"4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. 6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ."
Colossians 2:4-8
We look, then, at what Paul urges by way of admonitory warning: In 2:6, Paul holds two truths before us, insisting that they be held firmly in balance: The apostle affirms that receiving Christ is not the end but the beginning of Christian life. From initial introductions we are to go on to know him ever more closely and ever more deeply. There is no place in the Christian life for complacency! At the same time, and this is perhaps the thrust of Paul's thought in the face of the new and erroneous teaching, he affirms that all growth and progress in the Christian life must be entirely consistent with its beginning. The foundations and the building are all of one piece. So, in the face of all that would oppose and attack, Paul summons the Colossians and he summons us to live out the Christian life in a way which is consistent with its foundation on the Apostles and Prophets, with Christ as the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20): Dick Lucas makes this insightful comment:
"The new learning must be consistent with the old: The Christian who grows in knowledge can claim further enlightenment only insofar as he remains loyal to the saving gospel truths that first he was taught, and which led him to Christ.
"This has something uncomfortably trenchant to say to Christian leaders: Did not many owe their first knowledge of Christ to evangelical truth? Yet how many now say that they have 'grown out' of such simplicities. But to grow beyond the saving truths as we were faithfully taught them is not to grow up in a way that can please God or profit the church. Such fancied superiority in knowledge calls for honest self-examination to see if true loyalty to Christ remains."