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Book of Colossians 2:20-23 A Shew of Wisdom

[Study Aired October 7, 2026]

“Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh” (Colossians 2:20–23).

Wherefore…

The last study turned on two warnings built the same way: “let no man therefore judge you,” and “let no man beguile you of your reward” (Colossians 2:16, 18). Both were about anyone who would sit over this church and hand down a verdict. That study said the next study would hear Paul ask the church a question of his own. Here it is:

Paul stops speaking about whoever stands at the door and speaks to the people inside.

“Wherefore if ye be dead (G599) with Christ from the rudiments (G4747) of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances (G1379)?”

“Let no man” was said of whoever stood at the door. “Why… are ye” is said to the church. A verdict needs someone willing to accept it, and Paul now asks why anyone in Christ would.

The chapter break hides how this sentence is built. Paul opens the next chapter the same way: “If ye then be risen with Christ” (Colossians 3:1). Dead with Christ here; risen with Christ there — two halves of one argument. We borrow that verse and one more from the same chapter, and the next study takes them up in their own place. This study takes the first half.

Four verses, and they move in four steps: a death stated, a submission questioned, the rules exposed, and their wisdom weighed.

Dead With Christ

The plain sense first: These people died with Christ, and the death separated them from something.

Start with the “if.” It is the plain word (G1487), not the stronger form Part Four met at 1:23, “if ye continue in the faith.” The method is the same: the word decides nothing by itself; what stands around it decides. Here the letter does not leave it in doubt. Six verses on, Paul says it flatly: “For ye are dead (G599), and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). The same verb, in the same tense. Whatever the “if” is doing, it is not raising a doubt about the death.

What does such a death do? Paul answers from his own life: “For I through the law am dead (G599) to the law, that I might live unto God” (Galatians 2:19). He says it of the Romans too: “ye also are become dead (G2289) to the law by the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4). Death ends a jurisdiction. The one who died is no longer under what ruled him, and the death is not his alone: “if we be dead (G599) with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him” (Romans 6:8). What was done to Christ in the body is where His members stand.

Then what they died from: “the rudiments of the world.” Part Eight met this word at verse 8, “after the rudiments (G4747) of the world,” and found that Scripture uses stoicheia (G4747) more than one way. What held across its uses was that the thing belongs to the world and is elementary to it. Galatians takes us further, because there Paul ties the word to the very things this chapter has been about:

“But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements (G4747), whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years” (Galatians 4:9–10).

The elements are joined to a calendar. Days and months are the same kind of list Paul gives in Colossians 2:16: “in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.” The Galatians were Gentiles. One verse earlier Paul reminds them that before they knew God, “ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods” (Galatians 4:8). Yet taking up days and months is turning “again” to the elements. The idol-service they came out of and the calendar they were being offered are counted as one bondage. So the rudiments include the law’s calendar, and they are not limited to it.

The first step, then, is plain. These people died with Christ, and in that death they were cut off from the whole elementary order of the world. Paul says it of himself: “the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).

As Though Living in the World

Then comes the question itself, and it turns on one word.

“Are ye subject to ordinances” is a single Greek word, dogmatizō (G1379), and it stands nowhere else in Scripture. It is the verb of the noun Part Nine studied at verse 14, where “the handwriting of ordinances (G1378)” was blotted out and nailed to the cross. So the question has an edge. The bond was taken out of the way. Taking it up now would be going back to it.

The form of the verb will bear “why do you subject yourselves” or “why do you let yourselves be ruled.” Either way, the act is theirs. Whoever stands at the door can offer a verdict. Only the people inside can accept it. Paul warned the Galatians against the same going back: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).

“As though living in the world” — the world they died out of. A man who takes its rules on himself is living as though the death had never happened. Put plainly: a dead man does not take orders from the world he died out of.

One tension should be named. Fifteen verses back, Paul was “joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ” (Colossians 2:5). Is he now saying they have given way? The verse does not say so. A question can be about a danger at the door as easily as about a step already taken.

Touch Not; Taste Not; Handle Not

Paul then gives the rules in the words of the men who taught them, and says whose they are:

“(Touch (G680) not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments (G1778) and doctrines (G1319) of men?” (Colossians 2:21–22).

The parenthesis first. The rules are about things — food to taste, things to touch — and those things are used up in the using. Paul says the same of food elsewhere: “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them” (1 Corinthians 6:13). Also, the Lord said that what goes into a man “entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught” (Mark 7:19). A rule that governs such things governs what is gone by evening.

Then the name Paul gives them, and here the word study is at its strongest. The word for “commandments,” entalma (G1778), stands in only three places in the New Testament, and all three trace to one saying of Isaiah (29:13), in the form the Lord quoted it, twice on His lips and once here. The Lord said: “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines (G1319) the commandments (G1778) of men” (Mark 7:7). Matthew 15:9 records the same saying. Paul uses both nouns, in the same pairing, of the rules at Colosse.

