Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Colossians 2:8-15, The philosophy, a cancelled IOU and a triumph
Paul warns against a philosophy built on human tradition and the elements of the world, tells Gentile believers they have already been circumcised in Christ, and pictures God cancelling their debt at the cross and leading the powers captive.
Colossians 2:8-15, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul warns the believers not to be taken in by an empty philosophy built on human tradition and the elements of the world instead of on Christ. All of God's fullness lives in Christ, and in him they already have everything, including a circumcision done by God in their baptism. At the cross God cancelled the record of their debts and stripped the hostile powers, leading them like captives in a victory parade.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/elemental-spirits\/","n":"The elements of the world","s":"Paul twice says that people were enslaved under the stoicheia, the elements of the world. The word could mean basic rules, the stuff the world is made of, or the powers people worshiped in nature and the stars, and scholars still disagree which he meant.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/circumcision\/","n":"Circumcision and becoming a Jew","s":"Circumcision was the sign of God's covenant with Abraham and the mark of a Jewish man. A Gentile man who joined Israel was circumcised; the first great quarrel in the church was over whether Gentile believers had to be.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/debts-and-lending\/","n":"Debts, talents and lending","s":"A denarius was a day's pay and a talent about six thousand of them. Creditors could jail a debtor until someone paid, and people with spare money buried it or lent it at steep interest.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-triumph\/","n":"The triumph and the arena","s":"Rome celebrated a great victory with a triumph, a parade of the general, his army and the spoils, with chained captives at the end who were killed or sold. Cities also staged shows in which condemned criminals fought or were thrown to beasts.","r":""}
Outsiders sometimes took Jewish and Christian groups for philosophical schools (Keener and his notes), and the word was used broadly, even of magic (the ESV Study Bible; Arnold). Takes you captive could mean seized as a prisoner of war (Keener and his notes), and Wright hears a pun: the verb sylagogon "is very close to the word ‘synagogue’", a warning against being lured into the synagogue. Arnold reads two sources of the teaching: human tradition, and behind it the elemental spirits that "inspire this teaching". What the cancelled record was is read differently: "Paul intends his readers to think of an IOU before God," Keener writes; the law of Moses, for Wright, which the CSB Study Bible allows; or the written code with its regulations (Carson, Moo and Morris). In a Roman triumph the general led humiliated captives (Keener), and Wright adds that the defeated king came last and was executed as the climax, so every crucifixion of a rebel king was a small Roman triumph, here reversed. Arnold notes that the verb for making a public spectacle was used of disgracing an adulteress. Heiser reads the rulers as the rebel sons of God set over the nations.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Colossians 2:8, 2:11-12, 2:13-14 and 2:15
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Colossians 2:8, 2:11 and 2:14
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Colossians 2:8
- CSB Study Bible, note on Colossians 2:14
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 15, Cosmic Geography, and ch. 33, A Beneficial Death
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Colossians 2:8-12 and 2:13-19
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 7, Christ's Victory over the Powers (Col 2:15), and ch. 10, The Problem at Colossae and The Connection of the False Teaching with the Powers
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 13, Colossians, The Contribution of Colossians
