Bible Commentaries
Colossians 3

Verses 8-17

V

HUMAN PHILOSOPHY VERSUS THE ENDURING GOSPEL OF CHRIST

Colossians 2:8-3:17.

This chapter continues the exposition of Colossians. While on broad general lines, the main teaching part of the letter has already been considered, we need to examine somewhat in detail certain words and phrases in the long paragraph commencing Colossians 2:8 and ending Colossians 3:17. In Colossians 2:8 "spoil" has the sense of captives – "make you a spoil," and in the same verse, on the word "philosophy," note –

1. The derivation of the word – literally "a love of wisdom," i.e., human wisdom, or reasonings, in accounting for things, as opposed to divine revelation in accounting for things.

2. The province of philosophy. Certain matters come legitimately within the realm of human philosophy upon which its reasonings and even its working suppositions may be heard tentatively, its conclusions, or hypotheses, continually subject to modification as investigation affords new light.

But certain other matters are entirely outside its realm, e.g., whatever is supernatural cannot be settled by natural reasonings.

Whatever touches ultimate origin and destiny lies entirely outside the realm of human science, and hence when human philosophy attempts to settle matters beyond the reach of human science it becomes mere speculation. Its dogmatic claims are, as the apostle here puts it, "vain deceit." All its voluminous, varied, and contradictory literature upon these subjects from the beginning of time till this hour is as valueless as the "airy nothings" of a dream. If every book of it were burned today in one huge bonfire, as were the magical books of the Ephesians, the world would be better off.

The only light in it all is the light of its burning. See 1 Corinthians Colossians 1:18; Colossians 2:16.

Do not understand me to deny all legitimate scope to human philosophy. Within bounds it has a great place, but even in that place its value may be greatly overestimated. I am quite sure that more than half of the matter in the textbooks on philosophy in all our schools, colleges, and universities is the most worthless rubbish, and some of it rank poison.

I am not talking of science. A man who denies the value of science – real science – rails at God’s appointed method by which man is commanded to subdue the earth and lay under tribute all nature’s potentialities. The predicate for all schools of human learning is God’s dower of authority to man over land and sea and sky, and his commission to subdue the earth. Here in the natural world human philosophy is the avant-courier and handmaid of science. It supposes, it experiments, it makes myriads of tentative explorations and flights, shedding off the failures, utilizing and improving the successes, and thus ever contributing to the enlargement of science.

Philosophy becomes a fool only when it invades the realm of ultimate origins, destinies, and the supernatural. Here it is vainer than a peacock, and blinder than a mole, which, burrowing under the earth, is a fine judge of earthworms, but utterly incompetent to become a critic of landscapes, sky views, and ocean wonders.

"Ne sutor ultra crepidam." On these matters all God’s treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored up in Christ, who is the only revelator of God’s hidden things. A human philosophy which, leaving out God (deifying instead, Chance or Fate), leaving out man’s highest nature and highest relations, leaving out distinction between matter and spirit, attempts a scheme of the universe and the related human life – perpetrates a folly unworthy of preservation in human literature. Observe next in Colossians 2:8,

3. "After the tradition of men." "Tradition," that which is handed down – transmitted from father to son, or from one generation to another – may be either good or bad according to its origin or subject matter. In the New Testament the word is accordingly used sometimes in a good sense, sometimes in a bad sense. Paul commands Timothy to pass on to other good men the deposit of good doctrine which he had received from Paul. If the original matter be a revelation from God, it does not cease to be good because, "handed down," provided only it be held sacredly intact and transmitted unimpaired. The supreme test of an oral "tradition" is its conformity with the word written. The Pharisees made void the written word of God with rabbinical traditions. And so tradition in the early Christian centuries began that undermining of the simplicity of the written gospel which culminates in our day into that which is another gospel or no gospel.

