The Servant’s Struggle
Colossians 2:1–5
© Mike Riccardi
Introduction
What is the Christian’s proper relation to or orientation toward conflict? One the one hand, the answer to that question seems to be uncontroversial: the Christian should be opposed to conflict. “Enmities,” “strife,” “disputes,” “dissensions”—those all appear in Galatians 5:20 in the list of “the deeds of the flesh,” and Paul says, “those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” The fruit of the Spirit is peace, and we are charged, Ephesians 4:3, to be “diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” If a professing Christian seems to always be engaged in conflict with fellow-believers—or seems even to love and relish conflict—something is amiss. And in fact, Scripture calls this sort of thing being pugnacious—always ready for a fight. And so damaging is this character quality in the life of a Christian, that the Apostle Paul prohibits it in his list of qualifications for an elder. First Timothy 3:3 says that an elder must not be “pugnacious, but gentle, [and] peaceable.”
On the other hand, there is a real sense in which one might say that Christianity itself is conflict. There is the ultimate conflict between good and evil—as Paul puts it in chapter 1 verse 13, between the domain of darkness and the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. It is the outworking of the Son’s ultimate triumph over the forces of evil through His death on the cross—His plunder of Satan’s house and ongoing rescue and transformation of those once under bondage into conformity with the freedom and liberty of holiness.
The Christian himself is a walking conflict. There is the internal battle between the Spirit of God who dwells in us and the sin that remains in our flesh. Galatians 5:17 says, “the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another.” They’re in conflict! Paul says in Romans 7:21, “evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind.” And we are to be actively engaged in this war, by putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, Romans 8:13.
And then: there is a sense in which Christianity is the conflict between truth and error. The entire history of the church is the history of the defense and confirmation of the truth over against all the various errors that assail the truth and attempt to overthrow Scripture’s teaching. In the early centuries, there was the conflict of worshiping Jesus as God alongside the Father. In the fourth century, there was the conflict of Trinitarianism. In the fifth century, there was the conflict of the hypostatic union. In the period of the Reformation, there was the conflict between a Gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone versus a so-called sacramental gospel that mixed grace with human works. When Paul gives the list of elder qualifications to Titus, he says in Titus 1:9 that the shepherd of Christ’s flock must “hold fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.” In that sense, you can’t be an elder unless you can faithfully engage in the conflict of proclaiming the truth and refuting error.
Christianity is conflict! There is a kind of conflict that characterizes the Christian life—and, especially, the faithful Christian minister, whose aim is to serve God’s people as they engage in the conflict of good versus evil, of spirit versus flesh, and of truth versus error. In one sense, the one who relishes all conflict should be kept out of the ministry. But in another sense, the one who retreats from all conflict should also be kept out of the ministry.
In Colossians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul speaks of the conflict that characterizes his ministry of the Gospel to the Gentiles. Though the chapter number has changed from one to two, we find ourselves in the middle of a section in which Paul is discussing the ministry the Lord has called him to. After speaking of the marvelous Gospel of reconciliation accomplished by the cross of Christ, at the end of verse 23, Paul says he “was made a minister” of this Gospel. In verse 25 he says he “was made a minister” to the church, “according to the stewardship from God bestowed on [him] for [their] benefit.” And so, in this section, from chapter 1 verse 24 through to chapter 2 verse 5, Paul gives his own understanding of the Christian ministry to which he’s been called.
