teaching/sermons/col-1-15-20/expansion/icoc_alpha_omega/clean/09-christ-vs-philosophy-part-1-john-oaks.md

Christ Vs Philosophy Part 1 | John Oaks

Col 1:15-20 prep relevance: RELEVANT

Why kept: Oaks walks the Colossians arc in one rapid sweep — "firstborn of all creation," "in Christ all things hold together," supremacy, fullness, reconciliation, head of the body. Useful as a high-altitude summary of the letter's spine landing on Col 1:15-20.

Key excerpts:

00:00:00 Let's get started. >> Let's start with a prayer. Father, I'm thankful, grateful for being here this morning. It's very, very encouraging getting students together here to learn about you, to get a sense of what the mission is. Father, I'm thankful for the scriptures that speak truth. I pray that you'd help us to understand and and where appropriate even oppose the

00:00:31 philosophies of the world. God, help us to be wise. Help us to be discerning. Help us to love one another. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. >> All right, welcome. If you want to come on in, we got seats on the floor. We have an old person who just walked in, so somebody might want to give up their seat for him. He's looking for um interns there in Oregon. I'm John Oaks. I've been a Christian I don't know 46 something like that years and I've

00:01:02 been around got here's Pierce who I baptized about three weeks ago over there in campus ministry. All right. I've been basically doing campus for about 46 years. So, you know, been around and it's kind of it's getting a little bit weird sharing on campus, but we got about 250 new contacts at UC Merrced just in the last two weeks. >> So, we're we're still we're still doing it there on campus. So, anyway, by the

00:01:32 way, I've got a terrible cold. If I can if I can talk for for an hour, it'll be pretty awesome. So, we'll see how it goes. I've I've been in some pretty interesting situations teaching around the world and having to keep my voice going. But here we go. So, my topic this morning is Christ versus the world's philosophies. All right. And so, what we're going to do is here's here's our outline. Okay. The first class it's a two-part class, just so you know. I don't know if you knew that. So, the first class I'm just

00:02:03 going to do Bible. Basically, we're going to do a study from the book of Colossians. because Colossians of all the New Testament books is the one really written to oppose the philosophies of the world. All right. So, we're going to do that and we're going to look at the supremacy of Christ. So, the first class is going to be basically Bible study and then actually this is three different classes that I'm trying to sort of concatenate into one. And so, I'm going to talk about preodernism,

00:02:35 modernism, and postmodernism. Okay, by the way, I'm not here to tell you all you postmoderns, you guys are don't know what you're talking about. We mo we moderns, we got it all together. No, no, no. Far from it. And then we'll talk about progressive theology a little bit. Okay. And and hopefully we'll take lots of questions and answers, but who knows if I can limit myself to talking, but we'll see. All right. So, let's talk a little bit about the book of Colossians. The theme of Colossians is the supremacy of Christ. And that really is goes back

00:03:08 to the title of this class which is Christ versus the world's philosophies. So Christ is this. The world's philosophies this. Okay. So then the theme of Colossians is the supremacy, the all sufficiency of Christ. By the way, we're really just going to study Colossians chapter 2, but how about Colossians 1 1-15? How about that part? How about that christologology? And according to the experts,

00:03:40 according to the experts, the book of Colossians was written to oppose what's known as the Colossian heresy. And you can read commentaries this thick. And I going on and on about what this heresy was. I don't know what it was. But really, of all the New Testament books, books written to oppose philosophies of the world is the book of Colossians. And basically what he calls the philosophies of the world is the stokea.

00:04:11 Now I'm a chemist. I'm a chemistry professor. And in chemistry the stoeometry is the is the study of how to name things but really stokea is ABCs. So basically then he's going to describe the philosophy of the world as the ABCs, the elementary forces of the world. All right. So and again scholars, you know, I I don't I'm not that interested in

00:04:41 worrying about exactly what the philosophy was being opposed by Paul. To me, it it doesn't matter because what matters is our current situation. But they've been captured by philosophy which involves what he calls the stokeaya, the fundamental ways of the world, the fundamental works of the world. In Colossians 2, he talks about uh not being held captive by or kidnapped by humanbased philosophies. And this is an everpresent danger for us as Christians to be

00:05:13 kidnapped by the philosophies of the world. And the thing is we could be kidnapped by these philosophies and have no idea that that is the case. And so that's what Paul's trying to do. Now how does Paul inoculate us against the philosophies of the world? Very simple. Christ. That's the solution. Christ. And look look look at the book of Colossians. Look,

00:05:46 Christ we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We thank God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our faith is in Christ. Epifice, a faithful servant and minister of Christ. God us brought us into the kingdom of his son. We have redemption in Christ. We have forgiveness of sins in Christ. The son is the f firstborn of all creation. In Christ through him and for all things were created. Of course, that's in that brilliant christologology. Christ is before all

00:06:16 things. In Christ, all things hold together. Christ has supremacy. That's really the theme of Colossians. All the fullness of God's dwells where in Christ. Christ is the reconciling of all things to himself. We are presented holy in God's sight. By Christ. Christ is the head of the body. God's glorious mystery is found in Christ. Christ is who we proclaim.

00:06:46 His power works in us. The mystery of God is revealed where? In Christ. And our faith is in Christ. We live our lives in Christ. You notice that in Christ. I wrote a book. I don't know. I got a copy here. Guess what the title of the book is? >> It's in Christ. Okay. And it's interesting if you think about this phrase in Christ because all right, I gave away the answer already, so it's

00:07:16 too late. All right. What's the most common phrase in the Bible to describe a saved person? Maybe it's saved. Maybe it's baptized. Maybe it's Christian. Maybe it's forgiven. Maybe it's redeemed. No, by far it's in Christ. And it's so awesome to think about what what we have in Christ. In Christ, we're brought to fullness. It's so cool because in Christ the fullness of deity

00:07:46 lives in bodily form. Right? But then next verse, in Christ, we are brought to fullness. In Christ, we were circumcised. We're made alive in Christ. The law is a shadow, the Old Testament. But the reality is found where? in Christ. We died with Christ. We've been raised with Christ. Our life is hidden with Christ. Christ is our life. Christ is all in all. You getting the idea, folks?

