Colossians 2: Bringing it to an End

Last week we talked about Paul's instruction to the Colossians to not allow anyone to judge them based on food, drink, Sabbath, festivals, or New Moon. All of these were laws that God gave the Israelite people in the Old Testament. We saw that these laws were only a shadow of things to come. That they foreshadowed something better that was coming, something perfect when the OT laws could not make us perfect. That something, was a someone: Jesus.

This week we are going to look at the next set of verses. Read Colossians 2:18-23. Focusing on verses 18-19 ask yourself some 5W's & H questions & write down your answers in your journal:

• In what ways are the Colossians allowing themselves to be defrauded of their prize?
• What are they not doing in verse 19?

As you read 18-19 once again look for words or phrases that we might need to study further (with a key word study or cross reference). Write down the words that you see we need to look at.

So what words did you write down? Did you really do it, or are you just waiting for me to give you the answer? No cheating!! If you didn't write anything down, then stop and do it now. It's okay, I will wait for you!

Okay, so let's do some word studies!! Pull up Blue Letter Bible and let look up some words. I picked these words to look at in the Greek: defrauding, self abasement, hold fast. You might have those same words, or you might have different ones. That is okay, it's better to look up too many than none at all. When you look these words up, write down in your journal what you learn about it. Make sure to also read the Vine's entry, sometimes Vine's gives us more insight.

Okay, let's look up some cross references on some of the words above and some I haven't mentioned yet.

• Self-Abasement: James 4:6 & 4:10
• Angels: Romans 8:38, 1 Corinthians 6:3, Hebrews 1:4
• Visions: Isaiah 8, Deuteronomy 13, Joel 2, Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12

Okay, lets look at a couple more cross references. Look up Gal 4:8-11 & 1 Timothy 4:1-8. As you read these consider how they connect with Colossians 2:16-23. Write down your observations in your journal.

Okay, now let's go back to Colossians 2. Read verses 2:20-3:4. Ask yourself these questions and write down the answers in your journal:

• What is the flow of thought that we see from 2:20-3:4? Look for the therefore? Why is it therefore? What is it concluding. 
• The end of chapter 2 is reasoning about being dead with Christ. What is the reasoning and what does that have to do with what we saw in 2:16-19?
• What is the reasoning about being raised up with Him in 3:1-4?

We will study chapter 3 in more detail next week, but I want you to see how these two chapters connect. Remember that when Paul wrote this, he didn't write in chapters, but it was one long letter. Sometimes we need to stop and see how each chapter connects.