{"id":4550,"date":"2023-06-20T11:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2023-06-20T09:19:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T14:19:38","slug":"philosophy-can-be-helpful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/2023\/06\/20\/philosophy-can-be-helpful\/","title":{"rendered":"Philosophy Can Be Helpful"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many Christians today seem to misunderstand the apostle Paul\u2019s warning in Colossians 2:8: \u201cSee to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition.\u201d The truth is, the Bible\u2014interpreted rightly\u2014is no more against philosophy than it is against religion. The Bible is against <em>vain<\/em> philosophy. Likewise, the Bible is not opposed to religion per se, but only against <em>vain<\/em> religion (James 1:26-27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Colossians 2:8, Paul is not speaking about philosophy in general, but about a particular philosophy that was apparently influencing the church at Colossae, which is usually understood as an early form of Gnosticism. This is indicated by Paul\u2019s use of a definite article (in the original Greek), which should be translated \u201cthe philosophy\u201d or \u201cthis philosophy.\u201d So Paul was referring to this particular Gnostic-like philosophy that had invaded the church in Colossae\u2014a philosophy that involved legalism, mysticism, and asceticism (all of which are antithetical to Christianity)\u2014and not to <em>all<\/em> philosophy. God places no premium on ignorance or shallow thinking (see Matthew 22:37; Acts 17:17,28,34; Philippians 1:16; Titus 1:12; 1 Peter 3:15). An awareness of the various philosophical disciplines can equip Christians to argue against anti-Christian philosophies (Acts 17:22-31) and use philosophical tools in proving the truth of Christianity. More on this tomorrow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"..\/images\/common.jpg\" alt=\"image\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pearl of Wisdom:<\/strong> <em>We shouldn\u2019t be reluctant to study philosophy, for it can help us refute error and defend the truth of Christianity<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[5\u00b7Minute APOLOGETICS <em>for<\/em>\u00a0TODAY Ron Rhodes]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many Christians today seem to misunderstand the apostle Paul\u2019s warning in Colossians 2:8: \u201cSee to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition.\u201d The truth is, the Bible\u2014interpreted rightly\u2014is no more against philosophy than it is against religion. The Bible is against vain philosophy. Likewise, the Bible [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bien-giao-apologetics","category-sunday-school"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4551,"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions\/4551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westhoustonvbc.org\/ws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}