Of The Secret and Wild-Geese

Well, school is back in session here in my local municipality, and mothers are rejoicing.  :)
Young, impressionable minds are being sent of to be filled with .... what?  Do you know?  It is impossible to impart basic knowledge outside the context of faith...faith in something....  Well, maybe math is an exception. But, otherwise, values imbue all the knowledge that your children will be taught in school.  Whose values?  Whose "truth"?

If you look up the word "gnosis" in Google, you'll find this definition:  "the knowledge of spiritual mysteries".  We've already examined the Gnostic philosophy to some extent. As a reminder, these heretics taught salvation was only possible through a complex series of initiations and steps, rules and traditions, which would lead to "secret knowledge".  In other words, they took the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and enveloped it in layer after layer of heretical complexities.

Do you believe that Gnosticism is dead, some moldy-oldy philosophy that only existed in the first century A.D.?  I assure you that it is alive and well.  Satan both disguises and imitates truth.  As the eons roll on, he adapts his falsehoods to fit the current trends.  For example:

Some religions manifest elements of Gnosticism today.  There is mystic underwear.  There are secret names for spouses. There are secret rituals and secret vaults of documents which cannot be allowed to see the light of day.  Some religions....Satanism, for one....meet entirely in secret.  Who are the Satanists?  They walk among us, masquerading as everyday people.  But, that's another blog post for another day.

So, Paul addresses this matter of "secret knowledge" in today's passage, Colossians 2:2-4, which I'm reproducing here from The Message version.

2-4 I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we’ve been shown the mystery! I’m telling you this because I don’t want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or “the Secret.”

There is no Secret.  There is only the Truth, which is found in Jesus Christ and His one-and-only, transparent salvation.  And, there is error.  Basically, any "faith", that wants to talk to you about these mystic "add-ons' to your belief in Jesus Christ, is false.

Then, there is the religion of secularism.  Yes, secularism is a religion.  Anything that sets itself up in opposition to the Word of God, manifested in the person and supreme deity of Jesus Christ is a religion.  Nabeel Qureshi, who wrote Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, has a new book out at the end of this month. It deconstructs the Muslim faith in which he was steeped from birth, well into his 20's. The Muslims recognize Jesus Christ, although only as one of several enlightened, human prophets.

But, back to secularism, the religion of our public schools and other public institutions.  Here are some examples of this most insidious religion, whose basic tenet is that there is no god but man himself.  "Man is his own god", in other words.  This belief infuses much of the world in which we live today.  One of the most recent manifestations of this was seen at the Republican National Convention last month, when the nominee stood at the podium to announce that he alone can fix what is wrong with the United States.  Ok.  Right.

That was a rather egregious overstatement.  Most of the time, Satan is much more subtle, beguiling our youth with garbage such as evolution, revisionist history, the right to abortion, a broadened definition of marriage and other such philosophies which are contrary to the Truth found in the Word of God, namely in Jesus Christ.  Dr. Peterson, who translated Paul's words in The Message's contemporary language calls these "wild-goose chases".

Our young people are led to believe that faith-based Truth is an evidence of a weak mind, of someone who is not truly intelligent or intellectual.  They take off after a "secret" which does not exist, which does not satisfy, even if it is attained.

As responsible parents, it is our responsibility to guard our youth from these deceptive, erroneous philosophies which will wreck their lives.  As a former public school educator for 35 years, I can say with a great deal of knowledge that if I had it to do over again, I would not educate my children today in the public schools.  The humanistic influences are simply too great for a Christian parent to overcome in their time with their children at home and church.

We are our children's first and best teachers.  In that God-ordained role, we must teach them the Truth, including that which Paul expresses here: only through Jesus Christ can the mind and spirit have confidence and rest.  In Jesus, we can learn as much of God as we can manage, for a lifetime and beyond.  As far as the other mysteries of the universe?  Some of the greatest minds that ever lived, those who made the greatest discoveries of all time, were Christ-worshippers:  Bacon, Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, Mendel, to name a few.1

Father, Your Son is All, and all Truth resides in, is embodied in Him.  We need seek no other Source, no other Secret.  By accepting Him as Savior and following Him throughout our lives, our minds can have confidence and rest.  A restful, centered mind is then freed to learn more of You, all the mysteries which it is Your will for us to discover.  May we teach this Truth to our children, in accordance with Your scriptural command.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Source:

1   http://coldcasechristianity.com/2013/the-rich-historic-roll-call-of-great-christian-thinkers-and-scientists/