According to Christ, Col, 2:8

All right, here we are in the passage. It's just but one verse, but boy, there's a lot in it. So let's go ahead and charge on into the passage here. This, as we've made note of before, is one of the warning passages in chapter 2. Chapter 2 has several warning passages, and this is making an appropriate warning there about a spiritual danger that's ahead. I've used the analogy before that I had this company that I was working with over in Germany that made high-voltage equipment, and so they had numerous warnings. Paul was doing the exact same thing at the spiritual level. This is a serious danger. Take me seriously. I mean it.

So Paul alternates here between giving a warning and teaching truth, and this is, yes, a case where you want your binoculars on again. We're looking just at this one verse, verse 8, which is sort of the warning band, the second one, if you will. in this passage full of warnings and then truth, alternately taught. Now, what's he doing in this passage in chapter 2? He's giving four warnings that have similarity, and the one warning that he comes out with in each one of them is, repeatedly, no one, or the King James brings it across appropriately, lest any man, Now, let me make an analogy here.

You've got a nice living room, nice, neat, tidy, cleaned up, all that good stuff. Now, let's assume, I want to ask you a question here, this is for your consideration. If there were to be delivered to you, to your living room, free of charge, I want to know from you, how many would you like delivered? Delivered what, you say? How many rhinoceroses would you like delivered to your living room? You can have as many as you like, they'll be free of charge, you can have as many as you want, it's up to you. How many would you like? Taking orders right after the service.

None. None? What's this idea of not even one? Hey, they're free! They're delivered free! Convenience, you couldn't ask for better. Well, you understand the point. That's exactly Paul's point. When he talks about false teaching, he doesn't say, hey, I'll take a certain percentage, kind of the tolerance level. He says zip, nothing, none, nada, not one bit. His tolerance level for false teaching is exactly the same as your tolerance for rhinoceroses in your living room.

In each case, and we're taking, of course, the second one here in Colossians 2.8, there is correspondingly a specific warning. He tells us uniformly, no one, no one, no one, no one.

In each case, however, he has a corresponding warning, and we're looking at this one here where the warning is about taking you captive. Taking you captive. That's his warning here. See to it that no one takes you captive, is the way he starts off. See to it. That's the way he begins it. King James has an appropriate translation as well. Beware. Look out. Watch out. Blepite.

And I've kind of broken the usual pattern. Usually I use first person, you know, singular here as the pattern. Here I deliberately did not. And the reason is it's a form specifically to tell you it's an imperative. It isn't a, hey, just a slight caution if you happen to think about it.

But you must, it's an imperative, this ending here in the Greek communicates that. Those who have been taking or have taken the Greek course know that well. This ending communicates you must watch out. It is imperative that you do so. It's not just an advisory. This is absolutely essential. It's an essential warning for your spiritual safety. It's a present active imperative. You must right now be continuing, is what he is telling them. You must right now be continuing because of your position in Christ. Of your own doing, of your own volition, to view your spiritual environment circumspectly.

Have you ever been through an incident where you kind of weren't paying attention to what was going on, and when you suddenly became aware of what was going on, you were alarmed? That's the kind of spiritual stance that he wants us to have here, where he doesn't want us to be surprised and cut off guard, so he says, walk circumspectly now, so that you will not be alarmingly surprised. I'm giving you due warning. Be careful. Walk circumspectly, look at what's happening. Be aware of what's happening spiritually here, is his message.

See to it, or be aware, that no one takes you captive, is his message there. This word captive, where the King James carries it across with the idea of spoils. The Greek word is sula gogeo, and this word here is an interesting one. If we were to translate that phrase literally, it comes across as, you must beware so that no one will be making you the illegal or illegitimate captive. That's the idea.

So whatever you do, Don't name your kid Syllagogeo. Don't do that. I know you're thinking about it, so don't. Syllagogeo was only used here in the New Testament, and it only occurs twice anywhere else in the whole ancient Greek language that we can find.

And of the three, this is the one that shows up first. So Paul is cutting edge here. He's using cutting edge language to try to communicate to them, look, you really don't want to get caught in this spiritual captivity. So he's using this cutting-edge warning to them.

In one place, it was used to describe stealing property. These are the other places where it shows up. In another place, it described taking somebody captive. Given the two, the one that seems to be most appropriate to the situation there is the second one. Now, there's a root word here, sylla. It was commonly used to taking plunder either from a cargo ship or from a shipping wagon.

