From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part one of a series.

What are sometimes called "unprecedented" influences on the 21st-century church are not new at all. We even find such evils as radical environmentalism and so-called transgenderism in the New Testament era. Paul wrote his epistle to the Colossian believers so that they might be equipped to face these things. Who says the Bible is not up-to-date? As the saying goes, "everything old is new again."

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:1-14)

Some Christians think that we live in what they call "unprecedented" times. They assert that we are experiencing anti-Christian influences that are unlike, or are more severe than, those endured by believers in any other period of history. But as we study the New Testament, we find that this is not the case. As the saying goes, "everything old is new again."

We find this vividly demonstrated in Paul's epistle to the Colossians. The Colossian believers were facing several very serious challenges to their faith in Christ and their unity as a church - some of them outside the church, and others within - that strongly parallel the challenges of the church in the 21st century.

• Colosse was one of the centers of a particular form of pagan worship that contained elements of what we in our day call radical environmentalism. Another hallmark of that same form of paganism was the blurring of gender identities, in particular the feminization of men, and sexual perversion generally. A third hallmark of that form of paganism was the seed-form of what became Roman Catholicism's worship of Mary as "mother of God", heavenly mediatrix, and co-redemptrix with Christ.
• False teachers attempted to lead the Colossian believers into legalism by insisting upon retaining the practices of the Old Testament ceremonial law, thus subverting the one true Gospel of the grace of God in Christ.
• Efforts to combine pagan philosophies with Christianity resulted in various forms of pragmatism and hedonism among professing Christians, and an anti-supernatural, anti-historical view of Scripture that relegated the early chapters of Genesis to the category of allegorical mythology.

Who says the Bible is not an up-to-date book? We have exactly these kinds of evil influences in the visible church today. Christians must be equipped to deal with them. It was for this reason that Paul wrote to the Colossian believers nearly  two thousand years ago, with the prayer that they might "be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy."

Next: Cybele-Worship, Old and New

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