For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form

The book of Colossians brought back great memories! My faith journey took a major leap forward when I attended a discipleship camp at the Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Among the Chinese Christian Fellowship (CCF) students this was their favorite annual event which was fondly called "Camp Trent". I was actually a working engineer then but I had found wonderful fellowship among these "serious" christian students. I think the year was 1977. I had only been a christian for about a year.

The theme of the conference that year was "Christ in You, the Hope of Glory". The scripture passage was taken from:
"Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:24-27)

I don't remember a whole lot what I actually learned from that conference. I remember lots of great hymn sing by hundreds of students. The bible studies were serious but equally lighthearted when most of us were sharing what the scripture meant to our lives. In a strange sort of way the "glorious riches of this mystery" was received with gratitude, to this very day.

I was reading the second chapter of Colossians today. What jumped off the page was this:
"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." (Colossians 2:8) I don't think the apostle Paul was telling me not to study philosophy and human cultures. He was reinforcing the truth that these had to be studied in light of what could be learned from my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is very easy to be a slave of the spiritual forces of this world. By focusing on Christ we can stand against these forces:
"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5).

"For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority." (Colossians 2:9,10)

It's not a popular thing to say but there are real spiritual forces in play in the world today. Being aware of their existence is the first step to recognizing their influences on the culture and philosophical underpinning of how the world comes to be.

Pastor Bill Versteeg has a wonderful blog on this theme.

So in practice, I should in most situation get into a habit of asking "what would Jesus do (WWJD)?". During most discussion (usually in a christian gathering context) I have been practicing to think "is there a scripture verse for this?". This calls for more scripture memorization and a regular discipline of deeper study of scripture. I thank the Lord that I have committed to writing this blog. This is a very good way to find out what this "fullness of Deity" is in Christ. Praise God!