Colossians 2:22

Human commands, human teachings. This is in contrast with God's commands and God's teachings.

Keep your ears peeled. As you listen to a preacher, someone standing in the name of God, create a table before you. Put the human commands and teachings you are hearing in one column, and in the other column, put God's commands and teachings. The point is that your ears need to be trained to taste words (Psalm 119:103, Jeremiah 15:16, Job 12:11, Job 34:3) as your tongue tastes food.

Jesus said the people cancel the word of God with their own commandments (Mark 7:13).

That is how they exert their power over you, by coming up with a commandment and slapping the label of God on it. This means the truth is not the reference for your obedience but their words as they put themselves in the place of God. They drive you on motivated by fear.

In the focus verse, Paul discusses the human commandments, maybe mocking their authoritative tone: Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! LOL.

They are acting like tough guys that must be obeyed, with their layers of restriction, making them feel good. In their minds, Christianity is defined by the restrictions added to the plain word of God.

The Pharisees had layered on commandments that Jesus called out, including washings. He said it is not what goes into the man that defiles the man but what goes into the man that defiles the man (Mark 7:1-23). It’s not what you appear to be that is important, but what you really are, since man looks at appearance, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). Keep that in mind.

What Paul wants is courage. He wants us to be courageous against pulpit bullies and be equipped to rationally debunk the rules and regulations they want to put on us to make themselves feel good.

Paul said that the people pushing for circumcision in the church do so for one reason: to make themselves feel good that they have such control on their way to some godhood of some sort (Galatians 6:12-13). In that same book of Galatians, Paul had earlier said that God has called us to freedom, but the kind of freedom that comes with an enormous responsibility to serve others rather than using it as an occasion for fleshly indulgence (Galatians 5:13).

While we should not be subservient to human rules, we must take the initiative to serve as sons of God. So, to not fall back to fleshy indulgence, we choose to take up the cross (by which we are crucified to the world and the world crucified to us (Galatians 6:14)) and follow Jesus as the servant of all, and adopt his mindset of humility and self-giving (Philippians 2:1-8).

As we will learn in Colossians, the rule givers intended these rules to conquer the flesh through the elevation of ascetic living. This encourages a restrictive existence, but God wants us to be active, serving others.

When Paul says these things will perish with use, he is saying that they are human priorities and not God's. They are destined to perish with use. Only the kingdom of God stands forever (Hebrews 12:28).

They might go on for a while, becoming entrenched and, as it were, part of the very ground people walk on. But the Bible says the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5). Eventually, the light will dawn on the people living in darkness (Isaiah 9:2).

It’s like the dream of the Nebuchadnezzar, where there was a big image of gold, bronze, iron, and silver. It stood imposing, but then a stone cut without hands struck the image and it was grounded into powder (Daniel 2).

Be careful, therefore, not to take the safe route of following the multitude to do evil. Take the way of the cross. Do not adopt ideas that are not found in Christ because sooner or later, that stone (in a figurative sense) will swing by, and it will be made clear that falsehood has an expiratory date.

Don’t think because big names are behind the lies, that it means it is the truth. God is testing you to see who you will fear (Deuteronomy 13:3), him or the big names. He is testing you to see if you will follow the multitudes to adopt a falsehood, something he warned against (Exodus 23:2).

He is testing you to see what is really in your heart (Deuteronomy 8:2) and if you prize human opinion more than his opinion (John 5:44). If you would be willing to stick your neck out for him and his truth. If you would be willing to lose all to obtain the kingdom (Matthew 13:44-46). It shows how clearly you are seeing him, with the world dim in comparison (Jeremiah 1:11-13).