00:08:17 This is the solution, if you will, the the the inoculation against the philosophies of the world. By the way, not all the philosophies of the world are bad or even destructive. >> But the question is, where do we find our life? Christ. There you go. Colossians 3:4. Christ is your life. He is all. He is in all. And he says, "Do all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." So there we go. We could just

00:08:48 go home now, but we'll talk a little bit more. >> An interesting little side note that I don't know. I don't want to push it too much, but in Romans, the Holy Spirit's mentioned 25 times. In 1 Corinthians 20 times, you go down the list. But it's interesting. The Holy Spirit's only mentioned once in Colossians. Is that because Paul doesn't think the Holy Spirit's important? No. No. Not Not at all. Some people try to use that as an argument that Paul didn't write

00:09:18 Colossians. That's nonsense. Okay? And I mean in Romans, Paul goes on and on and on and talking about the importance and the role of the Holy Spirit. Absolutely. There you go. But in the book of Colossians, he wants us to focus in on Christ. That's the all in all. And I like us to think about the things we have in Christ. In Colossians 1:14, it says we have

00:09:48 redemption in Christ. You've been bought. You were in the pawn shop and Christ came and he bought you back. The mystery, all the mysteries of age are found not in the philosophies, not in deart or na. The mystery of God is found in Christ. >> Amen. >> And we live our lives in Christ. Colossians 2:6. Colossians 2:10. In Christ, we are

00:10:18 brought to fullness. You know, if you have fullness, what else do you need? Nothing. By definition, >> we're brought in Christ. We are circumcised. Not with the circumcision done by human hands, but in circumcision done by Christ. And we're made alive. Where? In Christ. The love of Jesus is found where? In Christ. The law is a shadow. The Old Test Moses, the law of Moses, it's just a shadow.

00:10:49 But the reality is found in Christ. So let's get to our passage which is Colossians 2. All right. Like I said, if you came in a bit late, the first hour or so, we're going to just basically do a study in the book of Colossians about Christ and then we'll go into the philosophies of the world a little bit more. Okay. So Colossians 2. Sorry about my voice. It's It's barely hanging in there. You could pray for my

00:11:19 voice if you want. I don't know if it'll affect it, but you know, it can't hurt, right? So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord. Oops. There we go. I just have to protect my voice here. Okay. Well, there you go. Just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him,

00:11:50 strengthened in faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophies. That's where the title of this lesson comes from, right? All right. Which depend on the human tradition and the elemental. That's that stokea, the elemental forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ, all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. See, that's what's

00:12:22 opposed to the philosophy of the world. In Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. And in Christ, you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off, excuse me, when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through your

00:12:52 faith and the working of God who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ, forgave all our sins, having canceled the charge of legal indebtedness, which stood opposed to us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public

00:13:22 spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. And Paul warns us. He says, "Let no one take you captive to hollow and deceptive philosophies which depend on human tradition and the elemental forces, the stokea of this world rather than on Christ because our philosophy is Christ. Our life is

00:13:52 Christ. the elemental forces the stokea that's a great word as a chemist I'm especially into that word but what can I say that's basically it means the vocabulary of the world prop uh properly the stokea are the fundamentals like the basic components what are the what are the basic components that make up something the philosophy the structure

00:14:23 of the world, the first principles of the world, like the basic fundamentals, the ABCs of philosophy. What would make the this philosophy that Paul was concerned about so deceptive? Well, again, there's debate, but the the philosophy that it seems to have kind of come into Colasse was a mixture of sort of aeticism and, you know, self-denial and embracing the pagan principles of the world, which seems like the opposite, right? But the world can

00:14:54 embrace opposites. It's not really a big problem for them. All right? But it was very attractive. It included mysticism and aestheticism in those mystery religions and it was it seemed so smart, so intelligent, so deep, but it didn't have Christ and the elements of Jewish tradition andnosticism. Do you guys struggle withnosticism? I don't know. Do you even know exactly

00:15:24 what it is? Doesn't matter. We got our current stuff. We got our current issues. We'll talk about those current issues probably in the second session. But what are the stokeaya of the world? Well, I've got a list. All right. And you've seen this list. You know this list. The prosperity gospel. See, so much of the philosophy that Paul would oppose is found right there in Christianity. So much of it. So much of it. It's kind of sad to think

00:15:55 about. Have you bought into the prosperity gospel? All right. In Africa, that's practically the only kind of religion they have. And by the way, the prosperity gospel has a few actual true things to offer us, just so you know. But as a philosophy, it's completely empty. Then there's the American dream. Has anybody here bought into the American dream? Oh, I haven't. Oh, really? Are you sure? Have you Have you gone to the developing world? Have you

00:16:26 been to Cameroon, to Guinea, to Haiti? I've been to all these places. I've been to some pretty crazy places. And the American dream, it's sickening. It's stupid. I I taught at a rich young I I taught at a high school for three years. So, I taught physics and I taught all these preppy rich kids. And I I asked them a simple I because I got to teach chapel. I don't know why they'll let me teach chapel there. I did a few times and I I said to him, "Do you

00:16:58 really think that money is going to make you happy?" I I said, "I believe there's an inverse relationship." That's a good scientific term, right? There's an inverse relationship between money and happiness. You know, the happiest countries I've been in, I've been in over 90 countries. The two happiest countries I've been in are Guinea and Cameroon. In In Guinea, they don't even have electricity. Not at night anyway. Comfort, materialism.

