God has told us what we should believe. This daily devotional looks at how false teachers try to lead us to believe something else.
Nuggets
- False teachers try to get us to believe in false doctrine.
- Holding onto Jesus keeps us from growing away from God.
Devotions in the Joy in the Gospel series
What the false teachers are trying to sell us is wrong. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Following the Wrong Doctrine Condemns Us
“Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind” (Col. 2: 18 CSB)
False teachers try to get us to believe in false doctrine.
Verse 18 just totally confused me in this version. So, let’s break it apart and try other versions.
“Let no one cheat you of your reward …” (Col. 2: 18 NKJV).
Okay. That is much better.
Maclaren reminded us of how many times Paul used a sports metaphor to help us understand some biblical concept. Jesus is the judge who awards us our crown.
Resource
False teachers want to cheat us out of that crown. Oh, some may not be consciously doing that.
But that is what happens when we fall prey to their teaching.
Barlow gave us a very good reminder. He said that, though the opinion may be wrong, it doesn’t always negate our salvation.
Resource
I can see that. We may think we know what God is meaning or how He did something.
We would be wrong.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55: 8-9 ESV).
What condemns us is when we degrade what Christ has done for us. When we don’t make Him Lord and Savior of our lives, we are not genuinely saved.
Here is another confusing phrase. So, let’s try another version.
“Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind” (Col. 2: 18 NIV).
Let’s take the humility first. Have you ever known someone who played at being humble? Humility is a character trait that diminishes pride and places dependence on God while holding a modest view of our importance with respect to others.
Maclaren talked about a self-conscious humility. When we want recognition for our humility, it really isn’t humility.
But we don’t want to go to the other extreme Maclaren talked about. We don’t want to be so humble that we think we are worthless.
Okay. That is much better. At first, it read to me in the Christian Standard Bible that Paul was condoning angel worship.
Oh, no. That isn’t what Paul is saying. Remember, we just talked about degrading what Christ has done for us.
Worshiping angels does just that. Davenant wrote, “In worshipping angels the seducers diminished the dignity of Christ, for they took away from Him the prerogative of the Head, and incorrectly judged of His virtue and sufficiency.”
Resource
But somewhere along the way, it changed from have not seen to have seen.
- “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind” (Col. 2: 18 KJV emphasis added).
- “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind” (Col. 2: 18 NIV emphasis added).
Vaughan had some questions, too. He wrote, “But this is a strange argument for one whose whole walk was by faith and not by sight, and who would hardly count it an answer to a professed revelation to say ‘you are intruding into that which you have not seen, and therefore you cannot know’ with modern materialists. But this difficulty is removed in the Revised Version, which, on high authority, omits the ‘not,’ and inverts the argument. Again, the Greek word ‘intruding into’ means ‘dwelling in’ or ‘taking his stand upon,’ and the charge now becomes that of self-complacent self-conceit.”
Resource
Yay! I am not the only one confused.
What Vaughan went on to say — in my interpretation — is that these people have opinions on what they saw. In other words, they just think they saw it.
We can think we know how things are — and be very vocal about it. We can take a stand and appear to be locked into that interpretation.
And we can be totally wrong.
We can see what we saw — and not understand it.
Maclaren had a slightly different spin on the visionary realm. We know that there were a lot of visions in the Old Testament.
Resource
We talked before that visions was one way God talks to us. “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2: 28 ESV).
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Maclaren said it was about having the visions. He said it was more unreal imaginations.
The issue is that the false teachers are not living in reality. The foundation of their beliefs and arguments is faulty.
Part of the false teachers’ problem was they were arrogant. They thought they had this intellectual ability.
But what they had was only a reflection of their sinful nature.
Resource
Holding onto What Is Right
“He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God” (Col. 2: 19 CSB)
Holding onto Jesus keeps us from growing away from God.
Maclaren didn’t hold back. He told it like it is. He wrote, “The special forms of these errors are gone; but the tendencies which underlay them are as rampant as ever.”
There was also a list of things Maclaren thought was still relevant in our day.
• Our self-conscious humility
• Our reliance on our own opinions
We base our salvation through Him in Him. He is our source of life.
Making the Connections
This just solidifies, to me, that we cannot worship God in any other way than He has deemed right.
- We can’t pick and choose how or what we are going to worship.
- We don’t get to choose the style or duration of the worship.
God is in charge.
How Do We Apply This?
- Do not fall under the sway of false teachers.
- Worship God as He has chosen.
Father God. We love You. We believe in Your gospel. We will not be pulled from Your doctrine. We will worship You in the ways that You have chosen. Amen.
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.
If you have not signed up for the email daily or weekly providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.
If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.