We can easily be deceived by false reasoning. While faith is never unreasonable,

there are many Divine things that are above our reasoning or ability to comprehend. We

are therefore shut up in these things to the Word of God and this should be enough for all

who are convinced of its truth. If we do not accept this, then we become a prey to the

Deceiver and his lies which are put over with `enticing words' and made to appear so

attractive and right. The Apostle deliberately avoided `plausible speech' in his dealings

with the Corinthian church, so that their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but

in the power of God (I Cor. 2: 1-5) and so be safe from Satan's wiles.

To `spoil' is sulagogeo, `to take captive or to kidnap'. We repeat, this is ever Satan's

aim--to undo the freedom which has been wrought for us by Christ's redemption and to

bring again into slavery. May our eyes ever be open to the deadly tactics of the Enemy.

We are dealing with the section of the epistle which makes known the Satanic error

that was enslaving some of the Colossian believers. In our last study we saw that the

attack was three-fold, false reasoning, enticing and plausible arguments, and spoiling or

leading into captivity. Col. 2: 8 shows the three-fold means Satan uses to achieve this

end: (1) a vain and deceitful philosophy, (2) human tradition, and (3) rudiments or

elements of the world. Philosophy and vain deceit can be treated as hendiadys, that is,

not two separate things, but one, a philosophy that is both empty (vain) and deceitful.

What is philosophy? It is the search by unaided human minds to discover knowledge

and wisdom and to generally get to the bottom of things. There is nothing wrong in the

quest for knowledge providing the searcher keeps within the limits of human capability

of understanding. But directly he ventures further than this, that is into the realm of God

and infinity, he is right out of his depth and is like a cork being tossed about by the ocean.

His ideas then become mere speculation, however cleverly presented, and thus are empty

(vain) and devoid of truth and are complete deception.

We should not limit Paul's term `philosophy' to the Greeks and Romans. Josephus

makes clear that the word was applied to the various sects of Israel:

It apparently was a mixture of Jewish and Greek philosophy that was creeping in at

Colossae as a substitute for the Divine realities in Christ. It emphasized the primacy of

human reason and knowledge as against God's revelation of Himself in the Person of the

Lord Jesus in Whom He had spoken finally. Christ-centred revelation is the opposite of

any humanistic philosophy which begins with man and makes man's reason and intellect