Let Christ Jesus, the Lord, be your doctrine
1 I want you to know how I strive for you, for those of Laodicea and for so many who have not met me personally.
2 I pray that all may be encouraged. May you be established in love, that you may obtain all the riches of a full understanding and know the mystery of God, Christ himself.
3 For in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowl edge.
4 So let no one deceive you with persuasive arguments.
5 Although I am far from you, my spirit is with you and I rejoice in recalling how well-disciplined you are and how firm in the faith of Christ.
6 If you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, let him be your doctrine.
7 Be rooted and built up in him; let faith be your principle, as you were taught, and your thanksgiving overflowing.
8 See that no one deceives you with philosophy or any hollow discourse; these are merely human doctrines not inspired by Christ but by the wisdom of this world.
9 For in Him dwells the fullness of God in bodily form.
10 He is the head of all cosmic power and authority, and in him you have everything.
Baptized and risen
11 In Christ Jesus you were given a circumcision but not by human hands, which removed completely from you the carnal body:
12 I refer to baptism. On receiving it you were buried with Christ; and you also rose with him for having believed in the power of God who raised him from the dead.
13 You were dead. You were in sin and uncircumcised at the same time. But God gave you life with Christ. He forgave all our sins.
14 He can celed the record of our debts, those regulations which accused us. He did away with all that and nailed it to the cross.
15 Victorious through the cross, he stripped the rulers and authorities of their power, hum bled them before the eyes of the whole world and dragged them behind him as prisoners.
Useless doctrines
16 So, then, let no one criticize you in matters of food or drink or for not observing festivals, new moons or the Sabbath.
17 These things were only shadows of what was to come, whereas the reality is the person of Christ.
18 Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on humbling practices and worship of angels. In fact, they are only good to satisfy self-indulgence,
19 instead of holding firm ly to the head, Christ. It is he who nourishes and gives unity to the whole body by a complex system of nerves and ligaments, making it grow according to the plan of God.
20 If you have really died with Christ, and are rid of the principles of the world, why do you now let yourselves be taught as if you belonged to the world?
21 “Do not eat this, do not taste that, do not touch that…”
22 These are human rules and teachings, referring to things that are perish able, that wear out and dis appear.
23 These doctrines may seem to be profound because they speak of religious observance and humility and of disregarding the body. In fact, they are useless as soon as the flesh rebels.
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Comments Letter to the Colossians, Chapter 2
• 2.1 I want you to know how I strive for you. This struggle of Paul signifies labor (1:28-29) and prayer (4:2 and Rom 15:30). It would be very tempting (and it is the temptation of the Colossians) to make Christianity an attractive religion, with beautiful explanations, leaving people hanging on to their dreams and passions, a religion that does not attack the sin rooted in our way of life and in our society. To join the attack we must first be convinced that it is in Christ that we find the whole mystery of God.
Let no one deceive you. Philosophy and the search for wisdom are highly respectable. Philosophies always contain some truth; their danger is in seeming to give a total response to our problems. They are deceptive insofar as they come from philosophers who have in fact had either a limited or questionable experience of human reality. In faith, on the contrary, rather than a discourse on human concerns, we have a person: Christ. While all the currents of thought are the product of their day and grow old with time, Paul assures us that all the fullness of God is in Christ in a human form.
• 11. Paul has just said that a Christian has wisdom and is on a way of knowledge. He now reminds us that our entry into the Church has been much more than an exterior rite. Through baptism, we have become part of this renewal of the world brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Paul had been circumcised, and knew from experience that it did not save him. We can be fairly sure baptism did not also miraculously free him of his aggressiveness and weaknesses, but he began to live his human existence differently. He had been liberated, among other things, of what weighed heavily on him: religion with all its commandments. Religion for him was not, as it is for some who like principles, a defensive shield as necessary as a policeman: religion was for him a reminder of a debt towards God, something that made love and real trust impossible. Jesus in dying had nailed to the cross all kinds of fears of God; at the same time he did away with all the moral principles and pressures (“powers and authorities” of v. 15) that smother our free response to God.
In some countries, many people are baptized but baptism scarcely changes their life and generally speaking they do not belong to communities seeking to renew their faith. It is not enough for us to admit that we are poor Christians, that we have not really buried the sinner within us. Our resurrection depends, first of all on faith in God who resurrected Jesus, who has pardoned us, and prepared everything so that we may live our life.
• 16. Paul has just reminded us that baptism is the beginning of a new life. It is not a matter of replacing old commandments with better commandments: the coming of Christ has put an end to all religions with commandments. That will perhaps shock many Christians: should we not obey the com mand ments of God and of the Church? What will become of us if there are no longer religious duties?
Indeed there is no religious group – no Christian community – without rites, habits, commandments: what would become of a community where the members would no longer gather to hear the word of God or celebrate the Eucharist? Paul nevertheless shows it is finished with religions where the most important consideration is to do or not to do, where it is believed that God likes us to rest on such a day, not to eat such and such a food, to dress in a certain way, ab stain from this or that. Religions give great importance to these laws for they help the faithful to maintain their cohesion and to retain their own identity. All that deforms the idea we have of God. All that is human regulation, very use ful perhaps, old fashioned perhaps, but still always human. Paul says: God does not share our interest in what is transient, in our cooking, feast days and the like; he does not treat us like little children, saying, “Don’t do that!”
All that may seem very religious. Religious prohibitions always impress those who are not free of their fear of God. Instead of freeing us and leading us to child-like trust in God, these restrictions favor a narrow-mind ed ness, and later violence exerted against those who think differently from us.
Do not be mistaken in thinking that contempt for the body is a sign of holiness (v. 23). Fewer kilos do not mean more Spirit! The penances and sacrifices that we impose on ourselves could cause us to feel superior to others. If you belong to a group that has its fasts, would you not like it to be known?
Let no one criticize you. Who is going to criticize us for celebrating Sunday with the resurrection of the Lord instead of the Jewish Sabbath?