The context (Colossians 2:11-18) indicates that "the traditions of men" here rebuked by the apostle is a Jewish element of Gnosticism rather than heathen, because these traditions are in the same verse said to be "after the rudiments of the world" and not "after Christ." But what is meant here by "rudiments"? In a general way "rudiments" means what is elemental – the first principles. Of course, "rudiments of the world" may mean worldly first principles, referring to mere human origin, but this hardly accords with the New Testament usage of the word "rudiments" or with the immediate context. The rudiments of revelation were the types, shadows and ritual of the Old Testament. It was characteristic of the Jew in the time of our Lord, and is so even now that he went not beyond these rudiments. He would not see in Christ the substance of these shadows, so he never went on to maturity.

Moreover, by their traditions they corrupted and distorted even the shadows. This corruption might appear in stressing the letter which killeth against the Spirit which maketh alive. Or by their endless elaborations, interpretations, emendations, infinite trifling details they might convert the law into a burdensome yoke impossible to be borne. Or by merely human speculation on the fact that the law was given by "the disposition of angels" they might merge Jewish speculation into the heathen element of Gnosticism, a creation by eons – graded emanations from God. To meet which Paul presents Jesus as having in himself "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Let the reader particularly note the force of this expression, perhaps the strongest in the New Testament.

Observe (1) "Godhead." The Greek theotes means "deity" – not the weaker word "divinity" the natural force of which may be evaded, or shaded down. The expression is even stronger than John’s "The Word was God (Theos)."

Observe (2) "fulness," not in part nor in certain directions, but "all the fulness of Deity."

Observe (3) "bodily" (somatikos), i.e., "bodily-wise." The word is carefully chosen. Here Lightfoot speaks to the point: "It is not ’in a body’ for Deity cannot be so confined. It is not ’in the form of a body’ for this might suggest the unreality of Christ’s human body, but ’bodily,’ i. e., bodily-wise, or with a bodily manifestation."

Observe (4) "dwells" (katoikei): "In him dwells all the fulness (pleroma) of Deity bodily," as just before, in contrast with their vain deceit, their philosophy, he has affirmed that in Christ "all the treasures of wisdom [sop/no] and of knowledge (gnosis) are stored" (Colossians 2:3).

Observe (5) "And ye, in him, are complete," i.e., filled full (pepleromenoi). Being in union with Christ, there is no need to seek from human sources a wisdom, a knowledge, a philosophy, on the matters stated.

Observe (6) Instead of Christ being a low grade eon, or emanation from God – a subordinate angel – "He is the head of all principality and authority" – Kreek, he Kephale pases arches hai exousias. He then goes on to show that in being united to Christ they received the real, or spiritual circumcision, and their baptism was in a figure both a burial and a resurrection with Christ. In other words, the antitype of circumcision is regeneration, and baptism symbolizes Christ’s burial and resurrection and pledges our own. He then reaches his true climax in a double direction:

1. That in his death on the cross he fulfilled, cancelled, and abrogated all the Old Testament economy – took it entirely out of the way – took it forever away.

2. That on the cross he not only conquered, but made an open show of Satan and all his demons. Here he follows the imagery of a Roman triumphal procession, accorded to their conquering generals, dragging captive princes in their train. (See the author’s sermon on the "Three Hours of Darkness.") He came in triumph, by resurrection and ascension, after the battle on the cross, not to imperial Rome, but to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God, shouting, Lift up your heads, O ye gates, And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, And let the King of Glory come in.

"When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive," i.e., he broke all the chains of bondage which Satan had bound on men, redeeming the captives of the terrible one, and he gave as largess the outpoured Holy Spirit with all his varied gifts to men. Truly that was "the crisis of this world."

Let not the reader fail to note the apostle’s conclusions from this victory on the cross:

1. Let no man judge you in meat and drink according to the Mosaic distinctions between the clean and unclean. That distinction is abrogated.

2. Let no man judge you on any part of the sabbatic cycle, either the seventh-day sabbath, the lunar sabbath, the three great annual sabbaths, the land sabbath or the Jubilee sabbath. They were all shadows; the body is of Christ. The whole old covenant with its sacrifices, types, ritual, and priesthood, has passed away. This passage is the death blow to all sects which observe the seventh day sabbath. They are either Jews on this point or merely keepers of a sabbath which commemorates creation. Yet when we come to consider the more elaborate arguments in the letter to the Hebrews, written a little later, we will find that "there remaineth to the people of God a sabbath-keeping" (Sabbatismos) which commemorates not rest from creation nor deliverance from Egypt, but our Lord’s rest after his greater work of redemption.

