Colossians 2:4–8 - How to Avoid Spiritual Deception (Session 10)

This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of Colossians 2:4–8, exploring the historical context, theological meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith. 

Have you ever wondered how easily even the most discerning amongst us can fall prey to deceptive teachings, eloquent speeches, and emotional manipulations? If you've ever found yourself swayed by the persuasive words of a false teacher, this episode is for you. We dive headfirst into the murky waters of deception, uncovering the manipulative tactics employed by false teachers to steer people away from the truth. Through our exploration of Colossians Chapter 2:4-8, we reveal how staying firmly anchored in Christ and the truth of the four gospels is our best defense against such deception. 

We then shift focus to the critical importance of spiritual maturity and maintaining a heart brimming with gratitude for Jesus. Paul warns us about the danger of falling captive to false teachers and their empty deception, urging us to hold fast to the truths of Christ. We also take a closer look at three crucial elements that safeguard us from deception: a regular study of the Bible, living a life free from sin, and employing logic and critical thinking. As we navigate the deep sections of the Bible, we uncover strategies for reasoned scripture analysis and discuss how 'life jackets' of truth can keep us afloat. Stay tuned as we continue this enlightening journey through the Bible, developing our spiritual resilience against deception.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:16

We live in a day where deception is rampant in our land and some of the deceptions, steve, are quite fun Stage magicians doing card tricks, things like that. I always enjoy those trying to figure out how the trick works Well, that's good fun. But there's other deceptions that are quite evil. Those deceptions we need to be very careful, very cautious about.

Speaker 1 0:37

Yeah, and many times those deceptions in church circles relate to money, separating people from their money, and they pull upon their heartstrings. We need to be aware of that and not be deceived.

Speaker 2 0:52

It seems, every age, every group of people, there's always somebody out there trying to fool you, trying to con you out of either your money or, in the case of Colossians, chapter 2, there were people at the church of Colossae that were trying to con people out of their soul. Those are the ones you really have to worry about. It's bad enough to lose your money. It's something else to lose your soul to somebody that has deceived you. Welcome to our guest If you have your Bible turned to the book of Colossians. We're in chapter 2, starting at verse 4. Here the apostle Paul is writing to this group of people and he starts off the chapter saying that he was struggling in a conflict for the needs that were in that church. And again, part of it was because there were some false teachers. And today, in verses 4 and 5, we get to learn a little bit more about exactly what he was concerned about. So, steve, if you could read Colossians 2, verses 4 and 5.

Speaker 1 1:50

I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument, for even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.

Speaker 2 2:04

So with that, Paul is concerned there, that the Christians in this church might be deceived by the way people sound and the way they come across. I mean, that's how deceptions work, is people sound good, but they're really not. It's a trap. If a trap was obviously a trap then nothing would ever get trapped in it. But it's a deception. It looks good. You don't see the trap. The way a deception works is you're fooled.

Speaker 1 2:35

That word persuasiveness there it talks about persuasive speech, obviously, but then also enticing words. There are words that are made and put into purpose in order to entice you to do something different, and the word definition of delude is to reason falsely or incorrectly. So what these false teachers were doing, they knew exactly what they were doing. They were using enticing words, their false reasoning or incorrect reasoning, to take the people away from what the truth was. And Paul uses the words truth, uses the words knowledge, true knowledge, and the verses before, and he begins this verse here in verse four, so that so, having all of those things that we just talked about in the last session, of the knowledge, the true knowledge and wisdom that's all in Christ Jesus himself, that helps to be able to not be deluded, to be pulled away through these enticing words that these false teachers were giving.

Speaker 2 3:41

Paul was worried that they would be persuaded by these false teachers, and there's actually a science of persuasion. It goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Aristotle wrote a whole book on persuasion techniques. The modern advertisers learned this quite well, because they're quite good at persuading us to buy their products.

Speaker 2 4:02

False teachers are the same way, and all of us in the Christian world need to be very careful that we are not persuaded by things that are different from what the apostles told us. Persuasion tends to deal with emotions. It tends to deal with things that are not just facts, and what a lot of people don't realize is how many times they're persuaded to some things rather than through the conviction of the truth. That's what he's really dealing with here. It's possible for all of us to be deceived by people that sound good but are really not. This is how many of the cults start. Many of these dangerous cults start with some leader that's very dynamic, sounds good but doesn't teach the truth. The only way we know the truth is for any teacher, no matter how good I might feel that they are, I need to check their teachings with the Word of God.

