“8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”

Themes

There are four themes in the reading, each deserving a long discussion:

1) The subtle ways of being cheated out of our inheritance in Christ, by being distracted away from the Christ as he reveals himself through his word (verse 8);

2) In Christ we see and know the fullness of God. John 14:9 He who has seen Me has seen the Father (verse 9);

3) We are complete in Him (verse 10) . With the fall of mankind into sin, we were left with a deep sense of loss, that this is not the way it was meant to be. None of our earthly strivings will ever satisfy, even the richest people still hunger for more. True contentment is only given through Jesus, through knowing his forgiveness, that because we are made acceptable before God through the shed blood of Christ, we enjoy a personal relationship with our heavenly father now and forever.

4) Christ is the supreme ruler above all earthly powers.

I will look at (1).

How does Satan try to distract us?

• Philosophy: Our faith is entirely reasonable; in fact it is only with the insight given through faith that we can use human reason to make sense of our world. But faith is not a product of human reason, it can only be received as a gift from God, for faith is not about knowledge, it is a relationship with God. If we succumb to the temptation to focus on philosophy, or the products of human reason, then that relationship of trusting in God is lost, and we are instead relying on our own limited power of thought.

• Empty deceit: I take this to cover all the similar activities, along with human reason, that can be brought to help with our understanding of faith, but which can become a separate focus to distract us.
  Paintings and frescoes were a wonderful aid to teaching the gospel over 500 years ago, when many people could not read or did not have access to the bible, but paintings and images can become a focus in themselves, and then become objects of worship.
  The same applies to music. I understand that some branches of Churches of Christ in the USA have discarded music altogether because of the distractions it introduces.
  I love the classical choral sacred music, and Mozart’s Requiem was the first LP I ever purchased, but I prefer not to look at the translation from Latin as that avoids any possible doctrinal issues.

• Traditions of men: It seems that all churches accumulate patterns of worship and arrangements that they are comfortable with, and much of our understanding can be gained from church activities, but there is a risk of being guided by those traditions instead of God’s word. They are no substitute for personal time with God in prayer and reading His word.