Same Bible, different reading

Here's some scripture that jumped out at me from Colossians 2 that reoriented how I saw and thought about church and religious rules, etc.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or 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; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

In a little town called Colossae, a place known for its cold water springs, a group of believers lived and were working through some of the dynamics that had unfolded since some really religious people had come through to "help them" by showing them things they could do better to be more right with God and make God happy.  

These really religious people from out of town who'd come to help were people who believed in Jesus, but felt that you also had to follow the Old Testament law and its regulations to be right with God.  When Paul heard what they'd been taught, he wrote them what we know as Colossians.

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Growing up, the way it was taught to me was that Paul was saying to the Colossians to keep on following the religious rules and don't let people make fun of you for keeping the Sabbath day or other religious holiday that you've been following.  Ignore those people because they don't know what they're talking about.  Keep on doing what you're doing and be proud that you're a peculiar people who do things that outsiders don't understand.

And then, much later, I realized that I'd heard it backward.  In reality, Paul was telling the Colossians to not submit to the peer pressure of these outsiders who've come in and tried to make them feel like they need to follow all the religious rules of Judaism and such or they'd be on the outs with God and NOT be making God happy.

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What amazed me was how easy it is to take what's written in black and white and, because so many people don't know the scope of scripture, the context, and such, completely turn it on it's head and help people believe something that is the opposite of what was intended by the authors.

I don't believe that those who teach that way are necessarily doing so from bad motives, but they are simply bringing what they've been taught to the Bible and haven't questioned any deeper the things they've been taught.  And, most likely they were taught that if anyone says something otherwise, they're wrong/crazy.

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One of the big things that began long ago in my deconstruction and rebuilding process was acknowledging this process and learning to discern people, their interpretations of scripture, and potentially their inherited motivations or reasons for holding to a certain belief or practice.

It is amazing the wide variety that exists "out there" or even within the same local congregation.  When you get to a greater degree of clarity about that, you CAN get a sense of the relational nature of interactions and you begin to see it's less about "truth" and way more about influence, control, etc.

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I share that because some have asked me to be a little more basic and not to assume that others who are out there know all those little steps a person might go through that would make them step back from something that seems so solid and settled.  

So, I'll try to unpack some of those more basic things as time goes by.

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One more day until I've done 100 days of blogging/posting about the whole process, excluding weekends.  As mentioned before, it is to develop a discipline - to be consistent in recording thoughts, etc.  It is, at times, a huge pain in the backside to do this kind of thing and I see why, over the years, I've started journals and stopped them, over and over.  I admire people who journal consistently.  It can be a helpful and powerful thing.

Grace and peace.

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