And as we’ve worked our way through this section, I’ve been saying that this is very relevant for each one of us. Even though we are not apostles like Paul was, even though not every member in the church is a pastor or called to full-time vocational ministry, nevertheless: every member in the church has been called to ministry. One of the great lessons of the New Testament is that every Christian is called to ministry. If God has called you to salvation by the New Covenant, He has called you to be a minister of the New Covenant, 2 Corinthians 3:6. If you have been saved through the messageof reconciliation, you have been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5:18–19. Ephesians 4:11–16 says that Christ has given His Church pastors and teachers—not to do all the ministry, while the members sit back and observe, like spectators or consumers. No, Christ gives pastors and teachers “for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry.” “The proper working of each individual part causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”
So we are all called to New Covenant, Gospel ministry. We are to preach the Gospel of reconciliation by which we ourselves were reconciled to God to those who yet remain God’s enemies. And we are to minister to one another in the body of Christ, so that we might be built up and grow into greater maturity in Christ. We are all called to ministry. And therefore, our understanding of what ministry is and how it is to be carried out must be the same as Paul’s conception of ministry. And in chapter 2 verse 1, Paul conceives of his ministry as a conflict. He says, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf.”
And that word for “struggle” is the Greek word agon, from which we get the English word agony. He just used the verb form of this word in chapter 1 verse 29, where he said, “For this purpose also I labor, striving.” Agonizomai—to agonize. It means “to fight,” “to struggle,” and “to engage in conflict”—whether military or athletic. In Philippians chapter 1 and verse 30, written about the same time in Paul’s life, he speaks of the Philippians’ suffering for Christ’s sake, “experiencing the same conflict”—the same agon—which, he says, “you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.” In 1 Timothy 6:12, he says, “Fight the good fight of faith,” same word. In 2 Timothy 4:7, as he comes to the end of his life, he says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”
And so this preeminent minister of the Gospel—this servant of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God—characterizes his ministry as a conflict, as a struggle. And after speaking about his ministry in general in chapter 1 verses 24 to 29, in the first five verses of chapter 2, Paul applies that to the Colossians in particular.
Let’s read our text: Colossians chapter 2, verses 1 to 5. Paul writes, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, 2that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, [unto] all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, [unto] a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. 5For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good [order] and the stability of your faith in Christ.”
In these verses, we find three marks of the servant’s struggle. Three marks of the struggle, or conflict, that characterizes the ministry of faithful ministers of the Gospel, which, as we’ve said, includes each and every one of us.
I. The Servant’s Affection (v. 1)
And that first mark of the servant’s struggle is, number one, the servant’s affection. And we find that in verse 1. Paul says, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face.”
And I’ve already commented briefly on the nature of this struggle—this conflict, this fight of faith—that Paul says characterizes his apostolic ministry. But let’s consider it a bit more deeply. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians chronicles so much of Paul’s suffering on behalf of the churches he served that it’s profitable to turn to some familiar passages there. In 2 Corinthians 4, verses 8 to 11, Paul describes himself as “afflicted in every way,” as “perplexed”—just at a loss to understand where comfort and deliverance might come from—as “persecuted,” “struck down,” “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,” and “constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake.” That is certainly a struggle!
Then flip over to chapter 6. In 2 Corinthians 6, verses 4 and 5, Paul lists what characterizes his ministry, and he says, “In everything, commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, [and] in hunger.” And then over in chapter 11, verses 23 to 29, you have that famous list that repeats much of the previous: labors, imprisonments, beatings, stonings, and so on. But then he adds, in 2 Corinthians 11:28 and 29: “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?”
And so, this struggle—this agon—that Paul engages in throughout his ministry is a conflict which takes a toll on his body from the persecution he endured at the hands of the enemies of the Gospel. Galatians 6:17 says, “I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.” But it’s also a conflict that takes a toll on his mind, on his spirit, on his heart. His heart was weighed down with the burdens of any spiritual weakness in all the churches. No one, in any church, endured any spiritual weakness which Paul did not feel as his very own weakness.
In 2 Corinthians 7:5, he says, “For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within.” In 2 Corinthians 11:3, he says, “I am afraid that…your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” In Galatians 4:11 he says, “I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.” Paul’s heart was taken up—he was consumed—with the spiritual health and well-being of Christ’s church. And so, in so many of his letters—including this one—we hear the refrain, “praying always for you.” Romans 1:9: “God…is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making request.” Second Thessalonians 1:11: “We pray for you always.” Contending with false teachers, defending the Gospel, enduring physical persecution, wrestling with God in prayer for the saints: this was the servant’s struggle.