And so here's the root of the word that Paul's drawing upon here. Likely because Colossae is an inland city on a meeting point between two Roman roads, that this second one, the wagon, is probably the illustration that would most likely come to the minds of the people in Colossae.

Paul uses the related verb of Sulao in 2 Corinthians. Those of you in 2 Corinthians elective get to get to this eventually here. Paul writes, I robbed Sulao, other churches, by taking wages from them to serve you. He is trying to communicate to them that I had to draw upon other churches' resources in order to help you, and he uses this word.

This word also was used elsewhere in Greek literature for picking off all the goods from fallen soldiers after a battle. So it's a word that has negative connotations at the outset. This is to give you an idea of the word, the kind of word that Paul is using to the church at Colossae. It's a word full of negative connotations. So he says, you do not want to be taken captive with every negative connotation that's contained in the word. Cutting edge though it was. So here's Paul's picture. He's using an illustration in front of them.

At worst, these false teachers that have come to Colossae were taking their recruits illegally, illegitimately, if you will. The recruits here are characterized in a depersonalized fashion as stolen goods and the false teachers were the spiritual rip-offs. How many of you like getting ripped off? No, right? It's not a fun experience. It's not fun, but that's how he's characterizing these false teachers. Now, that's at worst.

At best, these false teachers at Colossae, and I think this is the more likely image that Paul's pointing to, were taking their recruits as victims of hostile capture. to be used as human merchandise, exploited for the false teacher's personal benefit. It was legal to take captives in those days, and you could do with them whatever you like. You could sell them. If you didn't like them, you could kill them. That's the picture that Paul is using.

He says, beware that in this false teaching, you don't get taken captive. From then on, the treatment is the worst possible. Those who have taken you are those who have no right to do so. Taken illegally and illegitimately. That's the warning he's given. Pretty heavy warning, huh?

So, what is the false teacher's means of taking their captives? He spells it out real clearly. Through philosophy and empty deception. That's the bottom line. That's the mechanism, the means, through which he is going to take these captives. False teachers, rather, are going to take them. The structure of this phrase comes across this way.

There's a definite article, by means of the philosophy and empty deception. So it's pointing, it's the philosophy and empty deception, not just some vague thing. It's specific. It also has an implication in the Greek. There is an indication by both a shared means and a shared article. pointing towards the philosophy is the empty deception. The philosophy that is being propounded to them is exactly the empty deception. They are one and the same. You want to know what the empty deception is? It's the philosophy they're bringing. That's it. That's exactly it.

We need to make sure, however, we understand what Paul means by the word philosophy. It's possible we've got a different picture in mind than what Paul meant. So let's make sure we have that down straight here. The word translated philosophy is philosophia. Aha! I wonder where they got that. Philosophia would mean love of wisdom, if you put the word together. But unlike what our culture thinks of, it had a much wider meaning, which we'll take a look at just shortly here.

We might be inclined to think of, when we think of philosophy, Maybe you're thinking of Rene Descartes, sat down, I can figure out without anything else, just reason my way to that there is a God. Perhaps David Hume comes to mind, or maybe you're thinking of George Hegel. Soren Kierkegaard, maybe other names come to mind, but these are ideas in human philosophy. The thing to remember is that there is a valid reason or valid place for philosophy in Christian thinking. I don't mean to speak heresy, but there is a valid place for it. And it's this. Logic and reasoning is a part of philosophy. That's certainly something we see used in scripture. There is a place for logic and reasoning.

Epistemology, big word for how do we know something? How do we know it's true? Presuppositions. Well, what do people assume before they start their argument, before they begin telling you this and that? Ever had somebody tell you that's true for you but not for me? What are the presuppositions that go into that? What do they assume before they ever say that?

Philosophy of science. How does science work? What do I know what's science and what isn't? That's a part of the issue with evolution and creation. Bible interpretation uses logic and uses philosophical arguments. The assessment of evidence in law is also something that originates in philosophy and as this country was founded originally, was also founded in Scripture.

