Daily Meditations from John N. N. Ng'ang'a: Week of 18-24 October : Superstition is not Christianity

 

Day 1
18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions.

Did your becoming a Christian liberate you from supernatural and demonic attacks and frightening visions? Today, like in Paul's time, there are pastors who want us to still be frightened by these things. These false teachers, just like the ones in Colossae, either hinder us in Christian race or even intimidate us by declaring us as disqualified if we do not follow their prescribed course.

We should not, in the name of humility, allow ourselves to end up in new bondage. Humility, which in Colossians 3:12 is a virtue, is here condemned because of the object toward which this submissive attitude and activity is directed. Worship of the angels (cf. Gal 3:19) is now obviated by the indwelling Christ.

This is what makes the devotion of present-day Roman Catholics to the Virgin Mary, displacing the centrality of Christ, questionable.

The vision of an angel or of Mary should not take our attention. Jesus death and resurrection is adequate to prepare us for a live on earth and heaven, when we leave this earth. The basis of the error is the egoistic or fleshly mind (see on Col 2:15) that spends its time elucidating visions (RSV) which he one has seen (ASV). Such a mind fails to hold to Christ, the Head, from whom the body, i.e., the Church, is nourished in true and godly growth. In contrast to the earlier use, Head here reflects not authority so much as the origin or source of the Church's health and life.

 

Day 2
19 He has 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.

I have a question. Is it possible to lose the head and still claim to be a part of the body? I think chickens experience this when we cut their heads off. They will continue flapping for some time. The snake might do something similar. However once the head is gone, it is just matter of time before it falls silent.

Similarly if Christianity is not fully connected to Christ, who is the head, it may look live bit it will soon be dead. That is why you can have homosexuals 'church' with its members aware of what the scriptures says, yet they meet and 'worship' and ignore God's word. What is it that we, as individuals, are doing and saying that show that Christ is no longer controlling us? It means we are dead and our faith is dead.

 

Day 3
20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules?

We need to live free of the basic principles or elemental spirits. These practices are identified (1) with demonic powers to whom have been delegated authority in the cosmos and, therefore, over men (cf. Col 2:15), or (2) with angelic powers generally who mediated the law and exercised in the old age a certain suzerainty over men.

At Calvary, the Christian died with Christ to the old age, and so he must not live as though the world (kosmos) or its ordinances still had a claim upon him (cf. Rom 6). To submit to things which perish is to admit that one belongs to the perishing old age, the mortal Adamic race (cf. 1 Cor 15:45-50); and it is a denial of the new-age life into which, in Christ's risen body, the Christian has been incorporated.

We must avoid anything that is based on superstition rather than Gods word. For Christian to refuse to enter the football stadium through a given gate because he believes it has a bad omen is to declare you are not living under the freedom the cross purchased for us.Which things do you or your family or clan do that can only be called superstition? You need to stop them.

 

Day 4
21 "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"

Some advices from nutritionists appear very good medically but one should avoid making it look like biblical requirements. We should allow different tastes within the fellowship.The fact that one likes tea and another likes coffees for different reasons should not divide the fellowship. We need to run our fellowships in such way that as long as we agree on cardinal issues we can differ on small issues as the color we like or do not like.

To go beyond this is to steer into the arena of telling people of what to touch and what not to touch or which tastes are good and which are not.

 

Day 5
22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.

Most man-made rules are location or culture related. It means that what you do in one village might not be done in another. I had a West African who came to live in my neighborhood in Nairobi and was surprised that our Christian girls were not making their hair in a certain way which where they came from was the Christian thing do.

It turned out that it was the exact opposite of what our East African Revival background allowed us to do. How could both requirements be Christian? These rules change with location and time. We should therefore avoid determining Christianity on such rules.

 

Day 6
Colossians 2:23 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.

Are you involved in any self-imposed punishment of the body which you do in order to get holy? Perfection of Christian character through rules is the doctrine of men (cf. Col 2:8). Although observing taboos gives a man a reputation for spiritual wisdom and sacrificial humility, such taboos in actual practice "do honor, not to God, but to man's own pride" (Phillips' trans.). Phillips, probably correctly, understands flesh as "the old man," man in his sinful rebellion, and not merely as a sensual term (cf. 2:18).

We need to accept that salvation is by grace and there nothing we can do that will earn us salvation. Once we are saved we must live in honor of the lord but this does not earn us salvation. What is that you do that you think makes you a Christian? What is it that your church and fellowship has made a requirement for some to be saved?

The scriptures advise that Christ's death was all that is needed to purchase our salvation.

 

Day 7
Colossians 2:23 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.

Most cults play on a Christians desire to be humble. We feel like to tell the pastor that we do not seem to see what he is teaching in the bible sounds like opposing the man of God. In the process we end doing things against our conscience and clear indication it is not biblical. Violating our conscience severally silences it and we soon do the wrong thing comfortably.

Most such things look clever or wise but may not be biblical! That is why Paul says that they appear wise but are not so.

Are there things we are doing as individuals or as a fellowship that paper wise but are not biblical?

What in what we do could be described as self-imposed worship? Christ has called us to freedom and we must not impose on ourselves activities that do not honor God and are of no spiritual value to us