00:17:29 Have you bought into that philosophy? That is a philosophy of the world. If you have stuff, you'll be happy. The 401k thing, that's probably not your big thing right now. How about the philosophy of being a good person? You know, I've shared with we we've gotten I think 1,300 people's phones and numbers and emails at at UC and at the Merced College. So, you figure you got to invite 10 people to get one person to give you their phone number, right? So, that means I've talked to about 13,000

00:18:01 different students. That's a lot just in the last three years. Yeah. The most common response is, "I'm good." Oh, it's so hard. It's so hard. It's so hard to keep my mouth shut. You are not good. You are not good. What did Jesus say about being good? You are not good. I am not good. That's one of the philosophies of the world, right? And the philosophy of everybody's

00:18:31 good, right? Everybody's saved. That's, you know, that's a big thing in Christianity. And then moral relativism. All right. There you go. I was in Sweden a few years ago teaching at the university uh the technological university in Sweden and I I just made a statement. I was talking about the existence of God and I said, you know, there's some things that are just wrong. You know, if you do them, it's wrong. It's And this woman, she she literally fell out of her chair and she was almost

00:19:03 passed out. And I I taught there was a break. I was doing a class, I think, on science and evolution. And I can't remember what it was. And in the break, I I said, "Are you okay?" She said, "She said, "How could you say that something is wrong? How could you say that?" That's postmodernism, moral relativism, entertainment, leisure. Are you Have you all bought into that philosophy? H how about the philosophy of comfort?

00:19:33 That's that's the American philosophy. This is America right here, the Stoke of the world. another stoke of the world, postmodernism. I'll talk about that. And then there's another philosophy of the world that you guys aren't bought into because you're young, but the whole modernism, the the idea of rational thought being the source of truth. And then there's the whole republicanism and the social conservative philosophy. Then there's the progressive democratic philosophy.

00:20:04 The, you know, the philosophy that we're going to solve the world problems of the world through conservative policies or that we're going to solve the problems of the world through progressive policies. Can these philosophies deceive us? Can they kidnap us? >> Can they drag us from Christ? >> Yeah. But what's the solution? >> Christ. That's what Paul's telling us. Christ is the solution.

00:20:35 The Colossians are being warned against the smooth talking spiritual tricksters and they're all out there. Jen and I were in my wife and I were in Flagstaff. We're having breakfast and this guy walks up and he's he's like this new age guy and he traps these two women and all the the relationships and all this kind of garbage. They use many fine sounding arguments combining moral teaching, philosophy,

00:21:06 self-disipline, religious practices, yoga. These theories about God were being discussed and t caught all the time in the pagan world and it was so spiritual. They were being taught in the lecture halls and these are the same things being taught in the lecture halls in the universities today and the churches in the US as well. All right. So let's get back into the book of Colossians though. All right. I'll start go back to verse 9.

00:21:38 It says what do we have in Christ? Says in Christ all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. >> Right? John 1:18. No one has ever seen God, but God, his only son, has made him known. We need to look to Christ. But here's the thing is he says, if you're in Christ, that's verse 10. Get this. If

00:22:08 you're in Christ, you've been given and brought to fullness. In Christ, all deity lives in you. And that's not some bunch of Hinduism junk. All right? That's not that yoga, you know, find your inner self center whatever stuff philosophy because in Christ you've been brought to fullness. And that's that whole in Christ thing

00:22:39 cuz it's an already but not yet thing, right? Cuz when you're baptized into Christ, you're made righteous. But you know, you know, you know, so in Christ, you're being made righteous, but when Christ comes back, you'll be righteous. And when you came into Christ, you're saved. But really, in Christ, you're being saved at the same time. And someday you will be saved. And in Christ, you are full already. You

00:23:10 have the fullness of Christ. But you're obtaining it. And you have a bunch of young Christians. you got a ways to go. I've been at it for a few years and I've got a long way to go. That's why we have to be students of God's word and to be watchful because the world is very deceptive and it will tell you that what's offering is the equivalent of that. By the way, some of these things aren't bad. I'm going to talk about that. Some of these things are not bad per se, but if that's your

00:23:41 philosophy, then you're throwing away Christ. >> Wow. >> Now, morality is a big thing. And again, there's the two wings. There's the conservative got to do got to do do and don't don't all that kind of stuff. The sort of the Pentecostal sort of religious conservative end and then there's the do you know do whatever you want end. But morality is important. Okay. But the only reason we're moral at all is because we're in Christ. Not by

00:24:14 behaving morally. Okay. Now, my generation, the modernist generation, tells you by behaving morally, you become moral. That's that's that's kind of our generation's thing. You guys feel free to ignore us on that. It's okay. Because if we are moral at all, it's not through behaving morally. By the way, babe only. Okay, but that's not where your morality comes from. It comes from being in Christ.

00:24:44 >> Because when you were baptized into Christ, the flesh was removed. >> It was surgically removed. Now, are you acting that way all the time? No. But that's not the point. The point is our morality isn't found in Christ. And if we are just, Social justice is a big thing. >> Yeah. >> All right. Our my generation of the church, we maybe not so much as concerned of that

00:25:14 as you guys. And praise God that you're going to do better than we will on that. And that's great. But our social justice is found not through supporting social just cause. It's through Christ. And we have to remember that, right? You need nothing else but Christ. Nothing else. Because what's it say here? In Christ, you've been brought to fullness. So, what else do you need? Do you need a girlfriend?

00:25:45 Do you need a degree? Do you need a purpose in life? Well, Christ hopefully will give you all those things, right? Yeah. We don't need anything else but Christ. Since we're in Christ, we have fullness there. Fullness. I love that word plleoma. Filled, full to the brim. We need no other philosophy. We don't need any other perspectives.