But now he says, “I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters at Colossae, that I don’t only labor and strive to present every man perfect in Christ in some general sense. Neither is it that I engage in this agonizing labor only for those precious saints that I’ve met in person. I want you all to know how great a struggle—how intense a battle, a conflict—that I have on your behalf! The fact that you and I have never met face-to-face does not diminish my fatherly affectionand concern for you, just as I have for my other spiritual children! I have you in my heart, also! You’re in my prayers! I’m in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is fully formed in you! And even as I sit here in house arrest awaiting trial before Nero, I feel my own persecutions are as much on your behalf as those with whom I’ve enjoyed the sweetest in-person fellowship!” And so Calvin says, “It is…evidence of no ordinary affection, that he was concerned about them…when he was in danger [for] his [own] life” (172).
This is the servant’s affection. He struggles for them. And for the Laodiceans as well, whom he names here. And when he says, “and for all those who have not personally seen my face,” he’s likely referring to Hierapolis, as these were the three main cities in which the Gospel had taken root in the Lycus River Valley. He mentions them both in chapter 4 verses 13 to 16. He speaks of Epaphras’s “deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis,” and speaks of having this letter read in the church of the Laodiceans—no doubt because those two cities also were assaulted by the same heresies that Paul was seeking to safeguard the Colossians from.
The servant’s affection is not dampened by distance. In fact, there’s a sense in which distance deepens the faithful minister’s affection for his people. One commentator likened it to a bird, who, when she leaves her young back at the nest in search of food, fears the attacks of the serpent more than if she were with them. Any faithful shepherd, then, when he is separated for a time from his flock, only lets his heart cleave unto them more intensely, prays for them more earnestly, yearns after their growth more passionately.
The servant’s affection teaches us a number of things, then. First, we ought not to let distance—or even the fact that we’ve never met—make our hearts grow cold toward our fellow believers. Matthew Henry puts it this way. He says, “We may keep up a communion by faith, hope, and holy love, even with those churches and fellow-Christians of whom we have no personal knowledge, and with whom we have no [in-person interaction]. We can think, and pray, and be concerned for one another, at the greatest distance.” Christian affection transcends personal absence, so that when we’re apart from one another, we ought to long to be together again, and our absence should make us even more prayerful for one another’s spiritual well-being.
And for those friends in ministry who labor in different corners of the Lord’s vineyard—like our missionaries who have gone to serve in other lands, or former pastors who now serve in different parts of the country, or our friends in ministry whom we only get to see perhaps at Shepherds’ Conference and other special times—our love, and concern, and affection for them should not be dampened by distance.
Second, we ought not to look down on ministers who speak openly of the burdens of their ministry. Surely, being called to the ministry of the Gospel is an immense privilege, filled with the most blesséd joys that the heart is capable of knowing. I can hear Pastor John’s voice now, saying, “Ministry is a mercy!” And it is! And there are few things more inappropriate and unbecoming than a complaining pastor. But I think, because of that, we can tend to look down on those servants of the Gospel who are intimately acquainted with the reality that ministry is also a struggle, a conflict, a battle, as Paul says here.
But instead of reading this kind of thing as grumbling, we ought to rejoice that God has given us shepherds who have such an affection for us that their fatherly concern leads them into battle for our spiritual welfare. In fact, you ought not to tolerate pastors who don’t care for you in this way! And you ought to rejoice that the elders who labor over you in this place are marked by that affection. We do long for you to know the blessings of holiness; we kneel together and pray that Christ would be fully formed in you, and that you would not be enticed by the temptations of sin; we meet and discuss and plan and preach precisely because we have you in our hearts, and love you as the precious sheep that our Great Shepherd has entrusted to our care.
