I am a Colossians Chapter 2 Pentecostal

[Apocrypha]

I was reading Colossians Chapter 2 late last night in The Message version. It literally hit me in the head.. all my Apostolic friends say they are Acts Chapter 2 Pentecostals... after reading this chapter about ten times last night while going through the epistles... I am a Colossians Chapter 2 Apostolic. This chapter directly addresses nearly every flaw in our movement right now and most of the issues on this board that generate the most heat (or hot air).


Colossians 2

1 I want you to realize that I continue to work as hard as I know how for you, and also for the Christians over at Laodicea. Not many of you have met me face-to-face, but that doesn't make any difference. Know that I'm on your side, right alongside you. You're not in this alone.

2-4I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery! I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or "the Secret."

5I'm a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me, but believe me, I'm on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct your affairs, and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ.

From the Shadows to the Substance

6-7My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8-10Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

11-15Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.

16-17So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.

18-19 Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.

20-23So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!" Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.

[*AQuietPlace*]

I love Colossians 2! I think it cuts to the heart of a lot of issues.

[Norman]

That's considerably different from what my Bible says.

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by Norman

That's considerably different from what my Bible says.

By words or meaning?

[Apocrypha]

Here it is in Youngs Literal Translation

1 For I wish you to know how great a conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, 2 that their hearts may be comforted, being united in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of the understanding, to the full knowledge of the secret of the God and Father, and of the Christ, 3 in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge hid, 4 and this I say, that no one may beguile you in enticing words, 5 for if even in the flesh I am absent -- yet in the spirit I am with you, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in regard to Christ;

6 as, then, ye did receive Christ Jesus the Lord, in him walk ye, 7 being rooted and built up in him, and confirmed in the faith, as ye were taught -- abounding in it in thanksgiving.

8 See that no one shall be carrying you away as spoil through the philosophy and vain deceit, according to the deliverance of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to Christ, 9 because in him doth tabernacle all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, 10 and ye are in him made full, who is the head of all principality and authority, 11 in whom also ye were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh in the circumcision of the Christ, 12 being buried with him in the baptism, in which also ye rose with him through the faith of the working of God, who did raise him out of the dead. 13 And you -- being dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh -- He made alive together with him, having forgiven you all the trespasses, 14 having blotted out the handwriting in the ordinances that is against us, that was contrary to us, and he hath taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross; 15 having stripped the principalities and the authorities, he made a shew of them openly -- having triumphed over them in it.

16 Let no one, then, judge you in eating or in drinking, or in respect of a feast, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of the coming things, and the body is of the Christ; 18 let no one beguile you of your prize, delighting in humble-mindedness and in worship of the messengers, intruding into the things he hath not seen, being vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, 19 and not holding the head, from which all the body -- through the joints and bands gathering supply, and being knit together -- may increase with the increase of God.

20 If, then, ye did die with the Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? 21 -- thou mayest not touch, nor taste, nor handle -- 22 which are all for destruction with the using, after the commands and teachings of men, 23 which are, indeed, having a matter of wisdom in will-worship, and humble-mindedness, and neglecting of body -- not in any honour, unto a satisfying of the flesh.

[Apocrypha]

It seems to carry over thought for thought.

[Sam]

I was in a meeting with some local pastors and ministers and one pastor told us that for his Sunday morning sermon the past weekend he just read the Book of Colossians to the congregation. That sounded to me like a first century gathering of Christians. Worshiping and singing together, then praying together, then hearing the synagogue/congregation leader reading an epistle from one of the apostles.

[BISHOP177]

PTL!!!
For the last 9 weeks... we have read a chapter from the book of ROMANS for the sermon!
Time for ??'s... and answers... I'm hooked on this type of "preaching".
Who can complain?
It's pure WORD!!
The catch is..... we use the Message Bible.
(let the war begin)

[berkeley]

war? que war? why are you on the defensive?

[Sam]

Originally Posted by BISHOP177

PTL!!!
For the last 9 weeks... we have read a chapter from the book of ROMANS for the sermon!
Time for ??'s... and answers... I'm hooked on this type of "preaching".
Who can complain?
It's pure WORD!!
The catch is..... we use the Message Bible.
(let the war begin)

I wouldn't fight over something like that.