[Hemidakota]

Part - 2 now deals the reasons behind Paul's comments concerning the Jewish dietary habits inflicted the early converted Saints:

Errors about Christ, Days, and Diet
Paul had given the Colossians the "more excellent way" (1 Cor. 12:31) before criticizing false views in Colossians 2. Here are some specifics of their revised doctrine, though their conceptions are not stated fully enough to bring agreement on what the "Colossian heresy" was. Yet there is a way through the maze of empty generalizations—the striking similarity of late New Testament heresy with that criticized by Paul in Colossians. Their beliefs added Jewish ceremonialism to the gospel, in some way dethroned Christ, and also explained away the divinity of his physical person. This last point is hardly understood by the average writer on Colossians. Some thirty-five years later the apostle John wrote to the same area of Asia, warning seven branches of the Church of false teachers in their midst. Common errors had spread throughout western Asia Minor. Writing to Philadelphia, sixty miles from Colossae, John warned against those "which say they are Jews, and are not" (Rev. 3:9). Other churches received the same warning and also warnings against "idolatry" of Balaam and Jezebel, both of whom sought to lead Israel from worshipping the true God. Colossians 2 also combines Jewish heresy with concern for false teachings about Christ. Not long after Revelation, John wrote letters to this area, specifying what he meant by "idolatry." Only one confessing "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God" (1 Jn. 4:2), a caution repeated to reveal a major sickness in the Church (2 Jn. 1:7). This is a proved historical situation, for the letters of Ignatius were written soon after this and also show that some in every Asian area were denying the physicalness of Christ.

Since the debate on Christ's flesh was raging in the area a few decades after Paul, it is not to be ignored in understanding his Colossian warning, particularly when 1 Timothy was soon sent to the area representative in Asia to warn against the same problems mentioned by John. Christian commentators do not face Colossians as rebuking those explaining away the physicalness of the second member of the Godhead. The tendency was there for the same reason that some Corinthians ridiculed the bodily resurrection. Since God surpasses the human moral and intellectual level, many seek to define his person as different from the human form. At the end of the first century, the Early Church was besieged by those teaching that Christ's divinity had not been contaminated by earthly elements. In Colossians Paul opposes this point of view. They are being robbed of their heritage: "Beware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ" (Col. 2:8, NKJ. Right afterward Paul names the two misconceptions of Christ that he is correcting. The first: "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9, NKJ. Many commentators sidestep the italicized term by claiming that it can mean "essentially" or "really." But Paul used somatikos, formed from soma, the Greek word for "body," which Paul uses equally for man's earthly body and Christ's resurrected body. Thus, Paul testifies that Christ possesses godhood physically.

Paul adds his second correction: Christ "is the head of every authority and power" (Col. 2:10, literal trans.). Paul explains by building on his earlier testimony of Christ as the "head of the body, the church" (Col. 1:18). But false teachers added the "worshipping of angels," inventing things they had "not seen," which took away their true "head," Jesus Christ (Col. 2:18-19). Medieval Christianity added angels to intercede for mortals, whose lowly condition did not allow them to approach God. As will be seen in the next chapter, some first-century Christians taught the more radical doctrine that the physical creation was an inferior act of a lower divinity. And they added angels or divinities above the Old Testament creator. Paul fought such heresies at Colossae, for Christ's authority as the true creator was being challenged as well as his physical reality. Paul raised the standard of revealed Christianity—of believing in Christ as the only head and mediator under the Father—of believing in the physicalness of Christ, having the form of the Father.

Finally, the rituals of the Colossian heresy are a reminder that more extreme is not necessarily more religious. Little children graduate from the invariability of many rules to understand the principles behind those rules. That is why Paul warned the Galatians not to revert to the law that was "added because of transgressions" (Gal. 3:19). Just as some Colossians believed in additional holy beings, they also added Jewish dietary rules and rigid days of worship. The Early Church could obviously set its own day of rest without being tied to Jewish practices of the past. So the faithful were told to oppose legalism: "Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths" (Col. 2:16, NKJ. "Food" correctly changes the King James Version "meat," which was meant in the older English sense of any kind of food. This is obvious in the Hebrews warning against technical Jewish practices: "Meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances" (Heb. 9:10)—what is not drink is "meat," simply food in general in the Greek behind these English renderings.

Is such instruction relevant today? Proper diet is determined by common sense, nutritional science, and revelation in the case of the modern Word of Wisdom. But it is arrogance or ignorance to pursue hearsay theories and hobbies on what to eat and drink. Paul opposes overdone notions on this subject in a half-dozen epistles. Modern food fads frequently stem from religious fanaticism or desires for power over other people, certainly the motives behind the Colossian perversions of days and diet. But the gospel means renouncing mere theories of men, Paul reminded the Colossians, asking why they would subject themselves to "regulations—'Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle'" (Col. 2:20-21, NKJ. All major committee translations enclose these last phrases in quotation marks, since it is obvious that Paul here summarized the preaching of his opponents. Joseph Smith added words of explanation to make the same point of avoiding the "commandments of men, who teach you to touch not, taste not, handle not" (Col. 2:21,JST .

Hopefully this may help in answering your question.