Speaker 1 4:58

Just to emphasize those two words with the persuasive, it was enticing words and with the delusion the word delude, it was reason falsely. With everything that goes off with these false teachers that pull people away, there's usually always a kernel of truth. And then the enticing words, the enticement. They know what may be a Christian that doesn't really know the scriptures. They know what words to use to entice them away. They know what little bit of truth to use in order to persuade or to reason falsely with these people to pull them away. The way that you avoid that is to know who the true Christ is and through the scriptures and to get that true knowledge Are there people like this today that we have to be worried about.

Speaker 1 5:53

Yes, they're there every day and we see examples every day, and we are, unfortunately. We have seen many tragic situations that come out of some of these false teachers and false prophets.

Speaker 2 6:06

So, again, if we look at verse four, he says I say this so that no one will delude you. Well, what's the this that he's talking about? Whatever it is, the truth of the this is the thing that's going to keep you from being deluded. So what's the this? It's what he just talked about in the previous verse. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of knowledge, which is exactly what you were just saying, steve. If we just stay in Christ, then he has all the wisdom and knowledge. We need to get our truth from Christ, which, in our day, is the gospels, the four gospels. We need to go to Matthew, mark, luke and John, and not some dynamic leader. Those are the ones that we need to go to Now. Remember Paul here.

Speaker 2 6:52

What was one of his main things was trying to speak against these false teachers in this church at Colossae. These were probably Gnostics who had deceived the Colossians with this message of oh, we have something special over here. That's more than what you learned about in Christ. We've got some secret knowledge. If you just come over here and learn our ways, then that's when you'll get the real one. So he's saying, my fellow Christians, in Christ are hidden all the wisdom and knowledge, and if you just stay in him. I say that so that nobody will delude you. So how do you keep from getting deluded? Learn more about Jesus.

Speaker 1 7:32

And I think that's part of the struggle that Paul mentioned in verse one the struggle of wanting to come and visit them was he wanted to come and tell them these things personally, have you ever had any family member that has been cheated out of something? The thoughts that I've had is I wish I would have been there. If only I had have been there, then this wouldn't have happened. Possibly that's part of what Paul's struggle is, is that he wants to be there so that he can make sure that they don't get off on the wrong track.

Speaker 2 8:03

You know, I've actually read about conmen and sort of a minor interest of mine is how they work and how they do the deceptions. What they find is that intelligence has nothing to do with the people that get deceived versus not deceived it's more of do you buy into their story? It's nothing to do with intelligence. In fact, some of the lesser intelligent people, the ones that are harder to fool, the con men talk about putting people under the ether. Once you got to fooled, then they'll just lead you by the nose right down the path off the cliff. The same thing happens with these spiritual guys.

Speaker 2 8:38

Now, remember, he's speaking against these Gnostics and we said in our last session that Paul is methodically teaching against these people without mentioning their names. So he's not majoring on the false teacher, but he's majoring on the refutation of the false teacher. That's what he's talking about here when he says I say this so that no one will delude you. Well, he's talking about preventing them from being deluded by these specific group of people. Well, he's demonstrating that these false teachers shouldn't have any power over you if you just stay in Christ. So then look at verse five. He says in verse five, for even though I am absent in body. Nevertheless, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. There Paul is saying that even though he's not present with them, he rejoices to hear of their stable faith in Christ.

Speaker 1 9:37

What he's saying you're stable for now, but and I'm rejoicing for that- yeah, and the deeper meaning of the word stability there, of a definition, is the support or steadfastness, and that word faith there is means firm persuasion or conviction. So it's not just blind faith, it's not shallow faith, and the steadfastness that's built upon something that has a good foundation, something that they can stand on and something that they're going to be able to uphold and lift themselves up with and not be moved from.

Speaker 2 10:11

Look at the end of verse 5. He says I am rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. Those words there are good discipline and stability. Those are military terms, military discipline. That's what he's saying. If you have this military discipline, then you'll be stable. We should have that same idea to approach both in ourselves and in our churches. The churches should rejoice that all the members work together in order and have a stable faith. How do you have a stable faith? Good discipline to stay in the word of God. Good discipline to study the word. Good discipline to practice the word in our lives. So he's going to talk about our walk here in a little while. Those are the ways that you have stable faith and you're not blown around by every wind of doctrine. It's the spiritual disciplines of studying the ways of Christ and walking every day in his path and not on our own. So, Steve, if you could read the next two verses, verses 6 and 7.

Speaker 1 11:17

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him. Have him been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude.

