BULLSEYE!
ACCURATE
BIBLE
KNOWLEDGE!
“THE
COLOSSIAN CHURCH
– ONE BIG RELIGIOUS MELTING POT!”
QUESTION:
“Was the Colossian church like some sort of religious soup with many
ingredients from the East, The Essenes, Greek, the Messianics and
higher
intellectual thought all mixed up together?”
ANSWER:
Yes.
EXPLANATION:
The
Colossian church had sunk into the dark hole of secret knowledge –
called The
Gnostic Heresy. The
Colossian saints had a complete
misunderstanding of spiritual circumcision (Col
2:11), and were resorting to various sorts of secret and
hidden knowledge, and were putting the fulness of Jesus Christ aside.
BACKGROUND
The
epistle to the Colossians and the
book of John’s gospel address the
same problem – heresies of the 1st
century flooding into the church.
Now
John, in the Gospel of John,
counteracts the more obvious problem of ‘Christ is not God’, and
indeed, all
the variations on that eg ‘half man/half God’, ‘Christ a mere phantom’,
‘Christ
was just a god’ and so on.
But
Colossians deals with the
infiltrating Trojan horse of the worldly wise gnostics with all
their deeper
and hidden knowledge, being an ungodly, evil and poisonous brew of Greek
philosophy, Judaism, Oriental religions and higher intellectual
thought.
Paul
never went to Colossae, the church being established by Epaphras,
working
himself into the ground, labouring fervently for them (Col 4:12), and
who also
ended up in prison with Paul (Philemon 1:23).
THE THEME
OF THE BOOK
OF COLOSSIANS
1.
Get God’s wisdom and his spiritual
understanding (Col 1:9)
revealed in Christ. You are complete and
sufficient in Christ in
whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col 2:9) “For in
him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all
principality and power:” (Col 2:9-10)
2.
Heaven and earth were created BY Christ
himself not a succession of angels (not the NKJV ‘THROUGH’) (Col 1:16,17;
John 1:2). The Colossian Heresy that Paul writes to counteract, was
based on
their understanding that Christ could not, and would not, create a
sinful
world. Therefore it must have been made by a successive series of
angels that
had become more and more sinful with each generation, eventuating in a
fallen
world far removed from a perfect and sinless Christ.
3.
In essence Paul says “Dear Colossian people, please ignore all the
books and
gurus telling you how to overcome the flesh by a deeper and more
satisfying
spiritual life with voluntary humility
(Col 2:18), philosophy and vain deceit
(Col 2:8), fleshy mind
inventions of starving yourself (Col
2:21,23), will worship (Col 2:23)
and rudiments of the world (Col 2:8).
Why? The flesh is not honoured by, and can never be satisfied, by these
things
(Col 2:23). Why? They come from the fleshy mind (Col 2:18) and flesh
can never
satisfy flesh. Jesus Christ is 100%
sufficient to overcome the flesh – not the man-made
programs of
legalism, rituals, mysticism and philosophy.
THE
FOUR FALSE DOCTORS
Instead
of letting Dr Christ attend to them,
they were receiving house calls from four
physicians of no value (Job 13:4) – Dr
Law, Dr Philosophy, Dr Religion and
Dr Ascetic.
Dr Law, well
described in
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, prescribes solid efforts of the flesh
to keep
God’s commandments and thereby heal the sin–sick soul. He directs us to
Mt
Sinai to live in a town called
Morality.
Dr
Philosophy, whose
medicine is
‘vain deceit’ after the tradition of men, which turn men’s thoughts to
their
own crude notions (rudiments of the world) and cunning follies, that
only land
them in deeper sin because of their pride and unbelief. This false
Doctor,
using the worldly wisdom of situation ethics (“the end result is always
justified by any means to obtain it”), minimises and makes excuses for
sin.
Dr
Religion, whose
remedies for
sin consist of heavy doses of
voluntary humility, worshipping of angels, keeping feasts and observing
days.
These are rounds of piety that the flesh enjoys but which never change
the
heart nor arrests the plague of sin.
As
the reader would know, this spiritual Doctor, while condemning legalism
in all its
manipulating, dominating and oppressive forms, turns out to be the
worst
legalist of all. Why? He has put aside God’s rules so that he may
enforce his
rules on others.
