“Jesus, Name Above All Names” to the contrary, Christ is not the hope of glory.  Instead, according to Colossians 1:27, Christ in us is the hope of glory.  If Christ dwells in us, ours is the hope of dwelling eternally with Him.  In Colossians 2:6, Paul says that this involves receiving Him as Lord and continuing to walk in Him.

However, he spends the next context of Colossians warning us against attempts to add anything to this Christ-centric formula.  He highlights two related manifestations of this problem.  The first is submitting to the judgment of those who want to enforce regulations concerning food and drink, festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths (2:16).  The second is deferring to those who delight in asceticism, the worship of angels, and visions (2:18).

In the former, especially given Paul’s earlier discussion of circumcision, we have no trouble recognizing Judaizing false teachers.  They taught that believing, baptized Gentiles also had to submit to the ordinances of the Law of Moses, especially circumcision.  The grace of Christ and walking in Christ aren’t enough.  You need Christ plus.

This same impulse appears today in those who want to bind things outside the law of Christ on other Christians.  Often, these brethren are acting with good intentions.  They’ve come to their own conclusions about the application of certain passages (as indeed we all must), they see other Christians acting contrary to those conclusions, and they speak up because they genuinely can’t tell the difference between what they’ve concluded and “thus says the Lord”. 

From this, there are two lessons that we should draw.  First, whenever anyone tells us to do anything in the name of Christ, we always are right to ask, “Where is it written?”  The most “conservative” approach does not deserve deference unless it also is the most Scripturally founded. 

Second, we must beware of this tendency in ourselves.  It’s fine to have views about godly living.  It’s even fine to share them with others.  However, we must take care to distinguish between what we think and what God has said.  Seating ourselves in the chair of Moses is a great way to shut down disagreement, but it’s hazardous to our spiritual health and the health of others.

Similarly, in the angel-worshiping ascetics of v. 18, we find those whose beliefs would produce Gnosticism in another several decades.  The name “Gnostic” itself came from the Greek verb ginōskō, “to know”.  The Gnostics were self-described knowers.  They believed that they had spiritual insights that ordinary Christians didn’t.

Most brethren don’t have to be warned against spiritual know-it-alls, but we must be careful not to become one ourselves.  We must beware of the intellectual pride that accompanies staking out a maverick position based on our superior knowledge of the Scriptures.  Maybe we just “get it” and those clods in Sunday morning Bible class don’t, but we also should consider the possibility that the clods get it and we’re the ones whom the devil has tangled up.  Frankly, years of teaching auditorium classes have, as a rule, left me more impressed with the collective wisdom of God’s people than with the folks I’ve encountered who think they’re on a higher spiritual plane.

If we want to have the hope of glory, humility is vital.  If we truly are wise and understanding, that will reveal itself in deeper reverence for our Lord, deeper obedience to His will, and deeper subjection of ourselves.  We don’t need anything but Christ, and the more we try to add anything, the more we will lose what we need.

The King came lowly to His own;
His humbling was complete;
He did not claim an earthly throne
But knelt to wash our feet.

He did not send us into war
Nor shed our blood in strife,
But with His blood, He went before
And offered up His life.

He summons us to follow now;
He beckons from above,
And He’ll exalt us if we bow
In servanthood and love.

Many modern attacks on the reliability of the Bible depend on the stupidity of the people of the ancient world.  Everybody Knows, the argument goes, that we are much wiser than our ancestors.  They were foolish, credulous people who were easy to trick with pious frauds.  Thus, we should dismiss ancient testimony about the resurrection, the miracles of Jesus, etc., because the witnesses can’t be trusted.

However, this doesn’t reckon with what the Bible itself reveals about the people of Biblical times.  Certainly, there were foolish, credulous people who lived 2000 years ago.  The Samaritans who were deceived by Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8 come to mind here.  Before we sneer too much, though, we should remember that there are plenty of foolish, credulous people in our society too, many of whom are well educated!

Conversely, many ancients were predisposed to reject evidence of the supernatural in their own time.  According to Acts 23:8, the Jewish sect of the Sadducees taught that there was no resurrection, no angels, and no spirits.  They were no more likely to accept the risen Christ than we are to accept the claims of modern-day miracles that our Pentecostal neighbors make. 

We see this rationalistic bias at work in Matthew 28:11-15.  There, the chief priests bribe the guards at Jesus’ tomb to say that His disciples stole His body while they were sleeping.  There are significant holes in the story.  If the guards were sleeping, how do they know who took the body?  More seriously, if the disciples stole the body, why are they willing to suffer and die for a Messiah they know is a fraud?

However, Matthew regretfully reports that this tissue of lies, holes and all, was spread among the Jews until the day when he wrote his gospel.  This isn’t the behavior of people who jumped at any opportunity to believe wild stories.  It’s the behavior of people who would seize any plausible excuse not to believe them.

Nor was such skepticism limited to the Jews.  The resurrection seemed every bit as foolish to Gentiles as to the Sadducees.  Everybody knew that dead bodies didn’t get up and start wandering around again! 

This bias finds its voice in Festus’s outburst in Acts 26:24.  When Paul asserts for the first time that Jesus rose from the dead, the Roman governor can’t control himself.  He accuses Paul of having been driven mad by too much study.  What other explanation can there be when an obviously intelligent, educated man says something so ridiculous?