And then, third: cultivate this kind of devoted affection in your own soul for your brothers and sisters in Christ. If you are all called to ministry to the body of Christ in this place, then you must be marked by this same affectionate struggle for one another that characterizes Paul for those entrusted to his care—this consuming passion for one another’s progress in grace, this daily pressure of intense concern for the spiritual health of the church of God. And let it issue in the sacrificial giving of your time and energy to investing in the maturity and sanctification of your brothers and sisters in Christ at Grace Church, so that you can say with Paul in 2 Timothy 2:10, “I endure all things for the sake of [the elect], so that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” Romans 12:10: “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.”
II. The Servant’s Ambition (vv. 2–3)
Well, so much, then, for the servant’s affection. We find a second mark of the servant’s struggle in verses 2 and 3. And that is, number two, the servant’s ambition. What is the purpose for all of the struggle and conflict in ministry? What does the faithful servant long for in the life of those whom he ministers? What do we strive to obtain in one another’s lives as we lay our lives down in devoted service to each other? Paul says it is “that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, [unto] all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, [unto] a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
And you hear a threefold ambition in those verses. First, the servant of Christ labors to lay hold of the consolation of Gospel peace in the lives of his brothers and sisters. The consolation of Gospel peace. He says, “that their hearts may be encouraged.” The verb is parakaléo, which has a wide range of meaning—including to encourage, to strengthen, to exhort, to comfort, and to console. And there’s a sense in which all of those fit in some way in this verse. The Colossians are being assailed by false teachers, who are trying to convince them that they’ve missed the fullness of Christianity—that the Gospel they received from Epaphras has left them falling short of the exalted wisdom and knowledge that is available through their message of Jewish ceremonialism and pagan mysticism. And so Paul wants to put courage into their hearts! He wants to strengthen them, to bring them the quietness of heart that comes only from ceasing from our dead works and religious duties as a means of right standing with God, and laying hold of peace with God through faith in Christ alone!
And we can all testify, dear people, (can we not?) that the hearts of believers are often in need of consolation, of comfort, of encouragement and strength. We are often wearied from our battle with sin in our flesh. We daily battle the temptations of sin, set upon us by our adversary the devil. We experience the disappointments of life in a fallen world. And we so often fail to refresh ourselves in communion with God by the means of grace. And therefore, one way we will serve one another is to encourage one another’s hearts in the Gospel, to speak of the peace that we may all lay hold of through faith alone in Christ!
“Yes, dear brother or sister, you are assailed with temptations, and you do do battle with sin! You are not what you ought to be, and neither am I! O, but you have a Savior, who has come not to call the righteous, but sinners! And that Savior has not called you to Himself by means of a to-do list. He’s not called you to Himself by means of the fulfillment of religious duties. He’s called you to Himself by faith alone, whereby, in the bankruptcy of your spiritual poverty, you cast yourself entirely upon His mercy, and lay hold of His righteousness, and forgiveness through His blood, and thus are accepted with God for His sake! As Paul says in Romans 5:1, “Having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Listen: there is no true comfort, no solid consolation to be found anywhere in the world but in the Gospel of God’s sovereign grace. Second Thessalonians 2:16 says God our Father “has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace.” Do you want an encouraged heart? Feast your soul on the Good News of sola fide—of justification by faith alone, of a righteousness not your own, received by nothing of your own doing, but by the grace of God alone. Dear people: do you want encourage the hearts of your fellow believers, and so be a faithful servant of your brethren? O, preach to them this Gospel of grace! Teach them to rest none of their confidence in their spiritual performance, but only in Christ’s spiritual performance—nothing of their own merit, but only Christ’s merit, which He credits to them by faith alone!
And then, a second ambition of the faithful minister for those he serves is not only the consolation of Gospel peace, but also: the joy of loving unity. He speaks of their hearts “having been knit together in love.” This is another fruit of remaining steadfast in the true Gospel that the Colossians had received from Epaphras. When the members of a local church have turned away from cheap imitations of Christianity that corrupt the grace of God with human works; when they have comforted their hearts in the peace of Gospel grace, trusting in Christ alone for righteousness; this unity of faith knits their hearts together in love.
