Bible Reading for June 22 – Colossians 2:16-23

The human tendency to legalism seems endless. It’s easy to scoff at ancient pagan practices – bowing down to statues or offering animal sacrifices to them and imagining that such rituals would guarantee good fortune. We can even look down on the superstitions of past generations as so much needless fear of the spirit world, such as knocking on wood or throwing spilled salt over your shoulder.

But it’s so easy to let legalism creep into our own evangelical Christianity as well. It’s easy to imagine that if we just read our Bibles and pray every day, or if we go to Sunday School and worship every Sunday, God will bless us. It’s easy to feel good about ourselves because we put money in the offering plate or take our turn serving in the local soup kitchen.

Instead, Paul reminds us that the only thing that matters is our connection to Christ, the Head of the Church. And this relationship is thus naturally expressed in our relationship to other believers, the rest of His Body. As we love Him more and love them more we are nourished and knit together as verse 19 says.

So, yes, let’s take advantage of the means of grace, reading the Scriptures, praying, receiving the Sacraments, and enjoying Christian fellowship and worship. But let’s not take pride in ourselves because we do these things, and let’s not look down on others who can’t or won’t practice them exactly the way we do. Instead, let’s keep the main thing the main thing – drawing closer to Christ and to His people today and every day.

Colossians 2:16-23

16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations–
21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”
22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)– according to human precepts and teachings?
23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.