Sermon Tone Analysis

Background:

By Paul’s day, however, the main road had been rerouted through nearby Laodicea, thus bypassing Colosse and leading to its decline and the rise of the neighboring cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis.

Although Colosse’s population was mainly Gentile, there was a large Jewish settlement dating from the days of Antiochus the Great (223–187 B.C.).

Colosse’s mixed population of Jews and Gentiles manifested itself both in the composition of the church and in the heresy that plagued it, which contained elements of both Jewish legalism and pagan mysticism.

The church at Colosse began during Paul’s 3-year ministry at Ephesus ().

Its founder was not Paul, who had never been there (2:1); but Epaphras (1:5–7), who apparently was saved during a visit to Ephesus, then likely started the church in Colosse when he returned home.

Several years after the Colossian church was founded, a dangerous heresy arose to threaten it—one not identified with any particular historical system.

It contained elements of what later became known as Gnosticism: that God is good, but matter is evil, that Jesus Christ was merely one of a series of emanations descending from God and being less than God (a belief that led them to deny His true humanity), and that a secret, higher knowledge above Scripture was necessary for enlightenment and salvation.

The Colossian heresy also embraced aspects of Jewish legalism, e.g., the necessity of circumcision for salvation, observance of the ceremonial rituals of the OT law (dietary laws, festivals, Sabbaths), and rigid asceticism.

It also called for the worship of angels and mystical experience.

Epaphras was so concerned about this heresy that he made the long journey from Colosse to Rome (4:12, 13), where Paul was a prisoner.

This letter was written from prison in Rome () sometime between A.D. 60–62 and is, therefore, referred to as a Prison Epistle (along with Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon).

Pluralism, Religious.

To better understand religious pluralism, several terms related to religion need to be distinguished: pluralism, relativism, inclusivism, and exclusivism:

Pluralism, Religious.

To better understand religious pluralism, several terms related to religion need to be distinguished: pluralism, relativism, inclusivism, and exclusivism:

• Religious pluralism is the belief that every religion is true.

Each provides a genuine encounter with the Ultimate.

One may be better than the others, but all are adequate.

• Relativism (see TRUTH, ABSOLUTE) claims that there are no criteria by which one can tell which religion is true or best.

There is no objective truth in religion, and each religion is true to the one holding it.

• Inclusivism claims that one religion is explicitly true, while all others are implicitly true.

• Exclusivism is the belief that only one religion is true, and the others opposed to it are false.

Christianity is exclusivistic; it claims to be the one and only true religion (see CHRIST, UNIQUENESS OF).

This places Christians at odds with the modern movements to study comparative religion and work at interfaith communing.

Asks Alister McGrath, “How can Christianity’s claims to truth be taken seriously when there are so many rival alternatives and when ‘truth’ itself has become a devalued notion?

No one can lay claim to possession of the truth.

It is all a question of perspective.

All claims to truth are equally valid.

There is no universal or privileged vantage point that allows anyone to decide what is right and what is wrong”

Geisler, N. L. (1999).

Pluralism, Religious.

In Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics (p.

598).

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Geisler, N. L. (1999).

Pluralism, Religious.

In Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics (p.

598).

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Syncretism:

Syncretism

syncretism, either a conscious combining of two or more religions over a short period of time, or a process of absorption by one religion of elements of another over a long period of time.

In both types the absorbed elements are usually transformed and given new meaning by the fresh context.

The borrowed item may remain outwardly the same but its new context signifies something quite new.

MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.).

(1997).

The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., p. 1830).

Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

Col 1:

Col 1:

Col 2

Rom 1:

1 Thes

Why Is My Life So Incomplete ?

Filled : a beautiful picture of the way Jesus heals spiritually.

If Jesus heals physical illness and makes people entirely whole, then that is precisely what is meant by the apostle Paul In 2:10 when he says, “and ye are complete in Him.”

You can put the word ‘whole’ in there.

Just as Jesus Christ did miracles of healing that made people entirely well, so when Jesus touches a life spiritually and gives salvation, it is entire salvation, it in whole salvation.

That person becomes spiritually entirely well.

In fact if you want to choose another Pauline term, “if any man be in Christ, he is a,” what, “new creation.”

I mean that is brand new wholeness.

a beautiful picture of the way Jesus heals spiritually.

If Jesus heals physical illness and makes people entirely whole, then that is precisely what is meant by the apostle Paul In 2:10 when he says, “and ye are complete inHim.”

You can put the word ‘whole’ in there.

Just as Jesus Christ did miracles ofhealing that made people entirely well, so when Jesus touches a life spirituallyand gives salvation, it is entire salvation, it in whole salvation.

That person becomes spiritually entirely well.

In fact if you want to choose another Pauline term, “if any man bein Christ, he is a,” what, “new creation.”

I meanthat is brand new wholeness.

He is trying to say to these people, look when you receive Christ, you were made whole.

A healthy man doesn’t need anymore medicine.

You don’t need human philosophy, you don’t need Jewish legalism, you don’t need strange pagan mysticism, you don’t need abstaining aestheticism, you don’t need anything when you receive Christ and his salvation

Literally it says you have been made full.

You have been made full in him.

There is nothing missing.

Christ fills you up.

There aren’t any other things to add to that.

You have been made full with the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Human philosophy based on the traditions of men as verse 8 says and the elementary marks of infantile human religion has nothing to add to what is already completed.

And so Paul deals a blow to the heresy of human philosophy and religion which tries to deny that Christ has the power to give complete salvation

The Colossians who have in Jesus Christ the fountain that never fails would be fools to listen to these false teachers who would have them hue out broken cisterns that hold no water.

You don’t need philosophy and you need angelic intermediaries.

Christ in the completer.

He makes anything he touches whole.

Filled: Complete, to become generously supplied with; to make full.

Matt 12

Matt

I’m I really Saved ?

False Relationship: They taught that a man had to be circumcised to be saved.

That God would not accept Him unless He was Circumcised

Giving His heart and His life to Jesus Christ was not enough

Even if He gave His everything to God, God wouldn't accept Him unless He was circumcised

Circumcised was symbolic of two things

I belong to God “Covenant People”

A Cutting Away of Sin

The Cutting away of Self And Sin

The Cutting away of everything but the will of God.

So a person was accepted not because He trusted God but because He was cut

Joining a Church

Was christened

Was Baptized

Keep the Law

*Powerful Working of God