Cafe Church - Study Passage and Questions – 6th July 2014 Colossians Ch2 verses 1 – 12

These verses are amongst the most profound in the whole bible when it comes to aiding our understanding of who God is, of how to discover his love and his truth, and how to live in that love and truth with each other.                                

It starts with understanding that everything we can and need to know about God has been revealed in Jesus, his teaching, his life, his person. He is the ‘mystery’ of God in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’.v 2 – 3. It is as we get to know Jesus better – and put into practice what we learn about him, his truth, and his love, that not only do we gain  answers to life’s most profound questions, we also begin to understand how to love our neighbour as ourself. Also, through such truth and loving we get a deeper understanding of what it means to be the Church (Church family).    

Paul is encouraging Christians to dig deeper in understanding and in practising Christian love. (If you discovered a seam of gold in a mountain, you would not stand and admire the surface of it, you would not scrape the surface; you would dig deeper!) We can encourage one another with our own experiences of God in our lives. And here is a great truth: the main purpose of meeting together as the Church is to encourage one-another in our discipleship of Jesus. 

Why? 

Because our encouraging one another demonstrates. Indeed, our worship of God is empty and vain unless it includes this element of encouragement of others: by doing so we grow in love and wisdom!                 

So much of what Jesus taught about selfless love and love of neighbour goes against much of what the world says is ‘important’ in life. Paul tells us here not to be deceived by such ‘hollow and deceptive philosophy’ v 8. It is as we encourage one another in the truth and the love of Jesus, appreciating ever more deeply the meaning and purpose of his death, resurrection, and gift of the Holy Spirit, that we will mature in our understanding of what it means to be not only a more faithful Christian but a better human being.

1. What is the connection for Christians between knowledge, truth, and love?

2. What is God’s revealed answer to the world’s most profound questions?

3. What does it mean in day to day terms for us to ‘receive Christ as Lord’?

4. What would you consider to be ‘hollow and deceptive philosophy’ v8?