Dual Panel1FOR I want you to know how great is my solicitude for you [how severe an inward struggle I am engaged in for you] and for those [believers] at Laodicea, and for all who [like yourselves] have never seen my face {and} known me personally.
2[For my concern is] that their hearts may be braced (comforted, cheered, and encouraged) as they are knit together in love, that they may come to have all the abounding wealth {and} blessings of assured conviction of understanding, and that they may become progressively more intimately acquainted with {and} may know more definitely {and} accurately {and} thoroughly that mystic secret of God, [which is] Christ (the Anointed One).
3In Him all the treasures of [divine] wisdom (comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God) and [all the riches of spiritual] knowledge {and} enlightenment are stored up {and} lie hidden.
4I say this in order that no one may mislead {and} delude you by plausible {and} persuasive {and} attractive arguments {and} beguiling speech.
5For though I am away from you in body, yet I am with you in spirit, delighted at the sight of your [standing shoulder to shoulder in such] orderly array and the firmness {and} the solid front {and} steadfastness of your faith in Christ [that leaning of the entire human personality on Him in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness].
6As you have therefore received Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, [so] walk (regulate your lives and conduct yourselves) in union with {and} conformity to Him.
7Have the roots [of your being] firmly {and} deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed {and} established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding {and} overflowing in it with thanksgiving.
8See to it that no one carries you off as spoil {or} makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy {and} intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men's ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary {and} elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).
9For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature].
10And you are in Him, made full {and} having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rule and authority [of every angelic principality and power].
11In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, but in a [spiritual] circumcision [performed by] Christ by stripping off the body of the flesh (the whole corrupt, carnal nature with its passions and lusts).
12[Thus you were circumcised when] you were buried with Him in [your] baptism, in which you were also raised with Him [to a new life] through [your] faith in the working of God [as displayed] when He raised Him up from the dead.
13And you who were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (your sensuality, your sinful carnal nature), [God] brought to life together with [Christ], having [freely] forgiven us all our transgressions,
14Having cancelled {and} blotted out {and} wiped away the handwriting of the note (bond) with its legal decrees {and} demands which was in force {and} stood against us (hostile to us). This [note with its regulations, decrees, and demands] He set aside {and} cleared completely out of our way by nailing it to [His] cross.
15[God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display {and} public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him {and} in it [the cross].
16Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath.
17Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, {and} they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ.
18Let no one defraud you by acting as an umpire {and} declaring you unworthy {and} disqualifying you for the prize, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions [he claims] he has seen, vainly puffed up by his sensuous notions {and} inflated by his unspiritual thoughts {and} fleshly conceit,
19And not holding fast to the Head, from Whom the entire body, supplied and knit together by means of its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things {and} have escaped from the world's crude {and} elemental notions {and} teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules {and} regulations?--such as]
21Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them],
22Referring to things all of which perish with being used. To do this is to follow human precepts and doctrines.
23Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion {and} delight in self-humiliation {and} severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]