3. Let no man seek to impose on you circumcision of the flesh. Ye are regenerated, having the spiritual circumcision.

4. Let him not judge as one of the Essenes, trying to kill sin by afflicting the body, saying, "handle not, taste not, touch not" this or that. All their minute rules, all their asceticism, all their adjournment of marriage, all their retirement from the world into caves, nunneries, or monasteries, all their regimen of diet and scourging of the body is mere will worship and availeth nothing toward shutting out temptations. Allurement, lust, passion, envy, jealousy, malice, and covetousness, that run riot in the world, will find a man in his seclusion. Walls of brick and stone cannot shut out human passion. God meant for us to live in the world, but not to be of the world. "I pray not that they may be taken out of the world, but that they may be kept from the evil one," says our Lord. The true remedy is to set our affections on things above, where our citizenship is. Let the expulsive power of new affections drive the old loves out of the heart. Put off the old man and put on the new man, which, after God, is re-created unto knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. Let the reader note that chapter Colossians 3:11 of this letter and Ephesians 4:24, both allude to man’s original creation in the image of God, and this image involved "knowledge" (epignosis), "righteousness" (dikaiosune) and "holiness of truth" (hosioteti tes aletheias).

5. Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondmen, freemen, but Christ is all and in all.

These five conclusions from Christ’s work on the cross constitute a priceless heritage, ever to be most jealously guarded. They are summed up as follows:

1. The distinctions between clean and unclean meats and drinks is forever obliterated.

2. The creation sabbath and all the cycle of Jewish sabbaths are superseded.

3. Circumcision of the flesh, distinguishing Jew from Gentile, is abrogated.

4. Asceticism and seclusion from the world as a preventive of temptation and passion is valueless.

5. Distinction of race, caste, society – slavery and freedom, civilization and barbarism, culture and ignorance – are all impossible in Christ. He died for man, as man. Regeneration, or the new creation, ignores all artificial distinctions. There will never be a kingdom of Jesus over Jews, as Jews. There will never be a restoration of the Jewish polity. It would be a horrible anticlimax.

Christ was crucified because he would not restore the national Jewish polity, but established a spiritual kingdom.

Seventh Day Adventism and all premillennial adventism representing Christ as coming to reign for a thousand years in a restored earthly Jerusalem over a restored Jewish nation, with the Gentile world in subjugation, nullify the cross and seek to rebuild what he there forever cast down.

Since the cross, and forever since the cross, it will be true – "Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondmen, freemen; but Christ is all and in all."

There will be a Jerusalem, the capital of this world. But it will be the heavenly Jerusalem – coming down from God out of heaven – after the general judgment. The Holy Spirit will infill it, according to John’s vision (Revelation 21:10-14). "The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the several gates was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof. And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of the Lord did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it. And the gates thereof shall in no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night there): and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it: and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life," (Revelation 21:10-14; Revelation 21:22-27).

There never will be a reversion to Moses. The great central truth of the cross and what it abrogates, set forth in Colossians, enlarged in Ephesians and elaborated in every detail in the letter to the Hebrews, makes an eternal break with Judaism, as is fitly followed by the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and the eternal cessation of its sacrifices and priesthood. Therefore the author cannot bear the thought that anyone should fail to learn the lesson of Colossians 2:14-15. As the Crusaders failed, so will the Jewish Zionists. The tomb is empty. The sanctity is forever gone from the earthly Jerusalem and the land. Let Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic have their quarrels over the empty tomb and vacant temple site, regulated by Moslem police. Our Lord is not there; he is risen. The Jerusalem that now is answereth to Mount Sinai and is in bondage with her children. The Jerusalem that is above is our mother, and regeneration is our certificate of citizenship. Heaven is our Holy Land. Let us by illumination, faith, hope, and love make tours to that holy land. I am far from denying that God overruled the Crusades to much reflexive good. But the Crusades themselves, so far as their immediate purpose and hope are concerned, have no rivals in the history of folly.

I have no desire – To climb where Moses stood And view that landscape o’er – but would prefer to be caught up with Paul into the third heaven, into the paradise of God. "And view THAT landscape o’er."