Now, there are valid places. Let me give you, for instance, many of you have heard, of course, of John Wolvard. John Wolvard was co-author and kind of final editor on this book, Major Bible Themes, that a number of us have used in a study, and I think will be used again shortly. I was able to meet John Walvoord and go to his house a couple of times. He went home to be with the Lord not quite two years ago. But John Walvoord, just to give you a for instance, had his bachelor's degree in philosophy before continuing on in seminary.

And he said that there is perfectly valid use for Christian thinking. But the key, he said, was this. If we use scripture as the framework for understanding a philosophy, it's very useful. The problem arises, the caveat, if you will, comes in the philosophy that is unguided by scripture is where they begin to grope in the darkness. Philosophy unguided by scripture is where they begin to grope in the darkness. So that's a key distinction. We should not reject all philosophy but recognize that which is unguided by scripture is where it goes off the mark. In biblical times, in New Testament times, the use of this word philosophy included the occult, all sorts of things like magic, Acts 19, 19, remember? They burned all the magic books.

That was considered philosophy. Jewish traditions of every kind were included in philosophy, and the classical Greek philosophers, Plato, Epicureanism, and Stoicism. All of these were considered philosophy when Paul used the word philosophia. So we need to be careful we don't throw everything in there or the wrong thing into the meaning of the word. Josephus, writing in the first century, was a Jewish author and historian.

He said, and he used this word philosophia, this exact same one that Paul uses, that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes of the Jewish culture, were philosophia, each of them were philosophia in his time. The word philosophy then, as Paul used it, includes any humanly founded system of belief. The problem with the Pharisees is while they believed in the Old Testament, they came up with things of their own. The problem with the Sadducees is while they believed in the first five books of Moses, they came up with things of their own, etc. So it's not purely scripture, it was human philosophy. any human-based attempt to make sense of the world that is either added to or starts apart from Scripture would be included in Paul's use of the word philosophy.

Philosophy, which is the empty deception. Ah, there's the characterization of it. Look, folks, there's nothing there. It is empty deception. It is pretending that there is something there when there is not. In fact, It is absolutely void. There's nothing behind it.

An illusionist is entertaining. Some years ago, my son Ed and I went to see David Copperfield, and very entertaining to see this stuff. One of the things he did was to switch heads on a live chicken and a duck. Very odd, and they were definitely live and moving and all that sort of thing. I wouldn't try it myself. I wouldn't recommend you try it at home, okay? But nonetheless, that's what he did. He did all sorts of interesting things.

The people's bodies disappeared and their head remained, things of that sort. But even at one point, and not at the particular performance that I went to, there were people that went to see the Statue of Liberty disappear. Not by turning the lights off, but with the lights full on, they disappeared. And again, it's all an illusion.

It's very entertaining. However, there are things like that that cross a line where it's no longer entertaining. Let me give you a for instance. There's your money. That's not funny. That's no longer entertaining. It's very much not entertaining. It is even more serious when someone comes and talks about matters of time and eternity, and they fool you.

Illusions, empty deception isn't entertaining in the least when you find out, hey, this is not the eternal truth. It's not the eternal truth. And unfortunately, that's what a lot of people have been sold on. They're thinking, you know, hey, when this world's done, I'll be finished and my molecules will come apart and who knows what happens. That's not something you want to find out you're wrong about. That's not something where empty deception is going to cut it, is it? That's a serious thing to offer empty deception on, and that's exactly how Paul characterizes it.

Now, he three times in this passage uses according to, according to, according to. That is something that the King James appropriately translates after. It's the simple Greek word kata. It means consistent with or characterized by. The first two uses of according to are negative. He makes according to, and he has two negative uses, and then the last one is positive, according to Christ.

Let's take a look at this section here. The first one is according to the tradition of men. All right, now. So, let's ask a question. The tradition of men. Is Paul saying the problem is just with the traditions that men start, as opposed to the females? It's just the ones that men start. That's the problem, okay? It's men who create the problem. If men did it, then it's weird, right? It's a problem, okay?

Or is he saying, no, and if we... If we didn't have those traditions that men started and the women started the traditions, we'd be fine. Is that his idea? Is that the thought? That if you start the women starting the traditions, that it's just great? No, I don't think so.

This word men is anthropos, which is a general term for all humanity. It's a tradition that starts with all humanity. It's not just one gender or the other. The Lord himself says that the Jews had traditions of men. The problem is they were contrary to the commandments of God. The problem isn't just that they originate from men, but the problem is that they conflict with the commandments of God or the truth that God has revealed.

