to say that our temptation all the time with these things, with these observances and stuff like that, is to have our eyesight, to have our vision fixed on the temporal things now and think that they have extraordinary value and they really don't. So he's going to say, what you need to do is fix your gaze in the right place and where is that? Where Christ is.
So basically if you've been raised with Him, you need to keep seeking Him. So we'll come back and we'll look more at that as we come back here and we turn into chapter three in Colossians. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. Join us in this great adventure in Colossians here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you.
Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Okay. I'll do it next week. Okay. Okay. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
