The Basic Principles of this World

Passage: Colossians 2:8-23

An older member of a church I served once told me about how much her late husband had looked down on members of her family of origin. In particular, she described how her husband, a college professor, would bait her brother with questions about their theology. Her brother, a farmer with a grade school education, would attempt to answer the questions based on what he remembered from sermons and Bible stories. Then her husband would rip his answers to shreds. She recalled, with tears in her eyes, the way her husband used theological savvy as a weapon to humiliate her brother in order to bolster his own sense of superiority.

More recently one of my best friends confided to me concern about his youngest sister’s latest vocational pursuit. His sister, a college dropout, had moved to the West Coast and enrolled in the “Power Plant”, a charismatic Christian academy that specializes in healing prayer, prophecy, and what she called “words of knowledge.” When she came home for Thanksgiving break, his sister said she’d received a “word of knowledge” that God was going to heal their mom’s cancer. Based on this, she insisted that her mother refuse the surgery and chemotherapy she was scheduled to undergo. When my friend and his family dismissed his sister’s urgings, she said, “You obviously don’t have the faith I do. God talks to me.”

It’s human nature to latch on to skills, abilities or social status markers that make us special. We all at some level want to be superior to someone or better at something. This is what the Apostle Paul talks about when he warns his church against “depending on the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” When it comes to religion, people’s human instincts lead them down two possible paths. The first is believing that one can acquire a level of secret or superior knowledge of the divine that puts them ahead. They’ll use special jargon to talk about God and the life of faith. They’ll make veiled references to certain skills or practices that you’d obviously only know about if you were part of the elite circle of “true believers.” This superior knowledge, they believe, gets them closer to God. Proponents of this approach to the faith invariably look down on those who know less than they do.

The second is believing that there is a set of rules that, if followed, will get you closer to God. Proponents of this approach shape their lives around certain disciplines, are harshly critical of anyone who doesn’t follow the rules as strictly or exhaustively as they do, and again think of themselves as belonging to an elite society.

Paul confronts and debunks both philosophies in Colossians 2. He says, “The only basis for a successful appeal to God is the blood of Jesus Christ.” He tells the members of his church that if they have embraced Jesus as Savior and Lord, no one can claim to be closer to God than they are. Paul says, “Don’t let someone else tell you your faith is worth less because you don’t know as much as them. Don’t let someone else debase your relationship with God because they follow more rules.”

In saying this, Paul also cautions members of his church against adopting an elitist view of their own faith. Your relationship with Jesus Christ doesn’t make you better than anyone else. It just makes you right with God. And your aim, should you mature in the faith or grow in knowledge of the things of God, must always be to share what you’ve learned. We’re all on the same playing field. Saved by grace. Servants of God. Growing in faith and knowledge. Together.