00:26:16 By the way, if if a philosophy kind of kind of an add-on to that is helpful to you to think through that philosopher, that's okay. But understand that the only real philosopher is Jesus Christ. Because if Christ fills you up, what else do you need? >> Literally nothing else. >> Environmentalism. That's a great cause. In fact, I believe how could a person be a Christian without being an environmentalist? >> That doesn't make sense. That makes no

00:26:48 sense. But Christian and Christians ought to support environmental causes. I don't use straws and I, you know, I don't do all that stuff. Okay, that's great because God made us stewards of this world. But environmentalism is not going to save you. Environmentalism as a philosophy is worthless if it's an add-on. Amen. Praise the Lord. Same with social justice causes. And I I

00:27:20 believe those are ve I mean, just read the book of Isaiah. Oh my goodness. Do you know what the biggest sin of Sodom was? It's right there in Ezekiel. It says not showing hospitality. It It says it right there in Ezekiel. That's what God was angry at them for is not showing proper hospitality. Well, yeah, the homosexual rape was another problem. I'm not saying that's not a big

00:27:50 deal, but you know what I'm saying? What does the world have to offer that Christ does not offer? Because he is the head over and over over all power and authority. And this includes political parties, social movements, media outlets, social media stuff, and all that. I'm not going to go into the social media thing. You guys probably somebody else will preach about that this weekend. Verse 11 and 12 he says here.

00:28:24 All right. I can't I have a surgery coming up in a few. I can barely read. My wife bought me uh she bought me the giant print and then she bought me the super giant print. I can barely see. But you know what? Amen. I'm still there playing basketball, right? making some spikes in volleyball. >> Yeah. All right. Verse 11 and 12. In him you were circumcised

00:28:55 with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off. Right? Put off. How do we come to be in Christ? Through baptism. And by the way, like I said, by far like 160 times in Christ. it it salvation is described as being in Christ. And the only thing in the entire Bible associated with coming into Christ is baptism. So that's when

00:29:27 this whole thing, this whole Christ thing starts working. And then in verse 15, very very important. All right. Yeah. Well, we're circumcised in Christ. We're moral beings in Christ, not through moral actions. uh not that moral actions aren't necessary, but we need to remember that our morality is found in Christ. That's why pushing moral political positions

00:29:57 has a limited value. Now, you probably are aware there's a little bit of a political division divide in our you might have noticed that. And you might have noticed there's one political party that thinks they have kind of a a lock on the whole moral stuff. Okay? And the problem with that is that morality is not found through politics. All right? be become moral by cutting

00:30:28 off the flesh. That's why later on in Colossians, he's going to say, you know, do not touch, do not handle, all that stuff, all those rules have no value whatsoever in creating righteousness. All right? And what did God do to those stokeaya 13-15? When you were dead in your sins, and all of us were, right? and the uncircumcision of our flesh. God made us alive with Christ, forgave us all our

00:31:00 sins. He cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness. That's kind of big fancy wording there. All right, it's exalpsis or something like that. The charge of legal indebtedness. Because before you came into Christ, you had this big thing hanging over you, right? You were dead person walking. >> And so you tried to solve that problem by being a good person.

00:31:32 And how was that working for you? How how much progress were you able to make through being a good person? This certificate of death with its obligation. That's the Home Holman Christian. the handwriting in the decree against us in the Berean literal translation. The record of charges, the New Living Translation, the charge of legal indebtedness, NIV, Jesus blotted it out and he canled the

00:32:04 debt. And if the debt's canceled, guess what? It's canceled. And therefore, the stoke of the world has no power over us. That's why there can't be a Christian political party or or even a Christian partisan effort. As disciples, we value all human life. Amen. >> I think so. >> But our means of realizing this is not through marching in anti-abortion

00:32:34 marches. And if you want to march in anti-abortion march, go ahead. But it's primarily through bringing people into the kingdom of God. >> And bringing the kingdom of God to to the lost. >> Same with issues related to, you know, all these things, homosexuality, social justice, racist, racial justice. It's not like these things aren't important, but our principal means of working in those areas is through the kingdom of God.

00:33:04 Not through the establishment of laws or through coercion. That that's not how it works. Because we have we have kind of different weapons, don't we? The weapons of the world are powerless compared to the weapons we have in Christ. Jesus made a spectacle of these worldly powers. He got up on the cross and he showed that the what the world has to offer is just nonsense. He disarmed those stokea

00:33:36 and the powerless light that the world has to offer. So we don't as disciples we don't rely on those worldly powers. We're not going to achieve our end through political means. We're it's not going to happen. There is no Christian political party. All right. Colossians 2. We got to keep reading here. How we doing? All right. Starting in verse 16. Now, in this next section, he's going to primarily go against kind of against the I guess the

00:34:07 right-wing of of the political religious spectrum a little bit. I think that was just a big deal for him at the time. Kind of those super conservatives. We're going to get righteousness through, I don't know, our dating practices and our all these kind of things. All right. Therefore, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink with regard to a religious festival. Now, wait a minute. He's talking about Jewish stuff. What's that have to do with anything? It's it's just a

00:34:37 different version of the same thing. By the way, one of the stokeaya according to Paul is the law. The law is one of the things that was nailed to the cross. In fact, I used to think, you know, nailing it to the cross. I used to think he was talking about the Old Testament. He's not. He's talking about all the things the world has to offer for salvation, which includes the law because the you weren't saved by the law because those who live by it, those who obey it will live by

00:35:08 it. Leviticus 18:5 or whatever the quote is. Sorry about that. All right. Anyway, let me read on. 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. Yes, the law of Moses was just a shadow. It was like a scale model. If you go to Jerusalem at the Jerusalem Museum, there's this big, it's like, I don't know, 100 feet across scale model of Jerusalem. It's

00:35:40 awesome. Go see it. But imagine flying all the way to Israel and then just going to see the scale model and then flying home. That would be stupid. >> All right. And he's saying even Judaism is like that. Never mind postmodernism or modernism or whatever other philosophies out there. Okay. Says do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great

00:36:11 detail but what they've seen they're puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head from whom the whole body. Could you be super religious and really conservative morally and lose connection with the head? >> Yeah. Absolutely. And do not substitute moral correctness for Christianity. >> Got it. By the way, please be morally correct.