Speaker 2 11:32

Let's look at it again at the beginning of verse 6. It says therefore as you have received Christ Jesus, so with that, steve, who did the receiving?

Speaker 1 11:42

Well, it's made clear here that the Colossians did it, says you. So there are the Colossians.

Speaker 2 11:47

The reason I bring that out is because this is one of those passages that tell us that individual people that are in a lost state can receive Christ. The only people that have to receive Christ are the people that need to receive Christ. The action is done by the Colossian, the individual believer of receiving Christ, the gospel message. As Paul stated earlier, he preached it to everyone, but they received it. The people that were in the church, the Christians, were the ones that received Christ. This assumes that they do have the ability to receive it. We know from the scriptures that the Holy Spirit would have been working on them. We know that, but the individual person did the act of receiving. You receive. Receiving is not a good work that earns any righteousness, it's just receiving. Therefore, again verse six as you have received Christ Jesus, so do what.

Speaker 1 12:43

So walk in him.

Speaker 2 12:44

What does it mean to walk in him? What?

Speaker 1 12:47

is he talking about? Well, walk is an action. It's something that you should do on a daily basis. You should walk in Christ, meaning that you should know what it is that he wants you to do, that you know about him, that you take on his mantle and you put on the robe of Christ, as Paul puts in other scriptures, and that you do daily. You walk in him, you walk through his principles that he taught you walk through the different commandments that he gave for us to do, and that we should do that every day.

Speaker 2 13:21

Notice. He doesn't tell us to sit in Christ and he doesn't tell us to run in Christ. He says here to walk. Walk is just a daily, sure, careful, step-by-step way of living your life. That's what he's talking about. If you walk in Christ, you're making sure that every step of every day is done in Christ. It's learning about Christ and doing things that he would have us to do. So he saved us, and those of us that know how far from which we've been saved have enough gratitude to know that we are to walk in him. What's the least we could do is walk behind him, walk in his path. And then in verse 7, what does verse 7 tell us?

Speaker 2 14:02

Steve, Having been firmly rooted is a fact that is already established. Having been firmly rooted past tense, the Colossian believers are firmly established in Christ. Paul said a very familiar thing in Ephesians 414, saying that if we are in Christ, we're firmly rooted and will not be blown around by every wind of doctrine or the trickery of men, which is the same idea he's talking about here, don't you think?

Speaker 1 14:30

Yeah, and how does a tree grow? As a tree grows, or any type of plant, they get those roots into the ground so that they can get nourishment from the ground. The growth starts from the root. If you don't have a good root, you're not going to have good growth. Here it is. They're firmly rooted in Christ, in Him, and now they're also being built up in Him as well.

Building Spiritual Maturity, Warning Against Deception

Speaker 2 14:56

Let's talk about that, the building up part. Look at the middle of verse 7. He says having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him. What is that built up part? Who's doing the building and what does that look like?

Speaker 1 15:11

They're being built up through the knowledge and wisdom that is contained in Christ Himself. Through all of that, by being in Him, they're being built up.

Speaker 2 15:23

So he's doing the building to us. It's by teaching us. We're not doing this of our own strength. All we do is learn from Him and he gives us the strength. The built up part is to a spiritually mature person. A spiritually mature person makes wise decisions. He does spiritually mature actions. That's what he's talking about. A spiritually mature person is one that's going to do Christian things in a wise way and be with wise people and reach out and do spiritually mature things to the rest of the world so that other people can come to the knowledge of Christ. That's what he's talking about. We're built up as a church that functions well. That's the other thing. It's being built up personally and built up corporately as a body. It often talks about the church as a building, and here the building is being built by the Master craftsman, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 16:17

And then, whenever you're built up, you're also established. So that's the next part here that he talks about in verse 7.

Speaker 2 16:24

Right. He says overflowing with gratitude. Thankfulness and gratitude are mentioned seven or eight times in this short letter and each of us should ask ourselves am I overflowing with gratitude because of what the Lord has done for me? There's too many sour and dour Christians. I think they get up and eat lemons for breakfast. They just seem miserable and complained about everything. But if we realize how far Jesus has brought us, then we will be thankful. We will be overflowing with gratitude and not complain quite so much.

Speaker 1 16:59

Yeah, and I think Paul is giving a little bit of a nod to Paphras here in verse 7. And when he says, just as you were instructed. So remember, Paul didn't start this church. A person by the name of a Paphras did, who Paul says he's also a fellow servant. I think Paul is kind of giving a little wink or a little nod there to the Paphras that hey, he gave you these instructions and they were the proper instructions.