I continually rejoice that I am not coming unto the dark, thunder-rocked, fire-crested, smoke-shrouded, trumpet-riven Mountain of the Law, there to quake and tremble, but unto Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, unto God the judge, unto the general assembly and church of the first-born, unto the spirits of just men made perfect, unto Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, unto the blood of sprinkling in the true holy of holies whose atoning efficacy speaks better things for us than the blood of Abel’s typical animal sacrifice. Oh! when, thou city of my God, Shall I thy courts ascend?

I have not the temperament of the archaeologist. I could never potter with Old Mortality among the tombs of men once heroes, but seek the company of living heroes. I could not be a Chinese with his back to the future, worshiping his ancestors, and am entirely without desire to go East except "by way of the West." Campbell’s Pleasures of Hope is a greater book than Rogers’ Pleasures of Memory. I lift my hat when I hear Paul shouting: "Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out to the things that are before I press on toward the goal of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

I have been scornfully asked, why the waste of the letters to the Colossians, Ephesians, and Hebrews, since Titus in less than a decade would obviate their necessity by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity?

My answer was, because he foresaw the great apostasy which, under the guise of Christianity, would revert to the Old Testament type and revive its hierarchy, its priesthood, its human mediators, its ritual, its anointings, its genuflexions commanding to abstain from meats and forbidding to marry and which would foist on half the world a blended Jewish and heathen system of superstition, tyrannizing over the cradle, the grave and the spirit world, and over governments, while drunk with the blood of the saints.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the meaning of "spoil" in Colossians 2:8?

2. What is the derivation of the word "philosophy"?

3. What is the province of human philosophy and its value there?

4. Into what realm may it not intrude, and what the value of its literature when intruding there?

5. Into this realm beyond the scope of human philosophy, what, according to Colossians 2:3 of this letter, is the position of our Lord, and how does he make known its secrets?

6. What is the meaning of "tradition" in Colossians 2:8, and how is the word used in the New Testament?

7. What is the meaning of "rudiments" in Colossians 2:8, and to what does the New Testament usage of the word usually refer?

8. Show from the context that a Jewish element of Gnosticism is under consideration here.

9. At what point in the argument does the Jewish element blend With the heathen?

10. In what great, declaration concerning Christ does Paul meet the false philosophy? (Colossians 2:9.)

11. Meaning of "Godhead" in Colossians 2:9, and how often elsewhere in the New Testament does the word occur, and compare its force with John’s "the Word was God."

12. Meaning of "bodily," and quote Lightfoot on the choice of the word?

13. Meaning of "complete in him"?

14. What is the antitype of circumcision, and the relation of baptism thereto?

15. State the great climax of Paul in two directions.

16. State the five conclusions from his argument.

17. What is the value of the conclusions as a heritage?

18. What is the effect as to Judaism of the central truth of the cross as argued in Colossians, Ephesians, and Hebrews?

19. Wherein the great error of Seventh-Day Adventism, and most premillennial teaching?

20. What is the folly of the Crusades?

21. Will there ever be a restored earthly Jerusalem, with Christ as King over the Jews, and Gentiles in subjection?

22. What is the Jerusalem before the saints?

23. Why, in view of the destruction of Jerusalem in less than a decade, did Paul write these prison letters to make a final break with Judaism?

Verse 18

VI

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS ON COLOSSIANS

Colossians 3:18-4:18.

In this chapter we take up the practical application of this letter. From Colossians 3:18-4:1 the exhortations relate to the family or home and are based on reciprocal relations. From relation arises obligation. These relations are husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant. The first two relations are natural, the third artificial.

God himself created the relation between husband and wife. He made them one in the beginning, himself performing the marriage ceremony. Adam was first made. Eve was derived from his body and soul. Hence the name, "woman," meaning derived from man. This marriage relation is the basis of the home, the family. It was intended to be indissoluble. The New Testament permits only one ground for divorce. The sanctity of the bond cannot be maintained without regard to the reciprocal duties. There can be but one head to a family. The husband is that head. This involves subjection on the part of the wife. She must honor and obey, but it is not a slavish obedience. Her realm is the home. She lives in her husband and children. The husband must love his wife and be not bitter toward her. This thought is elaborated and illustrated in the accompanying letter to the Ephesians. As Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, so must husbands love their wives. Where this great love is extended by the husband it is easy for the wife to honor and obey, and the children born of the marriage will be a heritage of the Lord.