00:36:42 Please don't make those mistakes. Oh, man. Jen and I, my wife and I, we we're work basically our whole church is college students pretty much, you know, and they make so many mistakes. Oh my goodness. You know what? But they're in Christ and that's going to kind of make up for some of that stuff. All right. Such a person goes into great detail about what they've seen. They are puffed up with idol notions by their

00:37:12 unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head from whom the whole body supported and held together by its ligaments and senus grows as God causes it to grow. Since you died with Christ to the stokea of this world, have you? I hope so. as though you belong to the world. Do you submit to its rules? Do not handle. Do not taste. Do not touch. These rules

00:37:43 which have to do with which things which are destined to perish with use are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom. They seem just so smart, so spiritual, so godly. All right. with their self-imposed worship, their false humility. And again, this is part of that Colossian heresy that Paul's specifically addressing here. A little bit different problem than y'all mainly, but that's

00:38:14 okay. An appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. What value are these rules? How much value do they have? >> None. >> None. >> What's the only thing that has value? >> Christ. Got to remember that. By the

00:38:46 way, follow the dating rules anyway. Okay. I just I'm I'm sort of kidding, but I'm not. I mean, I'm sort of kidding and I'm sort of not kidding. Okay. The rule the point is the rules will do nothing if you don't have Christ. But if you have Christ, follow the rules mostly. Okay? Do us a favor. All right? Please. You know what I'm talking about, the rules. All right? Because we're in Christ, we're not to be judged by what particular group is that we're part of that says we're right or wrong.

00:39:17 All right? And again, even the old covenant is one of these stokea. Even the Mosaic law is is consigned to this stokea by Paul. That is amazing there. Yeah. Jesus our Lord and the kingdom of God is our country, right? >> My passport says America. >> All right. But my citizenship is not

00:39:48 America. My citizenship is the kingdom of God. >> As disciples, we value human life. But our means to bringing people into the through to through to bringing life to people is through bringing them into the kingdom and bringing the kingdom to the lost. Not through political action or through the courts, although there might be a time for those things. Same for is Oh my goodness.

00:40:22 The same related to homosexuality, other kinds of immoral behaviors. We do not defeat the demons of darkness through changing laws, putting having laws against these things, having laws against marijuana, laws against whatever kinds of things, but through allowing God to change our hearts. 2 Corinthians 10:4. I'm going to take just a little side trip. All right.

00:40:54 I'm gonna I like that. All right. Um, yeah, that's the law of Moses right there. All right. That's Buddhism, Hinduism, um, New Age, whatever. And that's Christ. She doesn't know she's Christ, but she's Christ. All right. Um, where was I? I'm I'm really sick, so I'm trying to

00:41:26 keep it together. All right. >> All right. I I like Have any of you read Michael Burns's book, uh, Escaping the Beast? That's worth reading. Michael, they should have had Michael do this talk, not me, honestly. He's better at this. But he said, this is a quote from Michael in his book, Escaping the Beast, uh, which there's copies out at the IPI table. When we yoke ourselves with one of the philosophies of the present age, we lose the ability to distinguish ourselves from the world. Got that?

00:41:56 >> One more time. When we yoke ourselves with one of the philosophies of this present age, whatever that might be, we lose the ability to distinguish ourselves from the world. And we're no longer the city on the hill. And that's a problem. >> And the prophetic voice is silenced as we're shouted down by those within our own ranks who accuse us of being what they actually are. I remember a friend of mine, I had a professor at Gmont College and this guy was kind of

00:42:27 religious right kind of guy, you know, and he said, "We need to have prayer in schools. We need to have Christianity take over the government and all that sort of stuff and bring the Bible back to the school." And then one day he was he's a boy scout leader and they had a prayer, you know, because they had prayer in the bo and and the the guy was like, "Oh, mother of God, we oh spirit of the universe is like we need to not have prayer in the school anymore. It's not that's really not going to solve the problem." Not really.

00:43:00 Paul tells us in verse 19, "Those who rely on these elementary forces of the world have lost connection with Christ." That's the problem. We do not want to lose connection with Christ because like I said, our righteousness is found in Christ, not in any cause. And neither is it found verse 18, this is interesting. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels

00:43:30 disqualify you. Our righteous not found in religious experience in you know whatever comes from mysticism in these things. I I think mystics can teach us something as Christians honestly but it's not found in those personal religious experiences. Paul had one, right? He went up to the third heaven. He had a pretty awesome mystical experience, but his his righteousness was not found there.

00:44:02 And again, verse 23- 23, he goes to the list of all these rules. He said, "We die to those rules. We don't live by it any longer." Right? the stokea, these ABCs of the world, these human philosophies, these parties, these schools of thought, be they progressive or conservative, none of them are anything compared to Christ. All right? So, we don't base our

00:44:32 righteousness on rules or added rules about clothing and movies. These do not produce righteousness. By the way, don't watch those bad movies and don't wear that lwd clothing. Okay? Okay. Don't do that. But understand where our righteousness comes from because our fullness is in Christ. The world's philosophies have nothing to offer us. So, let us strive for Christ. Pretty

00:45:02 simple. The lesson of Colossians is pretty simple, right? Fullness is found in Christ. Let us seek righteousness through Christ, not the sou of the world. Now, how did I do night time? Okay, great. So, it's 10:18. I think we have till um 10:45. >> Okay, great. So, two possibilities. One, I could open up for questions. Or two, I could start my next lesson.

