Thoughts on Colossians 2:20-23?

[All Along The Watchtower]

 "20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."

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I thought that this is an interesting passage-how the world's rules are defined as being distinct from God's rules, and how earthly rules can "pose" as godly commands.

Any other thoughts?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Sounds like the type of thing I'd quote as I tried to light a cigarette inside a building or something like that. Pretty cool stuff, though its application would pose a threat to current society.

[Beet]

It seems to be a bit out of context. Who is the "you" being spoken of, and where does the question of rules come from?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The rules are religious laws, i.e., but which ones are open to debate.  Some assert that the church at Colosse to which the epistle to the Colossians was incorporating some Greek ascetic practices into their religious practices, and he was speaking of them.  Others aver that he was speaking of the Hebrew ritual law.  Yet others will make of it a more general admonition against religious practices that have no direct ethical impact. Certainly the words of verses 16 to 19 are written in a more general manner, tho the writer^* may well have been addressing a specific situation.

₁₆ Let no one, then, judge you in eating or in drinking, or in respect of a feast, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths, ₁₇ which are a shadow of the coming things, and the body be of the Christ; ₁₈ let no one beguile you of your prize, delighting in humble-mindedness and worship of the messengers, intruding into the things he hath not seen, being vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, ₁₉ and not holding the head, from which all the body -- through the joints and bands gathering supply, and being knit together -- may increase with the increase of God.

^* Colossians is one of the epistles of disputed authorship. I see no significant difference between it and the other Pauline writings in its theology and I am not competent to judge the textual analysis that leads some, but not all, critical scholars to question its claims to Pauline origin.