Colossians 2:4

Paul is saying that the antidote to deception is a focus on Jesus as the be-all and end-all. But people are want to believe they are smart and are beyond being deceived. But the one who thinks he is standing should be careful that he does not fall (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Jesus warned, “Watch out that no one misleads you“ (Matthew 24:4-5, Mark 13:5-6, Luke 21:8) and warned against false prophets, saying that they come in sheep's clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves (Matthew 7:15).

False prophets don't appear as such. You cannot be deceived by something that does not appeal to you, so a false prophet has to necessarily be appealing. The appeal of the false prophets, that is, those who proclaim false things, is that they sound convincing. Otherwise, they won’t be worth their names: false prophets.

The danger is that the people who are false prophets may think that they are not. It’s hard to convince someone that you are a prophet if you are not thoroughly convinced of it yourself. These are the people the bible says are deceived and are deceiving (2 Timothy 3:13).

It is not about good intentions; it is not about whether they have the right motive or not. The Pharisees who opposed Jesus never betrayed any wrong motivation. They may be corrupt, but they were completely convinced that they were on the right side of history.

Their wrongness was highlighted by Jesus, who said that because they said that they see, they are blind (John 9:39-41). But they truly think they see.

Jesus puts it another way: if the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness (Matthew 6:23)? In another place, he said, do not judge according to external appearance, but judge with proper judgment (John 7:24).

Bringing all these together, I am trying to make the point that what people are convinced they are communicating as light may be darkness; what they are projecting as beauty may be just a surface cover for a deeper ugliness. It takes the divine one Jesus to strip the veil of hypocrisy and declare that this is the blind leading the blind, and both would end in the pit (Matthew 15:14).

Jesus had died and risen from the dead; the Colossians Christians believed in him, but here Paul was not going to sit down on his hands; he was going to work to deception-proof the people, and part of it was preventing them from falling for any appeal that is not centered on Christ.

The solution is not to tell the people to close their ears and to ensconce themselves in a place where they receive a commandment that they may only read the letters of Paul; it's not to prevent them from interacting with other people.

That would be the easy way out, but Paul had to do the hard work of preaching and actually countering lies with truth and do it constantly.

He is not going to try to fight spiritual warfare of lies with the arms of the flesh through fleshly commandments; he is going to wield the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17).

Paul even said that the man of God must not engage in heated disputes but be kind toward all, an apt teacher (again, the sword of the Spirit), patient (2 Timothy 2:24).

This war is not won with fleshly confrontation. James wrote that human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness (James 1:20). One of the works of the flesh is outbursts of anger (Galatians 5:20), and where there is anger, you know that someone is trying to fight with the arm of the flesh.

Paul, in the focus verse, is conceding the fact that there are arguments that sound reasonable. But reasonableness (subjective) does not equal truth (objective); truth is defined by God through his word. The challenge comes when people mix something else with the word of God, and we are deceived.

The previous verse is an elevation of Jesus. Any attempt to counter lies not embedded in Jesus's greatness may actually miss the mark. We may be elevating our smartness, elevating ourselves, and fanning so much fear of the wrong that we create another wrong in its place.

We may become defined by that fear and fall into the opposite side, creating an opposite monster. Without Christ as the persistent Northstar, we go off the rails when we make anything else the focus apart from Christ. We have lost it when we make it about ourselves, ego, pride, and image.

So we are hasty, and we abuse people and use violence, and we justify it in the name of God, and we trample upon people, and do not love, thinking it just about our gifts, and abuse our position, and are not wise.

We end up as a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1). This means all show and no spiritual impact. Many activities on your surface, but not registering on the Richter scale of heaven.

It is important to remember that what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God’s sight (Luke 16:15).

Paul did not say that he wanted to prevent spiritual attacks (as the spiritists would have us focus on) but rather from deception pushed by people. I think, for many, that priority has been inverted.