Of no value

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle," which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. – Colossians 2v16-23


I realise that this is a lengthy potion of scripture, but I wanted to show the entire context. Rather than quote everything I just want to grab some of the phrases that catch my attention.

Let no one judge you…
Let no one cheat you of your reward
Why…do you subject yourself to regulations?
Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle
The appearance of wisdom
Neglect of the body

There is a tendency in some circles to try and regulate Christianity. Early in my Christian life I was told things like (and I won’t try to reproduce all of the rules here):

Good Christians don’t go to the movies (cinema)
Good Christian men don’t wear beards
Good Christian women don’t wear trousers
Good Christians don’t listen to rock/country/ccm
Good Christians go to church every time the church doors are open for any reason
Good Christians don’t associate with lost people
Good Christian men and women don’t go swimming together

There are some good principles in some of these. People who adopt some of these as their personal standards should be respecting for doing so.

However, sometimes it does not stop there. When these standards become a list of ‘do not touch, do not taste, do not handle’ then we have the situation that Paul addresses here. Those who have lives where the spirituality is based on rule do have an appearance of wisdom. It looks like a really good idea. The neglect of the body sounds like a good thing.

Look at the very last phrase in this passage - these things are ‘of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.’ We often swallow the line that ‘do not touch, do not taste, do not handle’ will solve the problem of indulging our flesh. Rules don’t do anything to help us deal with the flesh.

Maybe instead of ‘keep the rules’ we should push ‘keep your heart, for out of it are the issues of life.’