Dr
Ascetic, prescribes
starvations, fasts and the neglecting of the body along
with strict man-made ordinances and will worship, but which
the apostle says are “…not in any honour
to the satisfying of the flesh.” (Col 2:23). They are of no avail against the indulgences of the
flesh. The flesh scoffs with scorn and derision at these empty and
worthless
attempts to appease its raging and unlimited appetites.
THE END
RESULT?
The
Colossian church were to send Paul’s letter to the church at Laodicea about 10
miles away (Col 2:1; Col 4:15-16). This church at Colossae had become an odious
mixture of East and West - of the Greek, the Jew, the Orient.
Now if
they could
have read the message of the Revelation of St John to the church at
Laodicea (not that they could as it would be
written 20 years after Paul writes to the Colossians) they would see
how their
church would end up.
Yes,
you’ve got it!
One giant baked pudding of religious sewerage, consisting of an
unholy
mixture of higher university intellectual
thought combined with Roman Catholic starvations, meditations, candles, whippings
and flagellations, stirred in with very
large spoonfuls of Greek philosophical
thought and flavoured with ‘christian’
rock and roll, Copeland, Prince, Myer, Hinn and Hills
TV, and cooked in an Essene
oven, having first been sprinkled with large dustings of modern ‘pop’ psychology, ‘tongues’, church
voting, tithing,
water baptisms, church membership and
set to a temperature suitable for an ascetic Budda
having a meeting with
some Hindus, Greenies, sodomites
and feminists.
Correct!
Welcome to
the modern day Laodicean church – found today anywhere, and on any
corner.
The
Colossian church were to send Paul’s letter to the Laodicean church
about 10
miles away (Col 2:1; Col 4:15-16). This church had become an odious
mixture of
East and West, of the Greek, the Jew, the Orient.
It
reminds me of the ‘Melting Pot’ song. Google it up if you’ve
forgotten
it. It’s by “Blue Mink”.
NOW
HERE’S THE MODERN DAY CHURCH VERSION:
“THE 2021
RELIGIOUS MELTING
POT SONG”
1. Take a bit
of Christian-ees
Wrap him
up in Bhudda-ees
Add
Feminists and Sodom-ees
And a
little bitty bit of water-tithing-membership
(Oh
yeah yeah yeah)
Voluntree
humility
No
restrictions dietree
Worshipping
the Pastree
You got
a recipe for Get-a-Long Church
Just
pass the plate …
You
know-a you know-a you know know …
CHORUS:
Don’t
you wish’a you hadda churcha like-a we got
Gettin’
filled, gettin’ stoned, gettin’ fleeced
From
our houses and all we got
Keep it
going for’a manyee years or more
Turning
out barking stoned dead people by the score
2. Worldly
rudimentals
Get rid
of fundamentals
Catholics,
Pentys, Calvin
Well it
doesn’t really matter what believin’ you choose
(Oh No
No No)
The
people with the feelings
With
all the tongues and healings
The
messages are tasteful
Well it
really doesn’t matter what’a bible you choose
That’s
a Gooda the News
(You
know you know you know….)
3. Girls are
leading singees
Women do
the preachees
Psychologee
degrees
You got
the people thinking “Am I you or are you mees?”
Past
memory
recollections
We’re
taking up collections
Tongues
and meditations
Studied
Greek studied Hebrew “I’m-a-Doctor-Flossafee”
(No
doctrine No doctrine No doctrine nonononono…)
Welcome to
the modern
day Laodicean church – found anywhere on any corner.
Now just
in case
Baptists get self-righteous, we musn’t forget them
The King
James needs
correction
Between
the scholar
and the dollar
With
churches
Constitutions
Richer
nuggets in
‘the greek’ of’a which we’a speak
Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes
In water
dunking we’a
lust
Church
membership a must
Without
tithing we go
bust
In voting
we got lust
and won’t be subject to the BOOK
Oh-no-no-no-no-no
Notta
wonderful a
Bible, Notta wonderful God
We gotta
wonderful’a
Preacher
He’s not a
Pastor nor
a Teacher
It’s the
‘rigonals
and Greek
He seek-a
seek
a-seeka seek …
Harley
Hitchcock
www.
AustralianBibleMinistries
.com
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