Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
Philosophy and Empty Deceit
Colossians 2:8-10
8 Be careful that you don’t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elemental spirits of the world, and not after Christ. · WEB
The warning is against being carried off as plunder — and the counter-argument is that the fullness of God lives in a body.
Be careful that you don't let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit. The verb is vivid: to carry someone off as spoil, the word for taking captives. Paul is not describing an intellectual error but a theft of people.
Three marks identify what he means. It is after the tradition of men, which is the opposite of what was handed down in verse 6. It is after the elemental principles of the world — a phrase for the basic components or ruling forces of the created order. And it is not after Christ, which is the only test the letter finally applies.
Note what Paul does not say. He does not attack thinking, and the word philosophy is qualified by vain deceit rather than condemned alone.
Then the answer, in the letter's densest sentence: in him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily. Every word is load-bearing. All the fullness, so nothing resides elsewhere. Of Deity — the abstract noun for the divine nature itself. Dwells, permanently. And bodily, which the letter has insisted on since Colossians 1:22.
And verse 10 turns it on the reader: in him you are made full. The same root as the fullness in Christ, applied to them. A person joined to that has nowhere further to go.
settled What this mark means