Children, too, are in subjection. They must honor and obey; that is the first commandment with a promise. This honor and obedience must be in letter, spirit, and form. A look or a gesture may disobey. Dr. Adam Clarke, the great Methodist commentator, says that his mother was a Scotch Presbyterian, famous for teaching and enforcing family discipline – that on one occasion when commanded by her to do an unpleasant service, he obeyed, but looked disobedient. His mother caught the meaning of disrespect in his eye, and, shaking her finger in his face, quoted the proverb: "The eye that mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it." Her solemn denunciation impressed him much. Her words rang in his ears. Walking out alone in the woods, he was startled by the cry of a raven overhead, "Caw! Caw! Caw!" His mother’s words burned in his mind like fire, and, placing his hands over his face, he ran back home, crying out: "Oh, my eyes, my eyes, let not the ravens pick out my eyes!" But the law binds not the child alone. The parent must not provoke the child. Many a child has become discouraged in honoring and obeying parents by their provocations.

These exhortations on the sanctity of family ties were very pertinent to the matter in hand. The false philosophy prevalent at Colosse discountenanced marriage and the raising of children, as tending to sin. Their selfish delusion was that the escape from sin was to be found in abstinence from marriage and retreat from social claims to the solitude of a cave. While a few free lovers have denounced what they call the bondage of marriage, and while the trend of modern society is to multiply causes for divorce, yet, on the whole, the common sense of mankind honors both the sacred institution of marriage and the mutual laws governing marriage and children. They respect the New Testament declaration that "He that provideth not for his own hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel."

But some over pious people have taken great offense at the gospel because it does not peremptorily inculcate the abolition of slavery, and incite to servile insurrection. They greatly mistake the purpose of the gospel. It did not undertake to be a political and revolutionary force. It came to serve religious ends. It would have perished in the beginning if it had pronounced on forms of political government or the legality of social conditions. Whenever its legislation touched a social or political evil, it was to ameliorate its harshness, but it relied mainly on the leavening power of its great principles. Slavery abounded everywhere. It taught the slave God’s care for him and led him into spiritual freedom. It taught him to be honest, industrious, conscientious, as living unto his Lord. It revealed to him that God, unlike man, is no respecter of persons, and held out for his patient hope the heritage of the world to come. It laid a restraining hand upon the Christian master, curbing his passions, enjoying justice and mercy in the treatment of the slave, and called upon him to remember, first, that he was Christ’s bondman, and, second, that in Christ there were no distinctions between the bond and the free. Thus indirectly, by the leavening power of its principles, it is reforming all evils of government and society, and will ultimately purge the earth of all wickedness of whatever kind.

The exhortations pass from these social relations to inculcate the habit of thankful prayer, suggesting as a special object of petition his own case. But he solicits on his behalf no selfish gain, only "that God may open to him a door for the word" and that when it is open he may unveil the mystery of the gospel "as he ought to speak." These two objects of prayer, repeated in the letter to the Ephesians, are very suggestive. He conceives of prayer as able to influence the workings of Providence, and to influence the Spirit’s power on his own heart. In view of them, let us take heed that we fall into no infidel attitude concerning prayer, nor raise in our minds the doubt, "What profits shall we have if we Pray unto him?" They also suggest that if an inspired apostle deeply felt the need and longed for the power of the prayers of his brethren, how foolish in us to discount so valuable a service.

From devotions we pass to outward walk and speech. "Walk in wisdom before them that are without." How little are Christians sensible of the fact that they all, as well as the apostles, are "a spectacle to the angels," to demons, and to men. What a text for preachers! "Them that are without." Note the frequency of the phrase and its several contexts, for example, Mark 4:11; 1 Corinthians 5:13; 1 Timothy 3:7. Indeed it is a qualification of the preacher that "he have a good report of them that are without." Apart from the exact form of the phrase are many passages embodying the thought in other words. Moreover, as words count as much as conduct with "them that are without," "let your speech be always with grace seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one." The outside world bristles with interrogation points toward Christians and Christianity. How often we injure the cause by injudicious answers. How closely Peter follows Paul’s lead in this exhortation: "Ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15).

