Based on The Word

Col 2:16-17
So let no one make rules about what you eat or drink or about holy days or the New Moon Festival or the Sabbath. All such things are only a shadow of things in the future; the reality is Christ.

Growing up in Nigeria and still living here, there are days when I would take an evening stroll through the neighborhood and before reaching the end of one street I would have passed like three different churches at least lol, all with different teachings, practices and mode of worship. Well to me it wasn’t a strange sight, anyone who grew up in a typical low-middle class Nigerian neighborhood would be familiar with such environment.

While I did appreciate the coming together of people to worship God, I never did understood the concept of “Christ and the Church”. To me everybody had their own “church” and was just practicing their own “church beliefs and doctrines” some of which I’ve now come to realise aren’t so Christ-like.

First and foremost who are we? Are we Christians or church-goers? Who is our head, is it our pastors or Christ? Are we living lives as one who has accepted Christ? or are we blindly following various doctrines that won’t bring about our salvation or draw us any closer to God?

What is a church? Many of us still believe that a church is a physical building located in a geographical area where a group of people come together to sing and dance. Another funny definition I do hear from time to time is that church is in the heart, please which heart the wicked one of man or which other lol.

The word translated “church” in the English Bible is ekklesia. This word is the Greek words kaleo (to call), with the prefix ek (out). Thus, the word means “the called out ones.”

https://dwellcc.org/learning/essays/new-testament-definition-church

Scripture let’s us know in 1 Cor 12:12-13, “Christ is like a single body, which has many parts; it is still one body, even though it is made up of different parts. In the same way, all of us, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether slaves or free, have been baptized into the one body by the same Spirit, and we have all been given the one Spirit to drink.”

So anyone who has had spiritual baptism and has accepted Christ to be his Lord and saviour becomes a part of that body; the church. We can see that from this passage we the church are like a physical manifestation of Christ. A church is a group of people who have accepted Christ and has been set apart or called out to be a representation of Jesus Christ. Definitely not a building.

In our present time we all belong to different churches with different leaders that have different ways of doing things, that are based on different belief systems, different doctrines and all that, while we cannot all be the same we must not forget the core significance of what being a member of Christ’s body means. It means living in union with him, tied, bonded, what ever the word may be, basically living as him.

Today we have false teachers who come up and say things like “if you don’t worship certain spiritual rulers, or if you eat a particular type of food, or if you don’t wear a particular type of dress, or worship on a certain day you cannot make heaven”. A little backstory, I remember back then when I was much more younger, people used to sell audio tapes and play them in loudspeakers especially in the marketplaces, of people testifying that they died and went to hell and saw visions of how all the women who wore jeans and hair extensions were being shoveled and thrown into the lake of fire, those tapes gave me nightmares I remember begging my mom to stop putting on jeans cause I was terrified she would be thrown with a shovel into hell, those were dark times. While I’m a strong advocate for decent dressing I do believe that the mindset of the people behind those tapes were lacking in the knowledge of Christ.

Even though we may not have such audio tapes around anymore the mindset is still very present and ever fresh amongst many of us today. Scripture let’s us know in Col 2:8-10, that we the body of Christ, shouldn’t let anyone enslave us with teachings that are not from Christ, and that Christ is supreme over every spiritual leader or authority. What is the purpose which God sent forth his son? To die for our sins and bring us to salvation. Only in union with Christ is there hope for salvation. Only through Christ, not through observing certain “rites and traditions or worshipping certain “spiritual rulers and authorities”.

When the Pharisees confronted Jesus about why he didn’t follow the traditional Jewish custom of washing of hands before a meal he told them this;
Mark 7: 7-8 “It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were God’s laws! You put aside God’s command and obey human teachings.”
He wasn’t trying to condemn the tradition, rather he wanted to let them know that these things aren’t God’s requirements to know him.

Paul’s letter to the Colossians speaks deeply about this matter. Paul tells us about the true gospel, which is believing that God the father sent forth his son so that through him we be drawn into his presence and that we become his friends. Through Christ all things were created and God has made it so that all things be saved through him. Through Christ alone.

We should be careful not to let anyone deceive us with false teachings that come from deceitful  human wisdom, they are not of Christ. No matter what church you fellowship with have this understanding that Christ is the head and he’s the one that will save you, not your preacher, rules or doctrines.

Some of us have put so much importance on “certain doctrines” that we forget easily what it actually means to live like a true Christian, now we’re just following doctrines and rules instead of Christ, we then become like the Pharisees that Jesus constantly admonished. We forget what it means to be a part of the church which is an actual representation of Christ, what it means for Christ to be our Lord and Saviour.
Col 2:18-19 “for no reason at all, such people are all puffed up by their human way of thinking and have stopped holding on to Christ, who is the head of the body.”

We have died in Christ and are set free from the ruling spirit of the universe. As one who has accepted Christ we should put to death our old passions and earthly desires of greed, sexual immorality, hate e.t.c. and cultivate the fruits of the spirit, the spirit which has been sent to us as a result of our believing in Christ.

So my dear friends in Christ you do not need to follow any “rule” to live life as one with Christ and to be saved, because putting to death that old life means abandoning the sinful self, so basically you don’t need anyone to tell you to be kind, love people, dress decently or not to eat any type of food and all that. If you have the spirit of Christ and you study the word you would know all that.
Col 2:20-22 “why do you obey such rules as “Don’t handle this,” “Don’t taste that,” “Don’t touch the other”? All these refer to things which become useless once they are used; they are only human rules and teachings.”

What we should be focusing on rather is how we should always emulate the true nature of Christ so that we may become truly one with him and become a full and proper representation of him as a church.
If there’s any doctrine we should live by it should be the message of Christ which is the gospel.

Col 3:15-16 “The peace that Christ gives is to guide you in the decisions you make; for it is to this peace that God has called you together in one body. And be thankful. Christ’s message in all it’s richness must live in our hearts.”