00:45:32 >> I don't know. Next lesson. >> We keep going. All right. So, now I'm going to get a little bit more academic on you, okay? You're gonna you're gonna maybe learn something. Maybe little history, a little intellectual history or something like that. Okay. By the way, I'm a modernist. You're a postmodernist. I'm sorry. I I am. And you are. I'm sorry. Okay. And so, I think different than you think. All right. And I can't help it. I can't

00:46:02 stop being that. By the way, I don't think that my way of thinking is better than yours. It's just different. But I think we need to be aware of the lens that we use to look at the world. And we need to be aware of the positives of those lenses and the negative of those lenses. But you can't just scrape it off. You can't. I'm sorry, but you can't stop being a postmodernist. And I don't even expect you should. And I can't help it. I just look at the world through a

00:46:32 rational perspective. I just do. And even though I'm self-aware of it, I I I can't just throw it off. So, I want to talk a little bit about sort of the intellectual history that of the Western world a little bit here a little bit. Now, there's two perspectives. There's the perspective of David Mallister, uh, who's kind of like a modernist. He he thinks postmodernism is the worst thing that ever happened and you guys

00:47:02 all going to hell in a hand basket because you because your whole world view is so messed up you could never possibly be saved and all that. The good news is that secular humanism is on the way out. Amen. All right. But the bad news is that something worse is taking its place. That something worse is called postmodernism. So you guys are just you guys are all messed up. you don't you don't know anything. All right, that's that's one one perspective. And

00:47:32 honestly, people from my generation tend to think that way. So just, you know, go don't do this 99% of the time, but every once in a while go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." Okay, you you can afford to ignore our criticisms, oh my goodness, of some of your philos of some of your ideas. All right, here we go. Here's another perspective. Evangelicals have often uncritically accepted the modern view. Yeah.

00:48:02 of knowledge despite the fact that at certain points the post-modern critique is more in keeping with Christian theological understandings. So thank you for being honest that Stanley Grenmer on postmodernism. All right. So, I'm not here to tell you that that you postmodernists don't know anything and you just got to repent of your postmodern attitudes. In fact, I if I had to choose if I had to choose between the modernist perspective

00:48:33 that I grew up with, I mean, I'm I'm, you know, NASA and the the the the Russians made it to to space first and all that sort of stuff. If you choose that and and y'all the postmodern, like everything's cool, it's all good, you know, more. I I would pick y'all. I would pick postmodern if I had to pick. All right. for what it's worth. All right, so let's talk about what is modernism and why have intellectuals said that was a really bad idea.

00:49:05 Not that we care what intellectuals think, but we should be aware. And there it's not like they're stupid. They can tell us a few things. So what is postmodern? In other words, what are y'all? Okay. How does postmodernism and culture relate? and what's the Christian response both to postmodernism and to modernism thinking. Okay, got it. So, we're going to do a little bit of that. So, here's our history of the world. There's the preodern age. All right,

00:49:35 which is kind of Now, forgive me. I'm I'm looking at this from a mainly western perspective. All right. If we're if we're in China or in India or we're in the near east or whatever, this is forgive me for looking at things from a western perspective, but everybody here probably lives in a western country and your education comes from a western perspective. So, you're influenced by this stuff. You you might even be influenced by Eastern philosophy, which is not all bad, by the way. It's not all

00:50:06 bad. It's not all bad. It's just not a philosophy to live by. Okay? So there's the preodern age which ended around you know 1500 or so kind of and then we entered what's called the modern age well maybe 1600 whatever and then there's the postmodern age that's that's a recent thing this is the last 50 years my generation we are moderns okay so oh how'd that happen I didn't know I was doing that okay great so let's talk about the preodern world

00:50:36 okay the in the preodern world we're talking about, you know, the the time between Christ and let's say the the Reformation and the Renaissance and all that kind of stuff, right? Michelangelo and Dainci and all that kind of stuff. Got it. The belief in divinity was that conviction is virtue and tolerance is evil. You you all don't like that, do you? >> No. >> That's that's terrible.

00:51:07 So the premodern age having a conviction, in fact, if you didn't have a conviction, you're considered an evil person. Essentially, authority is found in God and change is brought about by adherence to a standard. Oh, you guys, man, you guys hate that. You guys really hate that. That's okay. And then there's the modern age which was brought about through things like the the renaissance and the reformation and especially the enlightenment and the whole age of reason and all that kind of

00:51:38 stuff. The modern the modernist if you will is ambivalent about divinity uh to to the modernist rationality is true. In other words, what makes sense is true. What's logical is true. And by the way, this idea had a huge influence on Christianity in America in ways that are not all good. They're not all good. In fact, if there is any church that is modernist in perspective, it's the church Christ. If there is any church

00:52:09 that is modernist in Think about this, I was baptized in Boulder back in way before you any of y'all all y'all were born. And almost all our converts were engineering majors. You know, it's kind of interesting. It's very logical. Okay. So, we'll talk about that. All right. So, authority in the preodern age is God. Well, that's that's pretty good, actually. I mean, look at that first column. There's some good stuff over there, actually. I love how CS Lewis CS

00:52:42 Lewis the whole idea that newer is better. That that whole idea I'm going to talk about that with progressive thinking. The idea that newer is better. Couldn't we just go back to authority being God? Couldn't we just go back over there? But then again, conviction is virtue. Tolerance is evil. Oh, that's that's not so good. I don't really like that. All right. So, in the to the modern the things that were logical and rational, that's that was considered to be the source of what's good essentially. And change is brought about by what is rational. Then there's the