Concerning these exhortations on family duties, devotions, outward walk and speech, observe, first, how close the connection between Colossians and Ephesians, and, second, how uniform the teaching by all the New Testament writers and speakers on all these grave matters. Compare, for example, on husbands and wives, Paul’s teaching in these prison letters (Colossians 3:18-19; Ephesians 5:22-23) with Peter’s (1 Peter 3:7) writing later to the same people in part. The letter refers them to its bearers, Tychicus and Onesimus, for detailed information of his state and work.

In the salutation he distinguished between his Jewish and Gentile companions in labor. Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus are Jewish Christians, while Luke, Demas, and Epaphras are Gentiles. It is gratifying to note that he takes pleasure in the association and cooperation of Mark. Evidently in some way his mind toward Mark is changed since his refusal to let him be a companion on his second missionary tour (Acts 15:37-40). We have no evidence of the ground of the reconciliation, and so cannot say whether Paul revised his original judgment, or Mark evinced repentance for his former abandonment.

In the first letter from Peter, written a few years later from Babylon to these same Colossians, he reports that both Silas and Mark, with others, are with him. In the separation Barnabas took Mark and Paul took Silas. Peter has fallen heir to both of the companions on that divided second missionary tour. We learn in these salutations that Luke was a physician, which many terms of his writings indicate, and that Epaphras was an evangelist who probably planted the three churches of the Lycus valley – Colosse, Hierapolis, and Laodicea.

In his second imprisonment at Rome we find Paul complaining that the Demas he here commends had forsaken him, having loved this present world (2 Timothy 4:10). And what a difference in his own salutation when 2 Timothy is written! Only Luke is with him. He urges Timothy to come and bring Mark. Tychicus had been sent to Ephesus.

In his directions we find a household church in Hierapolis as well as in Colosse. We find more than one of these churches in Rome. Doubtless these churches in private homes came about from the fact that they had no public meetinghouse for all the churches in a city, and services were held in the home of some leading brother or sister who could afford the most room.

The number of these churches in one city is a disproof of the now current theory that in apostolic times all Christians of a metropolis were in one church organization, presided over by a leading bishop, with subordinate bishops supplying the various sub-congregations, assembling in different parts of the city.

As bearing upon this point Rev. W. T. Whitley, in delivering the "Gay Lectures" before the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on the topic, "The Story of Missions in Five Continents," special topic, "Expansion in America and Australia," has this to say, as reported in The Review and Expositor, January, Colossians 1908:

Look next at church organization. To these shores were transplanted from Britain three patterns, monarchical, aristocratic, democratic. Already a Methodist Episcopal has been produced an ingenious crossing of two of these. Always in Tasmania the Baptist leaders examined their Bibles to see if Baptist traditions were absolutely in harmony with New Testament principle; whether a few baptized believers who build a house for prayer and praise, paying a few men and women to conduct it, with one pastor at the head, form a "church" on divine right, on a necessary pattern. They decide not, and all the Baptists in the island form really one community, with the ministers the ministers of the whole body. Church extension and matters of general interest are decided by the whole, and selfish isolation is discouraged. The same question occurs to a minister in this town, and he asked whether New Testament precedent did not point to a single church of Louisville, like the church of Ephesus or Corinth. American conservatism frowned down the heretic, and he sought refuge at Rome. But the same question has again been raised in Britain, the president of the Baptist Union stating as his New Year’s message that our usual plan is at best of human origin, and not ordered in scripture, while many of its developments are absolutely anti-scriptural. For the next few years English Baptists are likely to inquire diligently whether the congregational system blindly adopted by Robert Browne is the last word in organization, or whether the New Testament does not show us all the baptized believers in a town forming one church, with a plurality of elders both to teach and to administer business, and probably many houses for worship. Indeed, in one great town this system is just being tried, and the question has been ventilated by papers at our last session of the Baptist Union.

