To Encourage You

Foot of a housefly

Needle and thread

Colossians 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”

Have you ever noticed the difference between natural and man-made things as you look at them close-up?  As you look closer at just about anything made by a person, the flaws become more and more evident.  On the other hand, as you look ever closer at anything that is God-made, it becomes more and more wonderful, even down to the atomic and sub-atomic level. 

You’ve probably seen photographs made with electron microscopes of such things.  Things that are man-made and that look wonderful from a distance are often more jagged and flawed the closer we examine them by such means, which is so often just the opposite of things in the natural world.  It’s just one example of the differences between God and man and how His ways are so much higher than ours. 

The same holds true for man-made philosophies.  As the verse above describes them, they are “empty.” In the New International Version, the word is translated “hollow.” One way of thinking about this is that as you peel back the cover of man-made ideas about the biggest questions of life, like why things are the way they are, why we are here, where we are going, and our very purpose for being, they get more and more empty the deeper one goes.  While they may have an appearance of great wisdom as we first look at them from a distance and as we hear their advocates speak about them with such confidence, the deeper one gets into the core of their ideas, they become ever more hollow. At their heart, there’s just nothing there.  That applies to every “ism” there is, be it socialism, atheism, agnosticism, humanism, etc., or the “ism’s” that are religious in nature but man-made just the same, be it Hinduism, Buddhism, animism or anything else. 

Some years ago, I had a couple Mormon missionaries come to my door.  Here’s an “ism” that was created by a man, Joseph Smith.  It has all kinds of external trappings, like temples, a Temple Mount, “religious books,” so-called prophets, universities, etc.  As we talked, I began to ask questions that went far deeper than what they wanted to talk about, i.e., to the very origin of Joseph Smith’s ideas. You see, I had read about him, and I was asking questions I already knew the answers to.  I knew that in the very beginning Joseph Smith claimed that his revelations came from a vision and a conversation that he had apparently had with God the Father and God the Son at the very same time. He said that they were standing side by side right in front of him.  Yet, the Bible tells us that “no one has ever seen God (the Father, that is)” (John 1:18).   I remembered that God had told Moses, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).  So I told them that whatever Joseph Smith claimed to have seen, it wasn’t God, so if a lie was at the very center of their faith, I didn’t want to really hear about what came after.  If their faith was hollow at its very core, what good was the rest of it?

James 3:13-18 talks about a wisdom that is “from below” that is “earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” He compares it to “the wisdom from above (that) is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.”  1 Corinthians 1:20-25 says much the same thing but in different words: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? . . . For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”  And while man’s ideas are full of errors the closer one looks, “ALL Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

So, what are you listening to? Whom are you following?  Are you focused on the philosophies of this world? Have you been taken in by their supposed great “wisdom”? Or are you looking up to the One Who alone is the Truth, the spotless one, the only One Who could ever say “Can any of you accuse me of sin?” (John 8:4), and not be answered one word?  He’s the only one Who becomes more and more wonderful the closer you look.  He’s not hollow or empty when you peel back the layers. No, this One is the very “fullness of God” (Colossians 1:19)!