There is no kind of unity like Gospel unity! Nothing engenders true love between people like the genuine unity of mind that results from a common faith in the truth! When you know yourself to be so sinful as to deserve God’s everlasting punishment in hell, and so helpless to do anything about it; and when you have looked away from yourself to Christ and found in Him a perfectly sufficient Savior from sin and death, One who is worth losing everything for and following after with all your heart; and then you find dozens and hundreds and maybe even thousands of others who have done that same thing—who see the fruitlessness of sin and the world and their inability to satisfy, but who find all their satisfaction in Jesus—that unity of soul bonds your hearts to their hearts in the sweetest kind of love! In Acts chapter 4 verse 32, Luke writes, “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul.”
I can go to war alongside someone whose convictions on God and Christ and the Gospel are those outlined in Scripture! And if God has been kind to you, you’ve experienced this kind of love for other believers, who perhaps you were meeting for the first time. I experienced that when I met Pastor John for the first time. I had consumed so many of his sermons and writings as a young Christian, and he had so nourished my soul on the teaching of Scripture, that I knew what his convictions were. And in a sense, I felt like I knew him that when I met him as a visitor at the Shepherds’ Conference, the first thing I did was to ask to give him a hug. My heart was encouraged by the same Gospel peace that his was, and it knit my heart to his in a love that’s difficult to put into words.
Paul says to the Colossians, “I want that for you! And I know that that is the fruit of steadfast perseverance in the Gospel you’ve received! And so I labor and struggle and lay my life down, so that you can lay hold of the consolation of Gospel peace, and the joy of loving unity—the love that comes from a common confession of faith in the truth!” And we ought to lay our lives down to put our brothers and sisters in possession of the same.
And then, Paul names a third ambition the faithful minister has for those he serves—namely, the riches of full assurance. Look again at verse 2: “and [unto] all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding.” The false teachers are sowing doubts in the Colossians’ minds as to whether Epaphras’s Gospel was the true Gospel, whether the Colossians were genuinely in Christ at all. And when there is doubt in the mind about the truth of Gospel doctrine, there cannot but be instability, and tumultuousness of heart, and the absence of true peace. In Ephesians 4:14, Paul calls this being “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.” And he says that kind of vacillating characterizes spiritual children—like a young, immature tree that blows about by the wind, because its roots haven’t fixed firmly in the soil. There is instability, and unsteadiness, and uncertainty.
But ministers of the Gospel labor, so that true believers can attain to the “full assurance of understanding,” so that they can be taught and established in the Gospel, so that they can fix the roots of their faith deep into the soil of the truth and of sound doctrine, so that their doubts and uncertainties are taken away. And Paul calls such a state “riches.” Wealth. Without this full assurance of understanding, believers can’t really enjoy all the blessings that they possess in Christ. You may be going to heaven, but if you’re not sure of it you miss out on the sweetness of knowing it! There is something of a poverty, a beggarliness to the lack of assurance. But with the full assurance of understanding, there is a richness, a spiritual wealth, an abundance of blessing that brings stability of mind and peace of heart! There’s a strength and a steadfastness that can withstand the winds of affliction and the waves of corrupt teaching. And then all the truths of Scripture become to us, Psalm 19:10, “more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold, Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.”
And Paul says that the result of the full assurance of understanding is “a true knowledge of the mystery of God—Christ Himself—in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Now, remember, these false teachers in Colossae were peddling a sort of proto-Gnosticism. They taught that the highest form of spiritual attainment was in gaining access to an exalted, superior knowledge that was only ever achieved by an elite few. And they called that “being initiated into the mysteries.”