Isaiah 29:13 “Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.”

Matthew 15:9 “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines (G1319) the commandments (G1778) of men.”

In that saying the Lord set men against Moses. Right after it He said, “For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men” — and the commandment of God He meant was Moses’: “For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother” (Mark 7:8, 10). Yet the matters these rules touch are the law’s own: “Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch” (Leviticus 11:8). How can Paul call them men’s?

Because the law’s ordinances were “imposed on them until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10), and the next verse says that time has come: “But Christ being come” (Hebrews 9:11). Men came down from Judaea teaching the Gentiles, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). The apostles wrote back that these men had “troubled you with words… to whom we gave no such commandment” (Acts 15:24). A rule God gave for a season, bound on others as though the season had not passed, stands on no authority but men’s. That is how Part Nine could call these the laws of Moses, and how Paul can call them the commandments of men.

The same letter did lay certain abstentions on the Gentiles as “necessary things.” But it rested them on “it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us,” not on the law, and it closed with “ye shall do well,” not “ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:28–29).

Someone will object that Paul himself writes “touch (G680) not the unclean thing” (2 Corinthians 6:17), with the same verb, but read the verses before it. The unclean thing there is fellowship with idols and unbelief: “what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” (2 Corinthians 6:16). It is a separation of the heart, spoken by God. It is not a rule about what the hand may pick up.

Paul says elsewhere what is to be done with the things such rules forbid. Writing to Timothy of men “commanding to abstain from meats,” he says those meats are what “God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:3–4). Earlier in this chapter Paul said the walk in Christ goes on “abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:7). The rule says, “Do not touch.” The thankful walk receives those things.

So the rules deal in things that perish as they are used, and nothing but men’s authority binds them now.

A Shew of Wisdom

Before Paul judges these rules, he grants them one thing:

“Which things have indeed a shew (G3056) of wisdom (G4678) in will worship (G1479), and humility (G5012), and neglecting (G857) of the body…”

These rules have a reputation for wisdom. That is what “shew” means here: the Greek is the ordinary word for a word or an account (G3056), so the rules have a name for being wise. It is not the “shew” of verse 15, where Christ “made a shew (G1165) of them openly,” holding the powers up to be seen. The English is the same; the Greek is not.

Paul grants the reputation. “Indeed,” he says, they look wise, but he has already said where wisdom is kept: in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom (G4678) and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). The rules have the name. The treasures are in Christ.

The reputation rests on three things, and the last study said this study would take up the second of them: what kind of humility Paul means.

The first is “will worship,” ethelothrēskia (G1479), a word found nowhere else in Scripture; the lexicons give it as a self-made worship. It belongs to the man of verse 18, who comes “in a voluntary (G2309) humility (G5012).”

Now humility itself. The word is tapeinophrosunē (G5012), and it is a good word. It stands seven times in the New Testament. Paul served the Lord “with all humility (G5012) of mind” (Acts 20:19). He tells the Ephesians to walk “with all lowliness (G5012) and meekness” (Ephesians 4:2). Peter says, “be clothed with humility (G5012)” (1 Peter 5:5). Paul commands it in this letter, one chapter on: “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind (G5012), meekness, longsuffering” (Colossians 3:12). Only at 2:18 and 2:23 is it attached to something wrong, and both times it belongs to the same man.

So the trouble is not humility. Nor is it that the humbling touches the body. God Himself commanded that. On the day of atonement Israel was told, “ye shall afflict (H6031) your souls” (Leviticus 16:29). David used the same Hebrew verb when he fasted for men who hated him: “as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled (H6031) my soul with fasting” (Psalm 35:13). God used it again to rebuke a fast held for show, and to say what He wanted instead: “Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict (H6031) his soul?… Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” (Isaiah 58:5–7).

So the line does not run between the body and the heart. It runs between what God commands and what a man chooses and then binds on others or offers as wisdom. It runs between the shadow’s season and the time after it. The day of atonement came “once a year” (Leviticus 16:34), and the writer of Hebrews places that yearly entry (Hebrews 9:7) among the “ordinances of divine service” of the first covenant (Hebrews 9:1), “imposed on them until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10). The people’s affliction was that day’s ordinance, so it stands with them.

Hebrews 9:7–10 “But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people: The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.”

Leviticus calls it “a statute for ever (H5769)” (Leviticus 16:29). Scripture used that word of Aaron’s priesthood too, “an everlasting (H5769) priesthood” (Exodus 40:15), and the writer of Hebrews says that priesthood has been changed, and the law with it (Hebrews 7:12). So in Scripture’s own usage the word does not bar the change. What “for ever” means in such places is a question for the whole of Scripture, not this letter.

Hebrews 7:11–12 “If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.”

