God willing I’m going to be speaking at our camp (CPAS Romsey 2 for Pathfinders) re-union tomorrow on Colossians 2:6-7,
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (NIV)
These are often thought to be the key verses of the letter.
To be honest I haven’t done too much work on whether I should be warning the 11-14 year olds against the dangers of Judaizers, Legalists, proto-Gnostics, hyper-Charismatics, all of the above or something different. I’m going to say something about the importance of having Jesus the Christ as your Lord and sticking with him.
Though N. T. Wright says its debatable how much the metaphors in the verses are still ‘live’ for Paul (Tyndale Commentary on Col & Phil, p99), I thought I might go to town on the following. I might even spend the rest of the day looking for suitable images on the inter-web and see if the wife can put them in a power-point presentation we can take with us on a memory stick. How down with the yuff is that? I don’t know how the apostle Paul managed!
- Walking (NIV: live) the straight way with Jesus as Lord, not turning into promising looking blind allies
- well rooted like a tree, securely planted once for all
- and continually built up in Christ, like a house under construction with solid foundations
- confirmed and settled (NIV: strengthened) in the faith, like a properly established legal document
- overflowing like a full jug of wine, with thankfulness
Posts
1 comment:
Jeffers just leant me his Dec 04 essay in which he argues that the false teaching in view in Col is strict observance of the Jewish law and ascetic-mystic with an emphasis on offering exclusive esoteric knowlegde - so there we have it. The antidote is appreciation of fullness and freedom in Christ who is sufficient and has fulfilled the law.
Post a Comment