Zachary Peters

We are continuing our series dealing with superstition and what I like to call hyper spiritualism. We all roughly know what superstition is, but hyper spiritualism, as I call it, is a combination of mysticism, eastern religions, and new age thought. The problem is that those things, throughout all of the history of Christianity and the church, have found ways to work their way in and impact our discipleship process. They impact our relationship with God and how we view Him. They can impact how we do church and treat one another.

This isn’t new to the 21st century — this is something the church had to deal with almost immediately. In fact, last week when we looked at prayer, we saw that Jesus himself addressed part of this with how prayer was done even in a Jewish society. So in a world that’s not just material but also spiritual, this is something that happens, and it is something we have to guard against in our lives.

This week we’re going to look at a scripture in the New Testament book of Colossians, which is a letter from Paul to the church in Colossae. A member of the church finds Paul in Rome some years after the church is founded. He shares the bad news that there is some trouble being stirred by some nefarious characters. In particular, there are some Jewish mystics attempting to hijack the church, and there seems to be a spiritual shaman proclaiming to have a sort of secret or better way to connect with God.

In both cases, many in the Colossian church are being drawn down from Christ, faith, and grace — you know, the basics — to superstition and mysticism. Paul sends this entire letter to deal with this, but we are only going to look at a few verses in chapter 2.

Colossians 2:16–23

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

Okay, there is a lot here. Let me see if we can break this down a little bit. Paul is telling these church members: don’t let anyone judge you because of food, drink, or because you don’t follow the law. If you are not aware, the Jewish faith has a great deal of regulations and rules called the law. We find much of this in the first five books of the Old Testament. They believed you had to live by the law to be connected with God. Jesus reveals the law was never intended to be a permanent solution, but was indeed a reminder of how much they needed help. This all changed with Jesus, who didn’t destroy the law but lived perfectly — so that he was the actual fulfillment of the law for us. We couldn’t do it. No one could. So Jesus did it for us. That is the gospel from the Jewish perspective.

The law includes a great deal about what you can eat, what you can do on certain days, and things like that. Over time, outside of scripture, Jewish leaders made even more rules and regulations. There are varying standards within Judaism. What we have in the scripture is a sect of Jewish people in this city trying to impose the law — or at least their version of it — on these believers.

Don’t eat or drink this if you really want to be connected with God. Don’t celebrate this, or do celebrate this, if you want to be a real Christian. Paul tells the church: that’s not it. “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” The law was a dim glance at the plan of redemption through Jesus. Jesus showing up means the shadow now has its source. Don’t settle for the shadow when the source is available.

Paul then moves on and says: don’t let these shamans tell you that you are not empowered because you don’t do all this crazy stuff. Don’t let them disqualify you from the work God wants you to do.

Paul points out some more characteristics of this group — or it might be a different group; it’s unclear — this negative influence seems to be insisting on asceticism to produce spiritual results. That’s a fancy way of saying that fake spiritual humiliation or fake humility will grant you a deeper connection with God. Like extreme fasting (the kind that might be dangerous and draw attention to yourself), perhaps even making a fool of yourself — things like that would supposedly produce certain spiritual and practical results in your favor.

Paul also addresses an obsession with angels. This is tied to a popular Jewish myth or superstition that focused on angels. Archaeologists have even found jewelry with the names of angels engraved on them, meant to be worn as protection and blessing for the wearer. That isn’t in the Bible — that’s just something people developed.

There was a local pagan cult that had ritual initiations that might be connected with all this as well. People were just mixing things up.

This is also tied to being obsessed with receiving visions, and maybe even using extreme fasting to position yourself to receive a “vision” that would make you stand out.

The end result of all of this was an arrogance based on ignorance. They were mixing and matching spiritualities and traditions, and it had nothing to do with Jesus. Paul says they were not “holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”

They were missing the point. They had tossed aside the life-giving news of Jesus dying on a cross and rising from the dead — trading it for superstition and nonsense. They were walking away from what would grow and strengthen them, which was Christ, and accepting falsities.

So Paul tells the church: don’t be condemned, don’t be disqualified, hold on to the foundation. Keep the main thing the main thing.

Then Paul says this:

Colossians 2:20–23

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations — “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used) — according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (ESV)

He makes the incisive claim that this teaching is not only empty deceit but also inspired by the elemental spirits — in Greek, stoicheia — of the world. Stoicheia is sometimes translated “the basic principles” of the world and interpreted as something like the fundamental principles of pagan religion.

In the ancient world, however, the term stoicheia was widely used for spirits in Persian religious texts, magical papyri, astrological documents, and some Jewish texts. Paul is likely using it here to refer to demonic spirits — it is the equivalent of “rulers and authorities.”

Although the false teaching is handed down as human tradition, it can ultimately be traced to the influence of demonic forces. The fundamental problem with this philosophy is that it is not in accord with Jesus Christ and the gospel proclaimed by him and the apostle Paul.

We touched on this last week. While there are those who ascribe to no God or religion or spirituality, the vast majority of humans have and do. Some of these ideas about the spiritual seem connected across place and time — different names, but the same basic stuff. That is what Paul is calling the elemental spirits of the world. Left to our own devices, we come up with all sorts of madness, and some of it may even be inspired from a genuinely dark place.

Yet we shall know the truth, and the truth will set us free. Jesus and his life is the truth that cuts through the ignorance and broken thought patterns of the world to give us life. Why go back? Paul asks the church: why let that stuff back in?

Christ has conquered that mess and has given the truth to the whole world. If you are in the truth — if Jesus has saved you — then why fall victim to the lies again? Paul even understands that some of it might seem like wisdom or common sense. The majority might even accept certain principles and ideas as reality when in fact those principles are broken. They will not produce what needs to be produced.

What I see here, whether it be the Jewish mystics or these misled Christians, is a reliance on the self to produce salvation, power, change, and transformation. If you don’t eat this or drink this, then that will produce an intimate relationship with God. If you harm yourself and do extreme things, you will find freedom from your sinful nature. We think sin is a Christian term, but a lot of cultures and religions understand that there is something about human nature that is deeply corrupt. And a lot of religions and spiritualities have solutions for that corruption — and they’re all based on what you can do about it.

Or perhaps you can produce a divine vision. It is all very self-centered and works-based. When we veer from the basics and foundation of Christ, we struggle.

What Are We to Do?

Colossians 3:1–4

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (ESV)

Set your eyes on the right target. Have any of you ever seen Apollo 13? There is a scene where they are drifting from the course they need to be on. There’s a leak, and that leak — ever so slightly — is pushing them away from the target. The result, if not corrected, is that instead of entering the earth’s atmosphere at the correct angle, they are in danger of either skipping off the atmosphere and missing earth entirely, or coming in too steep and burning up on reentry.

What has to be done is that they must manually fix their eyes on the target and drive the ship back into alignment. It is hyper-dramatic and thrilling, but it all boils down to fixing their eyes on the target.

What are our eyes fixed on? Is it a good life? Is it control? Is it visions? Is it miracles? Is it power? Is it health? Is it a spouse? Is it our kids? If your focus is just on one of those things, then it becomes all the easier to drift from where you need to be. It becomes easier to let superstition or spiritualism creep in to try to produce a result.

If our eyes are on Christ, you might get some miracles thrown in along the way. You might get some power, some control, some blessings — some fill in the blank. But you will also be far less likely to miss the point of all this in the first place. There will be fewer opportunities to be distracted and disappointed. When the target — a life in Christ — is clear, life gets a little less complicated.