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Here we find that the subject-matter is divided in five sections, each section being
devoted into one aspect of the error against which the apostle gives his warning and
followed by a corrective. When we look at the first of these sections (verses 4-8) we see
that the apostle has introduced a parenthesis--a point of style so that we may at the same
time indicate one or two niceties of expression that are obscured in the A.V.:--
"This I say, in order that no one may be reasoning you aside with plausible speech--
(For though indeed I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit,
rejoicing and beholding your order and the solid firmness of your Christward
faith. As therefore ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, having
been rooted and being built up in Him, and being established in the faith, even
as ye were taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving)--
Beware lest any one shall be making a prey of you, through vain deceitful philosophy,
according to the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not according to
Christ: for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are filled full in
Him" (Col. 2: 4-10).
One of the reasons for this parenthesis is the desire of the apostle to encourage as
well as to warn. It is his continual practice to refer first to some occasion of thankfulness
to God before he finds fault or exhorts to fuller and higher things (See, for example,
Rom. 1: 8; I Cor. 1: 4; Eph. 1: 16; Phil. 1: 3). So it is that before the warning comes, he
interposes a note of joy--"joying and beholding your order"--and before the parenthesis
is finished he speaks of the Colossians "abounding . . . . . with thanksgiving". When
advising parents on the question of the upbringing of their children, the apostle was
concerned that the children should not be discouraged (Col. 3: 21). He is here seen as
the father of his believing children encouraging them along the path of faith. Moreover, a
thankful spirit is of itself a wholesome corrective against unsound doctrine, and should be
encouraged by all the means at our disposal. Observe how the apostle united
thanksgiving with prayer (Phil. 1: 3; 4: 6; Col. 1: 3; I Thess. 1: 2, etc.); with practice
(Rom. 14: 6; Heb. 13: 15; Col. 3: 15; Eph. 5: 4; I Tim. 4: 3, 4); and with doctrine
(Rom. 1: 21; Col. 1: 12).
Two things brought joy to the apostle in the midst of his conflict for them: their
"order" and the "solid firmness of their Christward faith". There was nothing of the
martinet about the apostle, yet he appreciated and rejoiced in their order. The word taxis
("order") implies submission to divine appointments. To a church divided by schism,
undermined by immoral conduct, and swayed by spectacular gifts, the apostle uses this
word in admonition (I Cor. 14: 40). It also occurs seven times in Hebrews in the phrase:
"after the order of Melchisedec." In a practical connection, hupotasso is used in
Eph. 5: 21, 22 where the husband and wife accept their divinely-appointed order. The
apostle is not thinking of some dead mechanical order that stultifies individuality and
makes a mockery of equal membership in Christ, but of his main theme, "Holding Christ
the Head".
While there are some things in I Cor. 11: that do not belong to the dispensation of the
mystery, those of verse 3 are true of every dispensation since the time of Adam:--