Colossians 2:16

Eight verses ago, we have these words "Be careful not to allow anyone to captivate you through an empty, deceitful philosophy that is according to human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ."

With that, Paul said you are responsible for weighing the content of the messages you hear, and you should not fall for people’s errors because they are smooth talkers.

He used the word "captivate." This reveals a weakness in human nature: The smoother a person talks or presents himself, the more likely we are to suspend our spirit-enabled critical faculty, hence Paul's warning.

Now we have another warning: Do not let anyone judge you with respect to specific observances. Paul would say in the next verse that those things are shadows and the reality is in Christ.

With the warning that people want to captivate you through unChrist-centered reasoning, and these same people may likely to pull you into certain observances that are contrary to Christ, we learn two things:

False teaching has consequences, and false teachers always demand certain practices from you that have no basis in the truth of the gospel.

1. False teachings have real-life consequences.

As I have said before, there is nothing innocent about false teachings. It is pure evil to say people can come to their own conclusions about the bible as if the writer does not know what he was writing when he wrote those words, or the Bible is not a coherent whole, and as if Jesus was never here and did not shed his blood, as if his death and resurrection did not change anything, and as if gentiles (non-Israelites) in Christ have to be bound by what even Jews (Israelites) in Christ did not think they are bound by.

The consequence here is that the captivating teachers would demand some observance. They would say that you must observe certain things because of the (false) things they have proclaimed. While Christ-centeredness says we don’t want to burden you (Acts 15:28-29), these people create burdens they themselves do not carry (Luke 11:46).

Paul put it more strongly when he said to the Galatians that if they are circumcised, then that neutralizes whatever benefit they have in Christ (Galatians 2:2-4). That is a serious claim.

But some people want to hedge their bet (wrongly thinking that faith in Christ is a bet); they fear not making heaven because the guilt of sin weighs them down (2 Timothy 3:6-7), so they follow false things.

This is a slap on God's face because you are claiming that he is not clear enough, that the scriptures are not clear enough, and that they are not enough as the basis for you to reject the false and follow the right way.

You have chosen to fall for falsehood, but you are blaming God for it, tacitly saying he is not clear enough since you chose to claim you do not know the way of salvation.

Remember what Adam said: It is the woman you have given me who gave me the fruit, and I eat it (Genesis 3:12). But YOU eat it, Adam, right?

It does not matter who the falsehood is coming from or how it makes you feel good; you are responsible for rejecting the false and obeying the truth from the heart. No one is responsible for you when it comes down to it, not your father, mother, or pastor. Each one will stand before the judgment throne of Christ individually (2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:12).

You will live the wrong way when you hear and give attention to the wrong teaching. There is no alternative to that outcome. And it will be your fault.

Your life will be messed up when you pay attention to messed-up messages.

That was why God gave the ultimate punishment for false prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1-5). The same punishment he gave to those practicing sexual immorality (Leviticus 20:10). So, we need to feel the same way about false teaching as we feel about sexual immorality. Don't do it yourself, and don't give a pass to those who do.

2. False teachers always demand certain practices

False teachers demand certain practices to establish their control over you. Paul here lists certain things:

• Food

• Drink

• Feast

• New moon

• Sabbath day

These people attach special spiritual meaning to food, drink, feasts (about food and drink), days in the month, or weeks. But in Christ, we no longer have a special food, drink, day in the week, or day in the month that has spiritual meaning; we now only have a special one—Christ. We should not lose sight of that.

Beyond that, in some cultures, some people also would want to attach special meaning to clothes, trees, animals, birds, sounds, cobwebs, foot-hitting stones, body markings, certain animals, the time of the day, darkness, light, food, colors, mountains, rivers, places, river, well, cotton, attire, certain leaves, sun, moon, thunder, lightning. Again, nothing is special in nature. There is only one special one- Christ.