Where there are truth tellers, there are the truth perverters. In Paul’s time, the Judaizers tried to infuse the Law into the message of Christ and grace, and the pre-Gnostics tried to mystify spirituality with their fanciful imagination. Paul warns repeatedly throughout his writings against anything that changes the gospel message or threatens it in any way.

Remember in Galatians he wrote rather acerbically, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” (Gal 1:8-9). To the Corinthians, he wrote, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete” (2 Co 10:3–6).

So here also, with the Colossians, he warns not to fall captive to religio-philosophical lies, invented by humans. This is particularly concerning in our present day where we are witnessing a proliferation of religious philosophies competing for the minds of people. More and more these worldviews are commonplace in academia and in popular culture, whether rooted in eastern religious thought or simply in the rehash of older philosophies disguised  as new or post-modern thinking. They all have one thing in common: they originate in the imaginations of humans. Paul calls this “the tradition of men,” and they are rooted in what he describes as “the elementary principles of the world.” All false teaching originates on earth, rather than in heaven in Christ.

This warning of Paul’s speaks to the very real possibility for genuine Christians to be deceived and led astray from truth, from right doctrine. False teachers can be skilled at manipulation and in framing their teachings in attractive, somewhat convincing ways—but their teachings are none-the-less false. Christians need to be on guard, examining every teaching, to determine whether it is biblical, that is, whether it comes from God or not.