Colossians Study Outline

Colossians is written primarily to warn the Colossi believers, as well as us today, of things that can so easily make inroads into our belief and trusting onto faith. Now you might say that you didn’t know that Paul dealt with any false teaching in Colossians, Yes, he does. He deals with two facets. One of them was athleticism. Now most people, probably hear the word and don’t really understand what it means. Athleticism is that teaching that you had to put down all the desires of the flesh, by mortifying the flesh. To become a burnt offering to God, but this does not a line up with our being a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God, as our reasonable service (Romans 12:1-3). And it all has to do with "you can’t do this" and "you can’t do that" and "you can’t enjoy this" and "you can’t enjoy that" through the religion of this present darkness. Much like the Holiness movement of our day. In fact, I think that some of the early church monks and the monastery type of people would just literally put themselves through misery for that very reason, that they were not to enjoy a single day of life. Hoping thereby to gain favor with God. You’ve probably heard of the hair shirt, where they would just wear that shirt with the hair next to their skin and just be miserable. Well, they thought by so doing they were pleasing God.

Then on the other hand we have those people who were trying to convince the early church believers that there was more to it than what Paul had given them. And that you had to get in and get understanding of the angelic powers and some of these things that we would say today were the New Age movement and so forth. We are still up against the same things. In fact, we’ll let you read the two verses where this is brought out the most clearly. They are in Colossians chapter 2 and verse 8 and then the other concept is in verse 16. And so the whole of Colossians revolves around these two warnings. It is just as appropriate today as it was when Paul wrote it.

Colossians 2:8

"Beware (that’s a word of warning.) lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, (that's where it comes in that "you can’t do this or that" and "you’ve got to put yourself down and keep your appetites under control", the subtle forms of mans religion) after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, (not God’s Word that they’re following, but man-made devices, which is spiritual fornication and idolatry as we've said religion fosters, as forms of self will) and not after Christ."

Now let’s go over to verse 16 and here we have this warning not to get caught up in these things that we do to, again strength in our flesh, all the while trying to merit favor with God.

Colossians 2:16-17, 18-19

"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holyday (religious holidays), or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days; Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. (or the body is Christ's, meaning of His own making) Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, by not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministers, and knit together, increases with the increase of God."

What does this mean? Don’t get hung up on what day of the week you worship. You’d be surprised how many e-mail letters and Face book messages we get that say, "Aren’t we supposed to be keeping the Sabbath's, Easter or Christmas seasons?" You see, here is the warning in verse 16. Don’t get hung up on those things. We have to answer with one stock answer and that is that we’re not under Law. The Law demands Sabbath worship, and seventh day Sabbath. We’re not under anything like that. And so here is the warning. Don’t get hung up on these things as to what you eat or drink or a holyday (holidays) or a new moon or Sabbath days (all the old religious Jewish holidays under the Old Testament, they have all passed away in the flesh of Jesus and were buried with Him,  in God's eyes as His original intent). Now look at verse 18. And this is another warning.

Colossians 2:18a

"Let no man beguile you (or deceive and defraud you) of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels,…"

Do you see what that says? A voluntary humility is something you force on yourself to literally put yourself down so that somehow God will be kind and feel sorry for you. So don’t be taken in by that. Ignorance is not bliss by any means.

Colossians 2:18b

"…intruding into those things which he has not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind."

In America for the last few years have you noticed this constant emphasis on angels, especially at Christmas or Easter time. Everything you see is angels, angels, angels. Popular television shows have something to do with angels, either of good or evil. I’ve seen it and we can a test to the imagination and imagery that they amount to. And listen, we’re warned that we don’t get involved with things like that. We’ll be commenting on that more strongly as we come through it verse by verse.

Anyway, this letter to the Colossians was, along with other things, written to warn us of various types of false teachings all of which are contained within mans religion. And as always remember, we're afraid too many believers today do not get the concept of what the Apostle Paul was up against when he went out into that Gentile world. He did not have a great army of advance men. The fellow had maybe one or two of his co-workers, Luke or Barnabas, or whoever, would come in to these cities steeped in paganism. And even as you visit some of those ruins of those ancient cities, we can see the ruins of these ancient temples. Especially in Athens, the female goddesses, umpteen of them, just standing there in a row up on top of those columns. That’s all they saw. Everywhere you look it is a constant reminder of their worship of the gods and goddesses of mythology and along with what is gross immorality and out and out idolatry. This was the setting way back during the early days of history which Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah and the others had to deal with. And into that environment comes the Apostle Paul with nothing more than this Gospel. And yet this Gospel was so powerful that in the midst of all that idolatry he by the Holy Spirit was able to bring people out of it and put their faith in the finished work of the cross, and through it transformed lives.