Daily Bible Reading 6th July 2025 // Colossians 2:16-23
16 Therefore let no one pass judgement on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 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, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 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.
It would appear that the false teachers have been openly contemptuous of the Colossian believers, implying that they lack the essentials of true spirituality and live in a way which is less than Christian. The heretics focus on external food and holy days (v 16). They teach what appears to be a rigid asceticism where certain foods and drinks are prohibited and forbidden and where certain religious obligations are mandatory (cf 1 Timothy 4:1-5). Now we all know that Paul would have been the last person to deny the need for self-discipline in the Christian life. Even a cursory reading through his letters will make it clear that in every servant of God appetites will continually need disciplining and self-control will need to be exercised if time is to be made for prayer and worship, if the body of flesh is to know its master and if we are to win the ultimate prize. Paul can never be heralded as the champion of 'antinomianism'/lawlessness. Paul would never dispense with 'Sabbath' worship any more than he would dispense with the commandment concerning adultery. We also know that Paul respected the scruples of other believers in matters of abstaining from food and drink, even when he did not share the same convictions (Romans 14:1-18; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13). For Paul, the law of love, concern for the 'weaker brother', imposes a voluntary limitation on our Christian liberty so that the liberty which we enjoy in theory is not such in practice. 'For Paul, Christian liberty, which we all enjoy in Christ, in full and abundant measure, means that the 'strong' will go out of their way to avoid offending the tender consciences of the 'weak' or 'scrupulous'. But! ...more in the next note.