2013.11.03 - COLOSSIANS REMIXED - Kevin Makins
DO NOT TOUCH
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Colossians 2:16-23, Matthew 5
This text is so weird. The sermon also starts out a little weird, exploring what these words might have meant to the original hearers, but much like the text, the punch comes with the subversive good news hidden in all the strangeness: the good news that we are more than our “do’s”, and are not defined by all our “do not’s” - this good news is far bigger and better than our actions.
The text:
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.
Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
Targum written and read by Brett Klassen
