“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.”— Colossians 2:8–10
On this quiet Sunday, we hear Paul’s words to the church at Colossae, offering both a warning and a promise: we must not be led astray by false philosophies, but we can rest in the assurance that in Christ we are already made full.
It can feel intimidating when Paul warns against “philosophy and empty deceit,” but his concern is not about learning, thinking, or asking questions. He is warning us not to be convinced that we need anything more than Christ to be whole — not to be enslaved by systems that promise fullness but deliver only shame and fear.
For us as LGBTQ+ Christians, this is a deeply comforting and challenging truth. The world — and sadly, much of the church — has often told us we are incomplete, broken, disordered. They’ve claimed we need to be “fixed” or “delivered” from who we are. Those are indeed empty deceits. Paul’s words remind us not to be taken captive by those human traditions that deny the fullness God already gives us.
Because we have come to fullness in him.
We don’t need to contort ourselves to fit the world’s narrow definitions of holiness. Christ himself — the one in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” — has made us complete. Our queerness does not separate us from that fullness, and no authority on earth has the right to tell us otherwise.
So, let us stay watchful: testing the messages we hear to see whether they align with the love, grace, and truth of Christ. And let us stay secure: knowing that we are already whole in him, without shame, without needing to erase who we are.
We are not lacking. We are not less-than. We are already full — because Christ is full, and we are in him.
On this Sunday, may we feel that fullness in our hearts. May we resist the voices that would try to take us captive through deceit. And may we rest in the truth that Christ himself makes us complete — wonderfully and perfectly made in his love.
They have tried to fix us in the past but it didn’t work. Why. Because we are not broken. We are who we are and not who other people want us to be. A child born with a vagina and remnants of a penis was neutered and raised as a girl. When puberty hit, the child realized he was a boy. Gender is determined later than the sex of a child. Sex is determined at conception. Gender is formed when the brain starts to form and they are not always the same. Some are sex male, gender male, some are sex female gender female. But about 15 % have opposite sex to gender; thus they are homosexual or by sexual. This happens in the womb mostly and the child has had nothing to do with causing it. It depends on the timing or amount of testosterone or lack thereof. If the mother had a traumatic pregnancy she may have produced testosterone and male-genderized a female or vice versa. The child/adult is innocent. But the world and church world sees this as an affront to being normal. Gay and bi people are perfectly normal. They are just not the majority.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Jack! The willful ignorance and the disregard for the teachings of Christ. It’s why Christianity in the US es shrinking. There now more “none” than ever before, people who have rejected organized religions because they are either atheist, agnostic, or have been traumatized by these “Christians” who can reconcile imperial scientific evidence with their small minded bigotry that they pick and choose verses and twist them out of context. Christians are driving more people away than leading them to the teachings of Christ.
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