Tradition isn't necessarily negative. Paul himself uses the word in 1 Corinthians 11 and 2 Thessalonians. So it actually depends on the source of the tradition, not just that you have a tradition, okay? Now, good tradition or bad tradition? A good tradition, that we've made reference to here, here's a for instance, 2 Thessalonians 2.15.

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions, same word, which you are taught, whether by word or by mouth or by letter from us. Excuse me, word of mouth or letter from us. Either you are directly taught or we wrote you a letter, either way you've taken it from sound authority. Apostolic authority. So here's a good tradition. This is a good one. So tradition isn't all bad. Or let's look at what are characterized as bad traditions.

Matthew 15.3 is one of them.

And he answered and said to them, Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? Here's the commandment of God, here's the tradition, put them side by side, and which has final vote? He says, you've let your tradition outvote the commandment of God. That's where it's a bad tradition.

That's the test, the acid test, if you will. What he points to is what's the source. The difference between bad traditions and good traditions in the New Testament is the source. Bad traditions originate from human beings. I'm not saying you shouldn't hang little red balls from your Christmas tree or something. But this is saying, initially, that's characteristic one. Their character is bad as evidenced by their being in conflict with what God has revealed. That's the second part of the test. If they originate from human beings and they're in conflict with what God has revealed, then you've got a problem.

And that's what he's pointing to in Colossians 2.8. Now, so the question, what's the source? Good traditions originate from God.

They've been conveyed by the apostles. or those working alongside them. As Paul wrote to us in 2 Thessalonians, the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us, there is apostolic authority. The authors of the New Testament, for example, were either apostles or those writing with apostolic authorship. Dr. Luke, for example, wrote under the sponsorship of Paul.

Now we get to the really fun part. the elementary principles of the world. What is that? This is one that the King James shortens up with a succinct word, rudiments, the basics. It's this word stoichia, aha, that introduces some great stuff. The meaning of this word, by the way, has been debated greatly. It's a debate of international proportions, all sorts of back and forth on this one. But I think, however, if we take a careful look at it in the context, we'll get a pretty good sense of what Paul's pointing at here.

So are you ready with me? We're going to enter the stoichia zone. Okay, here we go. All right, stoichia, what was that? Okay, all right. Stoichia is used in four different books in the New Testament, and Paul, The Greek word, stoichia, gets first shot with four usages of it. We're looking at the first one, Colossians, here. And there are some different meanings. The same word is used with the different meanings, and we'll see the examples here shortly.

To talk about stoichia in the Greek culture had one meaning, and that meant it was to talk about the basic parts of matter according to the Greek philosophers. that everything was made of was the stoichia, the basic physical elements. As a matter of fact, that's kind of the concept as it's carried across.

Even modern chemistry has this term stoichiometry. If you've ever had to take a chem class, you may have heard of it, and it's based on that word. You may be familiar with the way that the Greeks broke it up. It started out, actually, initially with a Sicilian philosopher, Empedocles, said everything consists of these four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. You hear that before?

That's where it came up with, Sicilian philosopher came up with it. And then Plato referred to his writings twice and kind of underscored this idea, and that seemed to really popularize it. The theory was later supported and added to, embellished is the word, by Aristotle, and it even served as the foundation of medieval alchemy. where you see a lot of these symbols showing up here, and this has been carried over into Latin. Now, the word stoiche then referred to the basic things that make up this world, and that's why you'll see the word brought over with the idea of elementary or elements. The basic things that this world is made of. That is the way that 2 Peter uses this word twice.

There's actually one I've quoted here, verse 10, you could add to this list. Since all things These things, rather, are to be destroyed in this way. What sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements, the stoikia, will melt with intense heat?" So here's one definition of the word stoikia.

It is not to confuse it, but just to understand. This is one of the ways that the word was used and understood. When the people read this, they said, ah, we understand what meaning Peter has when he says this. There was another use here. Stoichi was also using the idea of any elementary facts or principles about some area of science or art.

Any initial knowledge, and by the way, we use kind of the term the ABCs, the introductory knowledge of something, and that's the way the author of Hebrews uses it in Hebrews 5.12. Those of you who went through the Hebrews elective may recall this. where he talks about the elementary principles of the oracles of God. Basically, what is that? The basics of scripture. He says, I've got to come at you with milk and not solid food because you still need the ABCs, the beginning principles, the beginning facts.