Speaker 2 17:24

What Paul's been doing. Just to kind of pause for a quick second and summarize again what he's been doing, this is so rich. He's been comparing and contrasting the miserable state of the lost person with the glorious state of the saved person, this dramatic shift. He's talked about it several times what we were and what we now are. And he's talking about all these things now in four, five, six and seven, about what we are and we're firmly rooted and now, you know, being built up, all these things that we are. So just a reminder this is this huge, dramatic change from the lost to the saved.

Speaker 2 18:08

What were we? That he explained earlier in the book. We were alienated from God, we were hostile in mind. He said. We were at war with God, we were engaged in evil deeds, we were subject to the power of the domain of darkness. He had to rescue us and then he transferred us into his kingdom, forgave us of our sins, made peace with us, presented us before him as holy and righteous and blameless, without reproach. And now he says we are firmly rooted, not able to be blown about by every wind of doctrine. A tree that is firmly rooted can't be moved and able to be built up by him. So he rescued us from this horrible state in the domain of darkness, and now he's cleaned us up. He's made us beyond reproach and now he's building us up and helping us walk in the ways to be a spiritually mature person. It's very dramatic change. It's something that we should overflow with gratitude because of what he's saying.

Speaker 1 19:13

And both that firmly rooted and being built up. It establishes them in their faith. We see that the faith that they have is something that is firmly rooted, it's built up, it's established, it's steadfast. It's things that they have through instruction that they have gotten and through the knowledge that's all in Christ. All of these verses here in chapter two work together. The word knit was used earlier. I think it's very appropriate for this. All of these verses are knit together and we see that the faith that these people have should be the same type of faith that we have. It's not just blind faith, then you don't do anything with it and you just go and you just sit in a pew or in a chair, listen to somebody and go back home. No, it's from gaining knowledge and through scriptures and through teaching and learning and looking. That's how you build your faith up and then establish your faith is through all of these things.

Speaker 2 20:16

If the previous verses weren't complex enough. Starting in verse eight is another huge, long, really dense section. From here on to the next it really verses eight through 15 is one big long sentence. It's sort of fast in your seatbelt time because this is going to be another kind of rock. Our world set of teachings here.

Speaker 2 20:37

But if we look at Colossians two, eight, paul says this. He says see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. So remember, but one of Paul's main motivations is to prevent the church at Colossae from being deceived by these false teachers. He's trying to protect them. So when he says here in verse eight, see to it. So he's making a point see to it, no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception. So he's warning this church beware of these people. They're going to have deceptions, but it's going to be empty deception. He's warning against false and deceitful philosophy so that they would stay in the truth and not be deceived by these persuasive words of empty philosophy. The Colossians were delivered from being captive to the domain of darkness and now he's warning them not to become captive to anything outside of Christ.

Speaker 1 21:45

And what's the philosophy that's mentioned in our modern day philosophy? It's different than what this philosophy that he's talking about in this part, the philosophy that he's talking about at that point. It was dealing with salvation. They had such things such as everything in the spiritual world was good and everything in the fleshly world was bad. So therefore, anything that had to do with flesh or bodily things were bad and couldn't be achieved, which spoke directly against what Christ had done on the cross. But today's philosophy is more of trying to understand and reason. It's a little bit different than the philosophy that was going on at that time, correct?

Speaker 2 22:27

The philosophy when it uses the word philosophy here. Back in those days, philosophy was a large umbrella term that meant basically all academic study. I mean the study of what we would call now botany or biology was under philosophy. Any of the physical sciences was under there, and things like studying the, the moon and the stars, geometry, mathematics and what we would call philosophy all that was under one big umbrella.

Speaker 2 22:57

What he's talking here is is not against all philosophy. What he's talking about is avoid false and empty deception, which is philosophy he's talking about. Don't be deceived by the false philosophy. And what I would say is that the only way to recognize bad philosophy is to recognize what it is. The only way to be aware of philosophy is to be aware of philosophy. You have to recognize it for what it is.

Speaker 2 23:30

Some smart person once said that philosophy buries its own undertakers, and what he was saying was, as soon as you say oh, I don't need this and I don't want it, I think it's outside of Christianity, so I'm never going to study it, I'm never going to look at it, I'm going to cast it out of my life and out of my church. And people do that with philosophy. They say there's no connection between Athens and Jerusalem is one of the phrases. They never study philosophy. They're the ones deceived by it. They're the ones most deceived by it. They're the ones that most need to go back and learn what it is, because they're just going to get buried by it.