Despite all this, Acts 6:7 reports that many of the priests (who were Sadducees) obeyed the gospel.  In Philippians 4:22, Paul conveys greetings from the Christians in Caesar’s household, the cynical, cosmopolitan heart of the Roman Empire.  The gospel didn’t only find a home in people who would believe anything.  It also came to those who were won over in spite of themselves.  When people like that (Paul chief among them) proclaim that Christ arose, we should pay attention.

The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once said, “Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult.”  The same is true of Christianity.  Most of the time, we don’t struggle with the knowing, but with the doing.

Philippians 2:14 is a prime example of this unpleasant truth.  “Do all things without grumbling or disputing,” is not a long sentence.  We know what all of those words mean.  It’s simple.

However, I suspect that most of us would prefer for those words to mean something else, something not quite so. . . pointed.  We find grumbling and disputing to be quite enjoyable, and we don’t like hearing that we’re not supposed to, ever.

Indeed, Paul’s words here may point to two different ungodly methods of dealing with conflict.  Imagine that it is Thanksgiving, and your Uncle Gerald shows up with the rest of the clan.  You can’t tell whether he’s doing it on purpose or not, but he has the knack of taking every one of your most cherished beliefs and stomping them into the mud, all with the most infuriating, self-righteous tone you’ve ever heard in your life.

How do you handle Uncle Gerald?  Do you give him a piece of your mind right then and there, or do you spend the car ride home assassinating his character to your spouse?  If the first, you’re probably a disputer.  If the second, grumbling is more your thing. 

Interestingly, both the disputer and the grumbler like to cloak their behavior in virtue.  The disputer is “telling it like it is”.  The grumbler is “biting my lip for the sake of peace.”  Of course, speaking truth without love is not godly, and neither is avoiding conflict while sowing the seeds of bitterness.

The solution is as simple as the problem.  Imitate Christ.  Philippians is pretty much a book-length explanation of how following Him keeps us from disputing and grumbling.  Stay united.  Put others first.  Pursue their good as well as yours. 

This habit of mind transforms our perspective on the Uncle Geralds we encounter, whether in our earthly family or our church family.  When we truly have Uncle Gerald’s best interests at heart, we’re less interested in giving him a piece of our mind and more interested in figuring out what we can say to help him.  We might bear with him for the sake of love, but we won’t shy away from going to him about his sin.  We certainly won’t gossip about him rather than talking to him!

If we take the high road, Paul in the very next verse promises that something amazing will happen.  We will prove ourselves to be blameless, innocent children of God who shine like lights in the midst of the sinful world.  Why wouldn’t we?  The world is full of grumbly, disputatious folks.  When we aren’t that way, we can’t help standing out, and we reveal clearly who our Master is.

On the other hand, if we do practice grumbling and disputing, well, that reveals who our master is too, doesn’t it?

Last summer, as the reality of my terminal diagnosis was dawning on me, I experienced a mental-health crisis.  In response to this crisis, I began taking two antidepressants, Trazodone and Lexapro.  Now that six months have passed, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit that decision and its consequences.

I’ve never had a problem with other Christians using mental-health meds, but it wasn’t something I had wanted for myself either.  I’ve been prone to depression throughout my adult life; looking back, I count at least seven major depressive episodes.  However, last July was the first time I sought professional help.  Before that, I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge my struggles to anyone, and I’m strong-willed enough that I figured I could muscle through on my own.  That worked OK until last summer, when it clearly wasn’t working anymore.

Once I started my medications, though, my improvement was swift and dramatic.  I don’t think this is typical; I’m probably something of a poster child for chemical intervention.  Nonetheless, the Trazodone quickly suppressed the nocturnal anxiety attacks that were depriving me of sleep.  Because I was better rested, I was able to get a handle on the depression with the Lexapro’s help.

That help proved to be more modest than people often think it is.  I’ve heard brethren say that they don’t want to take antidepressants because they don’t want to be numb inside.  That’s not how I felt.  Instead, the meds felt to me like touching something while wearing thin knit gloves.  I still had the same sensations, but the edges weren’t as sharp.

On the flip side, the antidepressants didn’t do the work for me either.  They gave me a ladder, but they didn’t haul me out of the pit.  I had to redirect my own thoughts down healthier paths. 

Interestingly, one of my most powerful tools in this was prayer, but not prayer for myself.  When I caught myself dwelling on my dreadful future, I started praying my way through the roster of members at Jackson Heights in considerable length and detail.  I found that my prayers benefited me as much as the recipients!

Conversely, if I had sat back and waited for the pills to do their thing, I don’t think I would have improved much if at all.  Antidepressants aren’t magic potions, and when people take them expecting an easy fix, they’re going to be disappointed.

Today, despite my grim prognosis, I find that my mental health is as good as it has ever been.  Looking back, I see that I didn’t realize how much depression was affecting me not just in the midst of emotional crashes, but all the time.  If I had been willing to seek help 25 years ago, I think my life would have been much sunnier.

I’m certainly not going to dictate to anybody else what they should or should not do about their mental health, but I do believe that antidepressants can play a useful role in the emotional life of the child of God.  Yes, Christians 2000 years ago got by without them, but those Christians also got by without eyeglasses, antibiotics, and knee replacements.  When these blessings exist today, why not take advantage of them?  All of us will experience more than enough suffering in this life without adding to it needlessly.