As further illustration of the dangerous trend, I cite a letter from The Argus. The title of the letter is: "The Baptist Outlook in Great Britain," by J. H. Shakespeare. Under the head of "Ministerial Recognition" the writer gives as news:

The regular door into the Baptist ministry is through one of our recognized theological colleges. Hitherto as soon as a student left college and became the pastor of a church, his name was placed on the list of "accredited ministers" in The Baptist Handbook. This recognition, as it was called, carried with it the right to share in the Annuity Fund, and other privileges of membership with the Baptist Union. The pastors who entered the ministry without first passing through one of the recognized colleges were required to pass two examinations before being placed upon the accredited list of the Baptist Union. At our last spring assembly, however, a new scheme of ministerial recognition was all but unanimously adopted, and our pastors are henceforth to be divided into two sections, probationers and recognized ministers. Collegiates who receive satisfactory certificates from their college principals will be at once placed upon the probationers’ list, and noncollegiates will have the same privilege on passing one examination. All ministers on the probationers’ list, whether collegiate or noncollegiate, will be required to pass a Baptist Union examination, and to submit satisfactory proof as to their pastoral efficiency before their names can be transferred to the accredited list, and they then become recognized ministers. It is hoped that these new regulations will, to some extent, guard the portals to the ministry, and make it more possible to infer that if a man is a Baptist minister he shall not only be spiritually qualified, but also be an educated person.

These two extracts indicate a most dangerous trend. The first surrenders the old-time definition of a church, not only advocating the metropolitan idea but the provincial idea of a church. The second goes to a greater extreme. An association of purely human origin assumes to "guard the portals of the ministry" – to divide them into classes of probationers and accredited – into collegiates and noncollegiates, usurps the church prerogative of subjecting to its examination, and seeks to limit the ministry to "educated persons."

The stupendous folly of the whole business, its suicidal unscripturalness, becomes apparent by applying the rule to New Testament apostles, evangelists, and pastors, and to past Baptist history. God forbid that we should follow the English Baptists!

The direction about exchange of letters between Colosse and Laodicea (Colossians 4:16) throws light on two points: (1) That m all probability the letter from Laodicea was the letter which we call Ephesians. (2) We learn how New Testament manuscripts were passed around before there was a collection of them into one book or library. And how some lists, after collections were formed, and even some earlier versions, did not have all the New Testament books. We note also in the directions that Archippus, son of Philemon, was a minister, and one, too that need to be stirred up somewhat in the line of duty. The reader will note the usual attestation of Paul’s letters by his autograph signature, a habit adopted since he wrote his first letter, caused by report of forged letters in his name.

QUESTIONS

1. Where does the practical part of this letter commence, and what reciprocal relations expressed in Colossians 3:18-4:1?

2. What is the character of these relations, and what arises from them?

3. Who is the author of the relation between husband and wife, what the history and nature of this relation?

4. How may the sanctity of the marriage relation be maintained, and what does this involve?

5. Where do we find the subject of the marriage relation elaborated and illustrated, and what the essential points in the discussion there?

6. What injunction here for children, and what, in detail, the striking illustration given?

7. What is the special application of the exhortations on the sanctity of family ties to the Colossians?

8. What are the gospel’s attitude toward the institution of slavery, and what special precepts here touching this subject?

9. What are the lessons here on prayer?

10. What are the lessons on outward walk and speech?

11. How does this teaching harmonize with other New Testament teaching on the same subject, and what the proof?

12. Who were the bearers of this letter, and what trust did Paul commit to them besides this letter?

13. What distinction does Paul here make in his salutation, what gratifying bit of information here relative to Mark, and what the probable ground of this reconciliation?

14. What information touching these brethren from Peter, and what information about Luke and Epaphras found in this closing salutation?

15. What is here said of Demas, what is said of him in a later letter, and what the lesson?

16. What are some modern ideas of the church, and what the bearing of the household churches referred to here and in Romans on such ideas?

17. What is Rev. W. T. Whitley’s position on this and kindred questions J. H. Shakespeare’s idea of the ministry?

18. What is the fault with each of these positions, respectively?

19. What light here on important matters from Colossians 4:16-18?