In Galatians 4.3, Paul writes there, and now here there's a bit of a shift. It's no longer just the physical elements of the universe, it's no longer just the ABCs, the starting facts, but it also has just the starting ideas of the law. Here's something that's outside of what the Greek philosophers had in mind, but the law was just the starting way that they were to grow out of, or to have grown out of by this point in time.

Now, the Greek documents from that era also use this word, stoichia, in the magic documents. We made previous reference to Acts 19, 19. It was also used in astrology, even Jewish occultism. Yes, the Jews had occultism, and it referred to stoichia as spiritual beings. So even the various Jewish groups would make reference to these stoichia, not as just earth, air, fire, and water, but into other spiritual beings as well, demons.

There is this false testament of Solomon that was, some portions were written as early as around the time of the New Testament. And here's this fellow writes in the false testament of Solomon, then I commanded another demon to appear before me. There came to me 36 stoichia, their heads like formless dogs. What a description. He says, they are the world rulers of the darkness of this age. Isn't that an interesting comparison?

You compare that to Ephesians 6.12.

So it was used to refer to demonic beings, even in the Jewish literature. Stoicia were in some writers during that era used to refer to the signs of the Zodiac and the beings which controlled it. We made reference earlier to how Artemis of the Ephesians was one of these here. And finally, these astrological signs, some even made deities of the four elements. They came up with names for those deities. Today's neo-paganism and earth religions, you heard of Wicca, you heard of some of the resurrection of the medieval and ancient earth religions.

Those call upon these same beings and you will even find the use of the word stoichia among those, I'll call them false religions. later on in Colossians chapter 2, he makes reference to rulers and authorities. Those are references elsewhere in Ephesians and Colossians to angelic beings. Paul tells Timothy that these kinds of legalistic practices that he refers to, food and drink and self-abasement, are doctrines of demons. And later on in Revelation, we see twice that John mistakenly begins to worship an angel, and the angels say, No!

Stop! Worship God. And what is it? It is a true angel who is following the Lord. The fallen angels don't object to the worship at all. So there's repeated reference following this on to angelic beings who are fallen. And he repeats the phrase, the elementary principles of the world. So, back to this. The elementary principles of the world are worldly in origin, but they are demonic. They are fallen angels.

Through which, in Galatians 6.14, he says, you have died to, in Christ, and having died with Christ, to the world.

And, he says in Colossians 2.20, which we'll see eventually, you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, to these demonic beings, to these fallen angelic beings. All right. The Net Bible then translates this as elemental spirits, and brings it across that way.

This was part of the philosophy that the false teachers were teaching, because remember, they had these emanations of angels. Worship those angels, because that's one way that you can get in contact with God, with what they taught. Rather than according to Christ. Now, rather than is not rather than, just so you know.

But Paul wrote Colossians 2.8 in absolute terms. He wrote, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, because he puts that entirely as an opposite, rather than according to Christ.

It's this or this. It's absolute terms that he lays out before them. Ultimately, in a world that keeps telling us everything is relative, He lays out an absolute warning. He says, see to it that no one, see how absolute the term is? No one takes you captive.

Now, he's writing to Christians, isn't he? He's writing to Christians. These are believers he's writing to. So what's the caution here? The caution, he's concerned, is that the believers get misled and taken away of beholding Christ and growing in Him, of walking in Him and depending upon Him. What we have is doctrines matter because it profoundly impacts your walk. It profoundly impacts your relationship with the Lord.

And so his caution here is not superfluous. It's not unnecessary. It's absolutely essential. He says, Christ is the measure of everything. Christ is the absolute. If you want to know what you really need to focus on, it's Him. These other things will simply be empty deception. These other things may take you captive. They will not lead you to Christ. Him, He is the standard. He is the measure. He is the one which everything else needs to be according to, measured by.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you. As we look at these cautionary words, There is indeed great depth, and we thank you even more that it ends up pointing us to Christ, that in relationship with Him, in fellowship with Him, in intimacy with Him, in the truth that is Him, we can take great confidence and great comfort, eternally so. We thank you for that, in Jesus' name, Amen.