The world does not really change much over time. People think and act like they always have since Creation. There are periods of great apostasy, dark times where the only intention of man’s heart is to evil continually. Then there are times of renewal when a man’s heart is drawn to God and service to Him.
The Colossian church had many of the same problems we have in the religious world today. They were religious but not adherent to God’s teachings. When Paul wrote to them, they were not only looking to Jesus for salvation, but also Moses, the practices of pagan religions and many other religious ideas. They combined all the teachings together in a false-teaching stew of which they ate heartily.
In our day denominations glean teaching from both the Old and New Testaments. They combine teachings of Moses and Christ and man made doctrines as well. Sadly, this breaks the heart of the one true God and Christ. The church at Colossae was encouraged to leave all the teachings except those of Christ and practice only them.
The one thing that Colossae had going for them was a young, on fire love for the Lord. They loved Epaphras’ teachings enough to leave paganism, hedonism, and man-made philosophy. They were confused by all of the “religious” teaching, but they still loved the Lord and Paul could help them correct their error.
If we today truly love the Lord, we will imitate Paul as he did Christ. We will keep the religions of Christ pure and free from mixing in foreign doctrine and practice. We will do what we can to abandon worldly doctrines of man and trade them for Bible teaching only.
Colossians is a great place to study to see how Paul led these Christians to perfection in practice and doctrine.
Worship Thoughts 