Christ is the treasure chest of all wisdom and knowledge in verse 3. Then Paul warns in verse 4 of the snakes which will entice souls away from that heavenly wealth. These snakes are described in verses 8 and 18. They will use their tongues to speak enticing words that are both nonreligious and religious. The nonreligious enticing words are philosophy and vain deceit in verse 8. These enticing words (vs 4) are also religious pursuits in verse 18. Whether religious or nonreligious they have the same origin in the world and have the same effect of minimizing Jesus Christ according to verse 19. Which leads to loss of everything from an eternal inheritance to one’s own soul.
Kingdom education
- Christ is the treasury of wisdom and knowledge. Look at verse 2:3.
- Wisdom and knowledge are seated above. Proverbs 30:2-6. We have a phrase regarding the source of wisdom and knowledge being above – higher learning or higher education.
- The education you have to have and your children have to have comes from above.
- Now, let me clarify something here. You need to learn a skill in life so you can work to provide for yourself, your family, and so that you’ll have a good testimony in the world. This is not a question of whether or not you should pursue an education to be skillful at something in this world in order to make a living. You have to do that whether it’s through college or trade school or family business or if you’re “self” taught. But you need to understand whatever skill you learn will only serve you for a while. It is a tool for the present time.
- You could be a teacher or something else. You could be a cook or something else. You could be a veterinarian or something else. But you can’t live without wisdom and knowledge. You can live without being an accountant, you’d just do something else. But you can’t live without wisdom and knowledge.
- See the value of wisdom and knowledge in Proverbs 3:13-20.
Marketing the world to the soul
- So who wouldn’t want what wisdom and knowledge offer?
- Everyone wants these things until men show up to market the world and its pleasures to you with enticing words. They offer temporary pleasure in return for your ignorance of God and disobedience to His word through yielding to your lusts and your pride.
- All investments in the kingdoms of this world are characterized by one thing, they are limited to the body and die with the body, at best. These worldly investments are temporary, fleeting, oftentimes burdensome, and unreliable.
- Eternal things like you as a living soul are not factored into this earthly, sensual, and devilish system.
- Paul warns about the nonreligious marketers first in verse 8 – philosophy and vain deceit.
- Here’s a slick philosophy of this world: Do what makes you happy. Right? You do you. What’s so bad about that? You’ll have a hard time figuring out what makes you happy because what you think makes you happy now won’t make you happy in a week, a month, a year, ten years. But if you consulted your Creator on happiness you’d find happiness is not a motive to pursue, it is the result of accepting the will of God. Busted up families are the result of someone chasing happiness that didn’t pan out. Children without fathers and children without mothers are the result of the world’s promise of happiness that turned out to be fleeting pleasure.
- How about the tradition of evolution that demotes Jesus Christ and makes man into a brute beast. Of which there is no science for. No animal has ever produced anything but its own kind. This tradition of men has all the funding and support from the world it needs by silencing any view of creation. It has no scientific support. It certainly has no eternal value. And as evolution lies about the Creator, it lowers man to a pointless, amoral bunch of chemicals that mean nothing and are going nowhere. But hey, no God, no authority.
- Paul also warns about the religious smooth talkers in verse 18 – voluntary humility and worshipping of angels
- So if the world can’t catch you in the nonreligious areas then it will try to catch you in religious areas.
- Voluntary humility is a self righteous piety. Volunteer because it makes me feel good about me. I attach myself to this cause to give myself purpose. While the cause may be fine, in your life the cause has taken the place of Jesus Christ. See the next verse, not holding the Head… So the world has been successful at diminishing Jesus Christ and the treasures found in him. And you’ve traded them for your perceived purpose.
- Religions like Buddhism or Hinduism are voluntary humilities
- Worshipping angels is exactly what it sounds like. Most false religions that have swept the world originated with someone claiming to have seen an angel. Mohammed and Islam, Joseph Smith and Mormonism,
The solution to avoid wasting your resources on the world
- Back to 2:6, as you received Christ so walk in him.
- You received him through a preacher preaching the scriptures. You received Christ in the fear of God. You received Christ after repentance. You received Christ looking for the righteousness of God.
- So walk in the same steps that led you to Jesus Christ in the first place and you won’t be led astray by the philosophers, traditions, vain deceit, angel worship, self righteous piety and religious nonsense that all comes from the world.