00:53:13 post-modern. And divinity in the postmodern is self-expression. That sounds like kind of a negative put down, but it's kind of it's kind of how it kind of how it works. I mean, I I'm on campus a lot. I meet I meet a lot of a lot of students. And divinity as self-expression, that's kind of your generation's thing. Is that bad? Oh, yeah. Actually, I think it is. How about divinity is, you know, through

00:53:45 rationality, you know, and tolerance is virtue, conviction is bad. So, we've had a bit of a turnaround, haven't we? Okay. And I mentioned that that woman from Sweden that woman, the one who passed out when they had the nerve to actually say like things like rape are just wrong. They're just wrong. I'm sorry. If you think they're right, they're still wrong. You know, the idea of moral absolutes. All right. to her, the only sin is to believe in sin. And honestly, to some

00:54:16 extent, that's your generation. >> I'm not saying that to be negative because I've got at least as many negatives to say about the modernist perspective. I already told you if I had to choose, I would choose you guys's perspective. I already told you that. All right. All right. Authority is found in the group. Truth is found by those who believe in it. That's the whole postmodern perspective. Change is contingent on self-expression and culture. So that's kind of

00:54:46 postmodernism. A little bit more detailed historical timeline here is the preodern world is defined by Catholicism, by mysticism and and um even by superstition if you will. All right. and and in October we're going to go to Santiago de Compostela to do a little pilgrimage thing and my wife and I went to it's in Spain and they got the bones of St. James, you know, Santiago, that's

00:55:17 all right. And the people are like touching touching the bones, touching and all right, that's kind of thing. And my wife and I, should we touch should we touch that or not? You know, because you kind of go through that little Sure, we touched it. It's kind of weird. So, the preodern age would be represented by Catholicism. Okay, got it. The the then there's the Renaissance, right? the Renaissance. You sound smart if you say Renaissance, but

00:55:48 that's humanism. The idea that that human beings are what everything's about, right? And that that's what Protestantism is. Now, of course, in our religious realm, everybody assumes Protestant is better than Catholic. I don't agree with that at all. I don't agree with that at all. Cath cathol Catholicism is better theology than Protestantism, but that's another story. All right. So, we went through this period where we rejected like, if you

00:56:18 don't do what the church says, you're going to hell and we're going to kill you anyway to help you get there sooner. You know what I'm saying, right? >> And then you have Protestantism, which says, "Hey, everybody gets to kind of sort of read for themselves." And you have secular humanism coming in and all that kind of stuff. And I I like all that art, you know. Go to go to Florence and you go to that's pretty good stuff, you know. And then but that's like the

00:56:49 1500s 1600s and we have the enlightenment. Do you do you all study this stuff in school? Do you take a liberal studies class? And that's the age of reason. And we got Voltaare and Rouso and all this kind of stuff. And so basically at this point skepticism became common and normal even the early modernism. Then there's the late modernism that's going to start you know after the time of say Napoleon and and uh all that sort of stuff and you start

00:57:20 to get skeptics. You got u you got your um you know Darwin and all that kind of stuff. And then there's this crazy I mean it's crazy how much change happened in this shift from late modernism. And by the way, the church of Christ is heavily immersed in late modernism. In other words, ICO. Our church is a modernist church. It's

00:57:50 not a postmodern church. But it's sure changing. It's it's scaring the heck out of people like me. Not so much me, but people like me. You guys scare us a little bit. But that but you shouldn't. It's okay. It's gonna go that way anyway. And it's not necessarily bad. Okay. But the difference between most postmodern thinking and modern thinking, it's like the exact diametric opposite. It's crazy. How do we even get through it? I don't know.

00:58:21 So, the preodern age, knowledge was based on faith and authority. And you guys hate authority. You guys hate authority. So do I, by the way. I'm a I'm a rebel. I'm a rebel at heart. Every time I hear a rule, I want to figure out a way to break it. All right. Here's here's a kind of a perfect statement of the premodern age anom of Canterbury. Says, I believe in order to know. I believe first and then I know. The modernist says I know

00:58:54 and then I believe. And the postmodernist says I don't know and I don't believe. So here's another thing. EMP emphasis on the corporate rather than the individual. My generation is hyper hyper individ. It's it's sickening how individualist we are. You guys can help us out a little bit. All right. But in the preodern age, the corporate was way more important than the individual. That's why they had no human rights. And

00:59:25 there that's Do you see good and bad in here? That's one of my points. There's good and there's bad. But what doesn't change? Christ doesn't change. Got it? So, you got to have a perspective. Then we have the Renaissance, right? And the Reformation. And people began to emphasize individual rights, individual prerogatives, and the the role of individuals even in creating progress.

00:59:56 It led to what's known as, of course, the the Reformation. And I already said that I'm not as impressed with the Protestant Reformation as many Christians are, but okay. But it also led to science. There you go. That's good. Do you know where science came from? came from Christianity. All right. The three basic assumptions of science are that the universe is unchanging as one set of laws for the whole universe. Where did that come

01:00:26 from? The idea of God, right? And the idea that those laws can be understood. Another assumption of science. Where' that come from? Because God reveals himself through the world, right? And then and the third assumption of science is that that the world can be described through mathematics and again that idea came directly from Christian philosophy. All right. So we got this scientific revolution going on and all that and then modernism

01:00:56 and then we have the transformation of modernism into more philosophy with Renee Deart. You've heard of him right? I think therefore I am. And they basically worshiped reasoning. And if something was not reasonable, then it can't be true. Are there any unreasonable things in Christianity? >> Absolutely, there are. >> How about this? In the beginning was the word.