But here Paul takes direct aim at that heresy and tells us that the highest of all exalted mysteries—the pinnacle of everything that might be called wisdom and knowledge, and the only spiritual knowledge worth having—is Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus is the mystery of God! First Timothy 3:16: “Great is the mystery of godliness: He…” The mystery of godliness is a He! “He who was revealed in the flesh”—the God-man incarnate—“was vindicated in the Spirit”—raised from the dead on the third day—“seen by angels”—think of the empty tomb on Resurrection Sunday—“proclaimed among the nations”—even by those who once persecuted Him—“believed on in the world, taken up in glory”—His ascension to the right hand of the Father in heaven.
There is no greater wisdom that can be conceived than the wisdom that brought life and immorality to light through the Gospel of Jesus Christ—that the God who was sinned against would be the One to atone for sinners; that that God would become man in order to do so; and yet without ceasing to be God; but two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, each retaining their own properties without confusion or separation, united in One glorious Person! That the glory of heaven would be veiled in humility! that the payment for eternal suffering would come by the suffering of the eternal One! that the conquest of death would come by the death of the Author of life! O, there is no other word for that than wisdom! Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; we preach Christ crucified: Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
You don’t need to go anywhere else to stimulate your intellect. The most sophisticated musings of all the sages and philosophers of the world are “goo-goo gah-gah” baby talk in comparison to the infinite treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are in Christ! There is no other source of knowledge that gives insight into spiritual reality, or that teaches men and women how to please God, than in Jesus. “Eternal life,” John 17:3, is to know Jesus Christ whom the Father has sent. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “I determined to know nothing else…than Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” No knowledge of anything is worth knowing—no knowledge is worthy of being mentioned in the same day—as the knowledge of Christ!
Spiritual wisdom is not found in secular philosophy, psychology, or sociology. And it’s certainly not found in any esoteric, cultic mysticism—whether it calls itself Gnosticism, or Hare Krishna, or Zen, or Scientology, or even Christian Science. Jesus Christ is the sufficient storehouse of all wisdom! And you depart from Him when you seek spiritual wisdom anywhere else. The 17th-century commentator, John Davenant, wrote of this verse, “He is truly wise who has learnt the Gospel…. He who places secular knowledge, and the things of the world, before this study and sacred knowledge, prefers rubbish to treasure: for the mystery of the Gospel is treasure; all else is dung and dross” (361).
And if that is the wisdom that is to be found and enjoyed and treasured in Christ, then you, as faithful ministers of the Gospel to one another, ought to lay down your lives with the ambition to see your brothers and sisters attain to the consolation of Gospel peace, the joy of loving unity, and the riches of full assurance.
III. The Servant’s Protection (vv. 4–5)
And that brings us, then, to a third mark of the servant’s struggle. We’ve seen the servant’s affection in verse 1, the servant’s ambition in verses 2 and 3, and now we come, in the third place, to the servant’s protection. And we see that in verses 4 and 5. Paul says, “I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.” And we’ll stop there for a moment.
It’s here that Paul mentions the threat of the false teachers explicitly for the first time. “Why am I telling you all this? Why do you need to know of my affection for you, as one who struggles on your behalf even though we’ve never met? Why do you need to hear how I long for your encouragement, and love, and full assurance? Because you are in danger of being deluded—deceived—by the persuasive arguments of these false teachers!”
Now, why would Paul warn against “persuasive arguments”? Aren’t persuasive arguments a good thing? Should we be convinced of the truth by arguments that are not persuasive? Well, no, of course not. The point isn’t that persuasiveness is wrong; Paul himself is often described as persuading his hearers concerning Jesus and the Gospel. Acts 18:4 says, “And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.” In 2 Corinthians 5:11 he says, “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.” So, it’s not persuasiveness that’s the problem. The truth is persuasive to the mind that is subjected to right reason!
The term is pithanologia, used only here in Scripture. It’s well-captured by the NIV’s translation of “fine-soundingarguments.” The New English Translation renders it “arguments that sound reasonable.” And the King James has “enticing words.” And that’s the idea. False teachers don’t have the truth on their side, so they entice and deceive by means of arguments that sound reasonable, but which are not reasonable, which have no real substance to them. John Gill calls them “mere words, great swelling words of vanity, which like bubbles look big, and make a great noise, but contain nothing but wind and emptiness; fair speeches, specious pretences, false colourings, fallacious reasonings, a show of probability, and appearance of [knowledge], falsely so called.” In Romans 16:18, Paul says: by “smooth and flattering speech” false teachers “deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.”
