Kingstanding SDA Church | Sabbath School | Complete in Christ

Описание: Title: Complete in Christ

Scripture: (Colossians 2:16, 17, NKJV).

“So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a
new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is
of Christ”

Summary:

Have you ever been asked why you keep the Sabbath? Perhaps even this week’s
memory text was used as “evidence” against it. Yet, the text was written not about the fourth commandment, but in response to errors taught by some false teachers in the church. What were these errors?

First, the false teaching is described as “philosophy,” “the tradition of men,” “the basic principles of the world,” and “not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8, NKJV).
It also involved circumcision and the keeping of Jewish festivals (Col. 2:11, 16), along with Jewish purity rituals and regulations connected with food (Col. 2:16, 21). It involved the worship of or with angels or an attempt to emulate angelic worship (Col. 2:18).

And, finally, it was based on “the commandments and doctrines of men” and possibly involved ascetic practices (Col. 2:22, 23).
These false teachers were clearly religious and sincere, but they also got the gospel
wrong. This week we’ll see why. And we will see why the memory verse has nothing to do with our keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.

Further Thought:

“As in the days of the apostles men tried by tradition and philosophy to destroy faith in the Scriptures, so today, by the pleasing sentiments of higher criticism, evolution, spiritualism, theosophy, and pantheism, the enemy of righteousness is seeking to lead souls into forbidden paths. To many the Bible is as a lamp without oil, because they have turned their minds into channels of speculative belief that bring misunderstanding and confusion. The work of higher criticism, in dissecting, conjecturing, reconstructing, is destroying faith in the Bible as a divine revelation. It is robbing God’s word of power to control, uplift, and inspire human lives.

By spiritualism, multitudes are taught to believe that desire is the highest law, that
license is liberty, and that man is accountable only to himself.
“The follower of Christ will meet with the ‘enticing words’ against which the apostle
warned the Colossian believers. He will meet with spiritualistic interpretations of the
Scriptures, but he is not to accept them. His voice is to be heard in clear affirmation of the eternal truths of the Scriptures. Keeping his eyes fixed on Christ, he is to move
steadily forward in the path marked out, discarding all ideas that are not in harmony
with His teaching. The truth of God is to be the subject for his contemplation and
meditation. He is to regard the Bible as the voice of God speaking directly to him. Thus he will find the wisdom which is divine.”—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 474, 475.

Discussion Questions:

1. What does it mean that in Christ “dwells all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily,” and that He “is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:9, 10,
NKJV)? See also John 1:1, Hebrews 1:3, and 1 Peter 3:22.

2. We’ve all probably heard Colossians 2:14–16 used as an argument against
the seventh-day Sabbath. What other problems, besides what the lesson
this week brought out, come with the use of these texts to argue that we no
longer need to keep the fourth commandment?

3. How do you deal with those who insist that we must keep the ceremonial
laws as well? Though, perhaps, one could find some spiritual or theological
blessings in keeping them, what problems arise from insisting that they
must be kept?

4. Ellen G. White wrote above that we should regard the Bible “as the voice of
God speaking directly” to us. Why must we, then, guard ourselves diligently
against anyone or anything that would weaken our faith in the authority and
inspiration of all Scripture, even the parts that, in places, might make us
uncomfortable?

We hope you have a blessed day with us

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