True humility obeys. Its pattern is Christ, who “humbled (G5013) himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), and it shows itself toward others: “in lowliness of mind (G5012) let each esteem other better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3).

The humility at the door was the man’s own choice, bound on others as a verdict and held up as wisdom. It was spent on his own body. That is the third thing in Paul’s list, “neglecting (G857) of the body.” The word is apheidia, found only here, and the lexicons give it as not sparing: an unsparing severity.

Condemning that severity does not forbid a man his own practice before the Lord. Paul calls days and months “weak and beggarly elements (G4747)” (Galatians 4:9–10), yet he tells the church to receive the weak: “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations” (Romans 14:1). The day is still kept to the Lord: “He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord” (Romans 14:6). 

Paul also kept a discipline of his own. He told the Corinthians to run to win: “So run, that ye may obtain” (1 Corinthians 9:24). Then he spoke of himself: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Corinthians 9:27), where the NKJV and the other major translations read “disqualified.” That discipline was his own. He urged others to run as he ran, but he laid down no rule about what they might touch or taste.

So the humility Paul condemns is not a man’s own practice before the Lord. It is a discipline bound on others as though Christ had not yet come and the shadow still stood, or held up as wisdom, as if it supplied something Christ had not.

Not in Any Honor

Then Paul gives his verdict on all three, in the hardest clause in the letter so far.

“Not in any honour (G5092) to (G4314) the satisfying (G4140) of the flesh (G4561).”

The KJV reads this as a further description of the severity: it pays the body no honor, and withholds what it needs. The Greek will bear that, and the translators of 1611 were not careless. However, the clause can also be read as a verdict on the rules, and the words themselves point that way.

Start with “honour,” timē (G5092). The KJV usually renders it that way: “honour (G5092) to whom honour (G5092)” (Romans 13:7). But the same translators also gave it as value or price. The chief priests would not put Judas’s silver in the treasury, “because it is the price (G5092) of blood” (Matthew 27:6). The believers “brought the prices (G5092) of the things that were sold” (Acts 4:34). “Ye are bought with a price (G5092)” (1 Corinthians 6:20). “Unto you therefore which believe he is precious (G5092)” (1 Peter 2:7). So “not in any honour” can mean “not of any value.” The word for “satisfying,” plēsmonē (G4140), stands only here; the lexicons give it as a filling full, a gorging.

The small word the KJV renders “to” (G4314) can mean “against,” as in “we wrestle not against (G4314) flesh (G4561) and blood” (Ephesians 6:12). And “flesh” in this chapter has meant more than the body: “the body of the sins of the flesh (G4561)” (Colossians 2:11), and five verses back, “vainly puffed up by his fleshly (G4561) mind” (Colossians 2:18). Read that way, the clause says the rules are of no value against the gorging of the flesh.

The NKJV, NASB, ESV, NIV, NRSV and CSB all read the clause as a verdict on the rules, and the NKJV, which translates the same Greek text as the KJV, reads “but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.”  This study follows that reading.

The writer of Hebrews says the same about food in plain words: “it is a good thing that the heart be established (G950) with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein” (Hebrews 13:9). “Established” is the word Paul used earlier in this chapter, “stablished (G950) in the faith” (Colossians 2:7). The heart is made firm by grace, not by rules about meats. 

Put the two verses together and each says its own part. Verse 23 says the discipline has no power to restrain the flesh. Verse 18 says it swells the man who practises it. Some go further and read verse 23 as saying the rules feed the flesh. Verse 18 invites the thought, but this clause does not say it.

Colossians 2:23 “Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.” 

Colossians 2:18 “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,”

What the clause says is enough. The discipline looks like mastery of the flesh, and it is not.

What These Verses Establish

Read as a whole, the four verses start from a death. These people died with Christ, and in dying were cut off from the elementary order of the world, its idols and its calendar alike. So Paul does not begin with a command. He asks why they would take orders from of which they died.

Then he opens the rules to view. They govern things that perish in the using. The law once had rules about meats and touching, but since Christ came, anyone who binds them on others does so on the authority of men. The rules look wise, but only because of a severity a man chose for himself and now binds on others. And they have no power against the flesh.

The order this series has found through ten studies holds an eleventh time. The death comes first, and the question of how to live follows from it. The next chapter gives the other half: risen with Christ, therefore seek what is above. The walk answers to the standing. It never supplies it.

The last study showed us the man at the door. This one opens what he offers and shows what it cannot do.

That offer still comes to doors, though rarely with new moons now. It comes as a discipline: a rule about food or drink or days, a way of denying oneself that looks like holiness. A man may keep such a practice before the Lord, and the church receives him. However, no man may bind it on another as a verdict, and none of it adds anything to Christ. Paul’s test is not how severe the discipline is, or how humble its teacher. It is whose authority binds it, and whether it claims to supply what is already ours in Him: “And ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2:10).

Next study: (Colossians 3:1–4)

“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”