Watch, that there not be one robbing you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ. Colossians 2:8

Traditions of Men – I remember as a teenager hearing this verse proclaimed as a warning against worldly views.  Forty years later, with plenty of philosophy under my belt, I am quite sure that Paul meant nothing like the preacher I heard.  I am not endorsing the world’s nihilism.  What I am saying is that Paul wrote to a particular audience and his message must be understood within that audience before we can draw out any trans-cultural applications.  Paul wasn’t writing about materialism, socialism, communism, fascism or hedonism.  He was writing about what it meant to become a gentile believer in the Jewish Messiah in a Jewish synagogue in the Roman city of Kolossai.

So, what were the “traditions of men” that concerned Paul?  Imagine yourself in that congregation.  Every week, on the Sabbath, you attend a service where the Hebrew Scriptures were read and taught.  You knew Moses.  You knew Torah.  In fact, you lived a Torah-observant life as best you could, celebrating the festivals, making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem if you could afford to do so, listening to the famous Pharisee, R.  Sha’ul, student of Gamaliel, explain your place in God’s Kingdom after Shabbat.  Do you think Sha’ul considered the Deuteronomic law to be the “traditions of men”?  Impossible!  Nothing in God’s Word could be considered the “traditions of men.”  The traditions of men would have to be those proclamations and practices represented by the pagan environment.  In other words, anything that opposed the Torah.  Paul’s warning is to the Torah-observant community to not be swayed by the claims of those who did not live according to the Torah.

Now think about how we have turned this verse upside-down.  Today we often hear this verse read as if Paul is telling believers not to follow the Torah.  We interpret “traditions of men” to be the very instructions that God gave Israel.  We think that keeping Sabbath, dietary laws, festivals, court proceedings and property rights according to Moses’ revelation are traditions for Jewish people that no longer apply to us.  Can you imagine the reaction of the synagogue if that’s what Paul meant?  They would have been flabbergasted.  They would have gone away completely and  utterly confused.  How could this Torah scholar, this exemplary student of the most honored rabbi of the time, this man who claimed that he kept Torah his whole life, suddenly proclaim that the Scriptures were “traditions of men”? No, I’m afraid that we are the ones who read it backwards.  We are the ones who have been robbed by philosophy, empty deceit and the traditions of men.  We are the ones who practice according to the elements of the world, those accumulations of pagan beliefs that we consider harmless additions to the faith.

Perhaps it’s time to reconsider what is “according to Christ.”  Perhaps we need to ask how He treated the Hebrew Scripture.  What do you think?

Topical Index:  traditions of men, paradosin ton anthropon, Colossians 2:8