Dear people, the trade of a false teacher is deception. And the nature of deception is that it seems right! It seems plausible! “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light,” 2 Corinthians 11. And “his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.” Which means you have to be constantly on your guard! Your mind has to be so full of the truth of Scripture—the Word has to be so hidden in your heart that it’s like the marrow in your bones—you have to be so devoted to the substance of the truth rather than the style of the presentation that when Satan’s servants come in suits and ties, and stand in pulpits, and lecture in the universities and seminaries, and assault you with smooth and flattering speech, and fine-sounding arguments, you’ll be able to sniff out the con!
And sadly, many of you won’t be able to. The nature of sheep is that they’re vulnerable to the wolves. But the nature of shepherds is that they protect the sheep against the wolves. Which means: the pastor who insists upon teaching the truth precisely, and exposing error, and warning the flock, is not necessarily an overwrought, fundamentalist heresy-hunter. It means he’s a faithful servant, seeking to protect God’s people from the deceivers, who would steal their consolation of Gospel peace, and despoil them of the joy of loving unity, and cheat them of the riches of full assurance. And though you may not be a pastor, you are called to ministry. And that means you also ought to be able to sniff out the con and protect your brothers and sisters from what they may be unable to see.
And then it’s as if Paul anticipates an objection. “Paul, how can you express so much affection for us, and have such warm-hearted, selfless ambitions on our behalf, and be so exercised even to protect us from what you say is false teaching, and you haven’t even met us? Not only are you not with us now; you’ve never been with us. At least these other teachers have been here. They know us. How do we know your teaching isn’t just a fine-sounding argument?”
And Paul says in verse 5, “Even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit.” “Even though I am physically under house arrest in Rome, 1100 miles away, I am a member of the body of Christ. And you are members of the body of Christ! And you and I were baptized into that one body by the Holy Spirit, who is Himself the bond of our union to one another in Christ! And so even though we are separated by distance, my spirit is with your spirit through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in each of us.”
“And I am,” verse 5, “rejoicing to see”—in my mind’s eye, via the report of your dear servant Epaphras—“your good [order] and the stability of your faith in Christ.” And here is Paul, the wise pastor, expressing his confidence in them, showing them that he trusts God’s grace at work within them, that they will heed his calls to steadfastness and will persevere in the truth that they have received! “I’m calling you to faithfulness, and because I am so confident of the Lord’s genuine work in you because of your reception of the true Gospel, I am sure you will continue in that faithfulness, well-ordered, and standing firm!”
Conclusion
Christianity is conflict. It’s the conflict between good and evil, between Spirit and flesh, between truth and error. And the faithful servant of Christ—whether pastor or layperson—engages in that conflict, that struggle, on behalf of those precious souls the Lord has called us to serve in our local church. He gives his life to that struggle, of presenting every brother and sister complete in Christ, striving according to the power of God that mightily works within us by the Holy Spirit.
And that faithful servant has an affection for those he serves, that longs and yearns to see Christ fully formed in his fellow-believers. He has a holy ambition to see their hearts encouraged, and knit together in love, and laying hold of the riches of full assurance of the knowledge of Christ—to see one another lost in wonder, love, and praise of the One who is the treasure chest of all wisdom and knowledge; constantly growing in the knowledge of this glorious mystery of God that is God the Son, the incarnate Mediator between God and men! And the faithful servant protects those he serves from the deceptions both of false teachers and false teaching.
May we be such faithful servants of one another, Grace Church, unto the glory of Christ in this place. It is a struggle. It will involve us in conflict. But it is a delight to lay our lives down in the service of our King, who laid down His life for us.