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 �C no Christian community �C 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?