Gnostics - Colossians 2:6-10

2:6-8 - Paul is rejoicing that "ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Paul implies that living the principles of faith and gratitude is how to avoid being "spoil(ed)… through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." The philosophy trap could be described as something interesting. When someone is a thinker, and most people are, they like to have stimulating ideas to think and talk about. The gospel is simple for follow and the understanding comes later, but I think that the "philosophy" concept here is referencing information that comes easily and without effort or that doesn't come from the Spirit. The learn the "mysteries" of the gospel, we have to be obedient to what we already know, we have to make an effort to learn more, and we have to involve the Holy Ghost in our exploration of the gospel. Many people want to have the intriguing ideas but don't want to do the work, or be obedient, or involve God in the process of knowledge acquisition. To me, that's what philosophy is in the context used by the scriptures, it's interesting perspectives that come from sources outside of the Spirit. "Vain deceit" is another attribute Paul brings up that could distract the people from the true gospel of Jesus Christ. This is something that we can tell by thinking about what is motivating someone to tell us something. What do they get if we accept what they are saying? In Paul's case, he gains absolutely nothing when someone accepts the gospel. I mean, he gains friends, he even might gain some validation of his own choices, but he doesn't get a new car or house if he can convert a certain number of people. But some of these other religious leaders at the time, and even now to be honest, do gain power, prestige, and wealth when someone agrees to join their religion. So whenever someone is trying to convince you of something, it's important to not only consider their message, but also consider what they gain by having you believe them. There was a general conference talk this last time that talked about culture and how culture can be good as long as it is in line with the gospel and when our culture is contrary to the gospel, then we need to give the gospel precedent over culture. This might be different for some people who were born and raised as members of the church but for Paul's audience, I believe that they were all converts, meaning that the teachings of Christ were relatively new to them in their lifetime and they lived in a place surrounded by others religions to the point there have probably been some blurred lines where religion of culture cross. 2:9-10 - After giving that rather general advice, Paul says something very specific that doesn't seem to fit with the narrative he's setting out. Paul says of Christ, "for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." When I read this, I thought "What is he talking about?" But the article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com gives some background, saying, "In Paul's epistle to the Colossians, we find the earliest evident for gnosticism in the early Christian Church. Gnosticism was a false philosophy that had at its focus a belief that spirit was perfect and holy but that matter, and all that was created of it, was entirely evil. This idea held that God was a being of pure spirit and could have nothing to do with man, a creature of matter (and therefore evil); so instead of worshipping God, gnostics revered an extensive hierarchy of lower deities. It is probably that in his letter to the Saints of Colossae, Paul attacked just such a heresy by denouncing what he called the 'worshipping of angels.' (Colo. 2:18.) One problem Christ gnostics faced was that Christians believed Jesus Christ to have been both God and man. Because Jesus had a body of matter, his position in the heavenly hierarchies was problematic for gnostics. Paul responded forcefully to this ambivalence regarding the role of Jesus when he emphasized in Colossians 1:16-17 and 2:9-10 His preeminence over all… Gnosticism and related heresies were a serious problem for the Church. Such beliefs were so antithetical to the doctrines of Jesus and the Apostles that attempts to merge and reconcile them contributed to the corruption of the original faith. Extra-biblical sources tell us the gnosticism played an important role in the first centuries of Christian history. Whereas the religion of the Apostles did not continue, its Gnosticized counterpart did." This was a long explanation but it really makes a lot more sense when considering what was going on with the people, especially because this concept is relatively foreign to us modernly. It's interesting though that even all these thousands of years later, and even though the rhetoric is different, Satan is still just as vigilant about making us hate our bodies as he was then, even though the ideas are different. It's just interesting to see how varied Satan's plans are to make us feel like we are very different from God and that He is inaccessible to us. I can see how Jesus being a mortal could be an intellectual road block for someone who believed that spirit was perfect and physical was evil. It would be hard to reconcile the God you are supposed to worship being made of the same evil substance you are. But then again, there are a lot of things that we all have to reconcile that we don't understand in the gospel, and we have to do that with the help of the Holy Ghost or we will never be able to understand the truth enough to commit to it. Especially when Paul says that Jesus, who has a physical body, "is the head of all principality and power." That kind of new information can flip any pre-existing beliefs on its head.