01:01:28 The word was with God and the word was God. That's crazy. Okay, how about this? I I remember I was sitting with a friend who was a college back in college days. He said, you know, to me, Christianity is so reasonable. It's so logical, typical modernist. That that is so modernist. That's so crazy modernist. They're just, you know, because we sin. We're separated from

01:01:58 God. And so God had to do something, but he's really angry at us. So he says he's going to take it out on his son. How? That's crazy. >> Now, Christianity is never irrational, >> but it's it's sometimes it's not rational. Okay? So, there's things about Christianity which my generation really struggle. We really struggle with that and you guys could help us out. All right. Isaac Newton, the mechanical

01:02:29 universe and the be people began to question whether we need God anymore. There's a famous story of um let me just what's his name? ah the mathematician ah llas lelass this is 18 10 or something like that he wrote this great treatise on on Newton's laws and and basically he argued through through equations we could extrapolate fully into the past fully into the future everything could be explained through rational things and all logical never

01:03:00 quantum mechanics wasn't around yet and and so um he presented to Napoleon. Napoleon said, "Where's God in this?" And Lela said, "We have no need of that hypothesis." So there you go. That's modernism. So here you go. The autonomous rational human of Decart meets the mechanical universe of Newton. All right. So that's kind of but that's

01:03:30 that's the underpinninging of a lot of Christianity. So that's worth noting. All right. By the way, I it's 10:36 and I think because we're supposed to end at 10:45, right? And then take a break and then have the second class. So, I'm going to just stop talking. Okay. We have about five minutes to take a couple of questions that have come up. All right. And then we'll just take our break. All right. I've got question one, two, three, four. Okay. First one. So we went over a lot,

01:04:06 >> right? >> And I read your book. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> No, sorry. and also >> right

01:04:38 opic but in the church topic but in the church you know I've seen my own friends the church >> right >> you know so it's not always the world church but it's also the church was the church regarding Right.

01:05:14 >> Yeah. >> Sure. And by the way, one of the strengths of modernism is the ability to accept doctrine as it it is what it is and that's the end of the story. Okay. One of the problems, one of the weaknesses of postmodernism is you don't like to have the story ending answer. >> All right? And so that's going to be a bigger problem for you guys than for us,

01:05:44 honestly. All right? Again, there's so many things that postmodernism has I'm going to talk about that the idea of of the Bible as narrative and there so such so so many beautiful things that we modernists can learn from postmodernism. But yeah, I I I would say that in general defending proper Christian doctrines is a struggle in a post-modern world. All right. But um like you know you're that yours is

01:06:15 really a softball question honestly. Thank you for your softball question. All right. Uh because you know either you're in Christ or you're not. Right? Either you're in Christ or you're not in Christ. There's no in between world. Right? And when do you come into Christ? It's in baptism. There's no other biblical, there's no other even possible alternative to the idea that we come into Christ when we're baptized. We're not we don't pray into Christ. We don't

01:06:46 believe into Christ. We don't repent into Christ. We don't faith into Christ. And you know, there's like you said, there's so many markers in the Old Testament that make that so clear. You know, that they they left that Pharaoh said go. And so they're out in the wilderness and they're all fired up, man. We're we're free. we we've left Egypt, but they hadn't left Egypt because literally you didn't leave Egypt until you went through the water. I mean, there's that whole thing. So many signs uh in the Old Testament. Um I'm not sure

01:07:18 if I ask understand your question. Are you are you asking how do we deal with the fact that people struggle to accept that as a clear doctrine or are you asking how do we essentially prove that that other idea is wrong that we you know you like I think it's fair to validate what they believe. >> Yeah. >> The way we biblically answer is by biblically answering. I I think I don't

01:07:49 I don't know what else to say, what else to say. Um yeah. So it sounds to me like you've already thought this through. So I say just go out there and teach what you've already learned. >> So I typically do go back to the Colossians. >> Yeah. >> That's not where I go, by the way. Although I I go there often, but I prefer Galatians 3:26. >> Okay. The advantage of Colossians 2, it says, uh, saved through faith, right?

01:08:19 And the work of God. The idea that a lot of people say baptism is a work. Correct? But that's the biggest nonsense in the world. I mean, because it it's a work. All right? Colossians 2:12. It's a work of God. And it's interesting, a little historical fact. Have you ever seen a Jewish baptism? >> No. >> All right. They do them all the time. If you go, if you go to Israel, go to the Jordan River, they got It's funny because they got their Christian baptisms over here and the Jewish baptisms over there. And here's how Jews

01:08:49 do baptisms. They got their mikvah, >> right? Their mikvah. >> They baptized themselves. Who changed that? His name is John the Baptist. He's the one who changed that. Why did he change that? Because God wanted us to realize that this cleansing is something done to us. In fact, the the very word be baptized, you study language that's in the reflexive tense. You don't baptize, you get baptized,

01:09:20 it's done to you. So, the idea that baptism is a work of man is insanity. It's craziness. Doesn't make any sense. So, there's that. Uh, but I I like Galatians 3:26, although awesome that Colossians that Colossians 2 as that's a great one. I like Galatians 3:26. And even more so is Romans 6. Galatians 3, what is it? I don't know, somewhere in there. Um, yeah, verse 20. Uh,

01:09:54 so in Christ Jesus, verse 26, you're all children of God through faith. For all of you who are baptized into Christ, have been clothed yourselves with Christ. You know the the the parable of the marriage banquet, got a bunch of people in the room, right? And this one guy has got in the wrong clothes and he's like he didn't had no idea he had the wrong clothes on. What are those clothes? Those clothes are >> Christ. That's the clothes. And when do we put

01:10:25 on those clothes? Acts 2:38. So anyway, I'd say just keep going and you you just got to be a little bit stubborn, but your generation is going to struggle to stick to a particular doctrine, whether it's right or wrong. That's going to be a problem. Lot of good things, but that's going to be a problem. All right, it's I I want to take one more question. Oh, wait. It's 10:43. Let's just take our break. So, we'll start. We had three questions, right? I'll take those three questions

01:10:56 at the beginning of the class and then we'll keep going. So, we're going to take a 15-minut break.