Speaker 2 24:11

Philosophy just means thinking. That's all it means, and you can either think or you cannot think, and, believe me, there's a lot of Christians that aren't thinking. That's. All it really means is the study of knowledge, the study of wisdom. He's talking about again the false and deceitful philosophy, and the only way we can make sure that we're not deceived by it is to recognize it for what it is, which is false and deceptive. What I would say is when it says here see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, is to study these ideas that are being taught, so that we can know the truth from the error. What is Paul doing? We've pointed this out as we've gone through. He was speaking against the Gnostics, he was speaking against these false philosophers and he, point by point, taught against it by teaching the truth. So his example is the one we should follow.

Speaker 1 25:05

He also uses the word captive here, or captivate. Do you find it sometimes often, glenn whenever people are deceived and they're taken away by some type of a false doctrine or taken away by some type of a false philosophy that they are deceived because they haven't had the background of the scriptures and what they should be in the knowledge, through the scriptures, of understanding. Now they're deceived, and now all of a sudden you see them though that they'll throw themselves into gaining the knowledge of that philosophy or that doctrine, that false doctrine. Not everybody does this, but I've seen that happen and you kind of scratch your head. You're going like, wait a minute, you didn't want to do anything to try and understand the scriptures in a proper way, and now you've been pulled away. And all of a sudden you're studying this and you're getting real deep into it, and if you would have done that with the scriptures in the first place, you would have never been pulled away. I find that a little bit of ironic.

Speaker 2 26:08

Well, and what I find ironic is that not only that, but what's really interesting is that if you look at false teachers and false systems, every one of them is a system, it's some sort of a system, and I've met none of them that do verse by verse Bible study, which is what we're doing. Again, I've met zero of these false teachers that started chapter one, verse one, and explain it and then go to verse two, verse three, verse four, because what they do is they go through and they pick out ideas here and there and come up with a system, and that's where the deception starts. Don't get me wrong Systematic theology. I love systematic theology, it's beneficial. But I also say there's some of those systems that are deceptive and the only way we know a true system from a deceptive system is to do verse by verse Bible study, like what we do here on reasoning through the Bible.

Speaker 1 27:09

So then they throw themselves into learning the system and then when they go back to the scriptures, they read the system back into the scriptures, which that's what really gets the dangerous part, because all of a sudden they see the system in the scriptures and they're not being able to reason through the scriptures by themselves.

Speaker 2 27:29

And you and I have seen this over and over again is that once you have this system in your mind, then the now the deceptions happen. In the way psychology works. Is that it's not that we're intentionally deceiving ourselves, it's that once I have this idea of this system in my mind, I don't even see the anomalies. I don't even see the verses that teach against that. They're not perceived in the mind. That's the way psychology works. Is that once I have a perception established in my mind, I don't even see the things that teach against it. It's not that they're intentionally going against the truth. It's that once the deceived by the system, then the falsehoods just aren't even perceived. Therefore, exegetical, verse by verse, bible study and deal with the concepts as you go along, and it keeps you out of a lot of trouble, wouldn't you think, steve?

Speaker 1 28:23

Yeah, and I think Paul talks about that a little bit in the last part there of verse eight, when he talks about that according to the tradition of man and to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. So he juxtaposes both man traditions of men and the world to Christ and what they should know in Christ, and also notice that he also talks about the elementary principles of the world. So these are just like basic principles of the world. They're not things that have to do with any lofty things, these are like very basic things.

Avoid Deception, False Systems

Speaker 2 29:04

And talking about basic things, what I would say and we'll wrap up with this is that if you want to protect yourself, kind of insulate yourself from deception, the things I would say is time studying the Bible, a clean life and a course in logic. Because if we had those three things, and probably in those order time studying the Bible and a clean life, stay away from sin and just a course in logic, how do you draw conclusions from premises and from that? Then that'll keep you from the vast majority of the deception that's out there, and the vast majority of false theological and false philosophical systems is those three things.

Speaker 1 29:43

And I would add one thing to the logic to go along with it critical thinking.

Speaker 2 29:48

Yes. So with that, we will be back here next time doing our attempt at critical thinking and reasoning through the scriptures. Starting in the next verse, verse nine, he gets into another really deep section. So bring your life jackets, you're going to need them and we'll be here reasoning through the Bible, and we trust that you'll be back here with us as well.

Speaker 1 30:07

Thank you for watching and listening. May God bless you.