Joel M Bradshaw

16Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.–Colossians 2

Does your shadow actually exist? Isn’t it just the absence of light hitting a surface because your shape has stood in the way? Does a shadow weigh anything? Can you pick it up? And if it does exist is it that important?

The point Paul was making is that the substance that casts the shadow is more important than the shadow itself. And he saw some things being substance matters and others as shadow. Shadow matters included dietary laws and the religious calendar. Paul came from a Pharisee Jewish background where those were strictly observed! In Christ, they were shadow and not substance.

Never mind others who placed importance on things that seemed important but were not. The practice of self-depravation or asceticism didn’t make you more holy. Worshiping angels was actually non-Christian. Focusing on visions and experiences just misses the point. They are shadow things not substance.

Who Christians have in common is more important than diet and calendar observations! Since Jesus is the head we don’t get distracted by the legs or arms. The shadow is never as important as the substance. Certainly not worth dividing over!

I see today a focus on the spiritual or the prophetic that is not healthy. People following others who claim to see visions or proclaim prophecies that are EXTRA to the Bible. When you go outside of the Bible you bring a subjective experience to God’s objective truth. Relativism then trump objectivity. That is bad.

Substance focuses on the Bible. Theology and practice based upon the Bible’s clear teaching. The substance of Jesus unifies us. The shadow issues distract and divide.–JMB