Stereos and Carnivores

Wow, the words of Colossians are so good! Here is from chapter two.

“Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.”

Paul has been talking about how amazing Christ is when he describes him as the one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Do you want to know the truth? It is in Christ. The image is as if Christ were a mine with diamonds and gold hidden within. The deeper you dig into the mine the more treasures you find. The mine is infinitely deep. All the treasures are hidden in this divine mine. He is the creator, the sustainer, and the ruler of all. If we spend our effort pursuing the knowledge of Christ we are pursuing the uniting factor of all wisdom and knowledge. We are never called to dumb it down or to know less. We are always called in Scripture to more knowledge.

Notice that Paul says he is motivated by a sense of security. Going to an airport, courthouse, or any government building has changed since 911, hasn’t it? We are very aware of security these days. In our spiritual lives our sense of security must be even higher. There are people out to try to ruin us. Paul says that he was concerned that people in the church could be deluded by plausible arguments. Without a solid, deep, knowledge of Christ we are vulnerable.

Paul next says that he is happy about their “good order and firmness of faith in Christ.” He is confident even while he is warning and teaching them. Being absent, still in spirit he sees their firmness and it brings him joy. I love this word “firmness.” It is the Greek word stereo. Yes, we get our common word “stereo” from this word. It means firm, steadfast, and has the sense of three dimensional or spread out. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) it is the word in Genesis 1 for space. Space is like a tent: spread out with expanse and depth. It is three-dimensional. In a stereo the music is split into left and right sides. Some of the music comes out of one speaker, and some out the other, so it sounds deep and three-dimensional. 3D movies have an amazing sense of space in them. You can almost touch the images and see them spread out in depth. This is what our faith needs. It needs to be deep and multi-dimensional. When we are boring deeply into the mine of Christ we will have a faith that is firm. To withstand difficulties, our faith must be stable and deep. It cannot be simply one or two-dimensional, it must be spread out with some expanse to it. Otherwise we will be easy targets to those with plausible arguments.

I am preaching from Hebrews these days. The same Greek word, stereo, is used in Hebrews 5: 12 & 14 to describe the “solid” food that we should all be able to digest. The author of Hebrews is lamenting the fact that the church is unable to understand deeper teachings because they are only used to feeding on milk and not stereo food. Good teaching does not dumb it down, or “put the cookies on the lower shelf.” Good teaching seeks to elevate the learners so that they can become teachers too. Deep multi-dimensional teaching is the means to achieve this goal. The evangelical church has failed in this effort to a large extent over the last thirty or forty years. I really think that the message of Hebrews is completely current for our day. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food…” (Hebrews 5:12) Are we raising a generation of dependent vulnerable infants, or a generation of eager self-defending meat-eaters? Let’s raise some carnivores for Christ!