Father Mike Schmitz

For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me.

chapter two for i want you to know how greatly i strive for you and for those at laodicea and for all who have not seen my face that their hearts may be encouraged as they are knit together in love to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of god's mystery of christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge

Fullness of life in Christ.

Abounding in thanksgiving.

Warnings against false teachers.

See to it that no one makes a prey of you by 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 of life in him who is the head of all rule and authority.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ.

And you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

And you, who were dead in trespass and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands."

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.

These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

let no one disqualify you insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels taking a stand on visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from god

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world?

Why do you submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things which all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and doctrines?

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh.

Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die.

Remove far from me falsehood and lying.