Can Believers Be Enslaved?

Continuing in the New Testament with a focus on warnings.

Colossians 2: ISV

6So then, just as you have received the Messiah Jesus the Lord, continue to live dependent on him. 7For you have been rooted in him and are being built up and strengthened in the faith, just as you were taught, while you continue to be thankful. 

8See to it that no one enslaves you 

• through philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, 
• according to the basic principles of the world, 
• and not according to the Messiah, 9because all the essence of deity inhabits him in bodily form. 

10And you have been filled by him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11In union with him you were also circumcised with a circumcision performed without human hands by stripping off the corrupt nature by the circumcision performed by the Messiah. 12When you were buried with the Messiah in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13Even when you were dead because of your offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with him when he forgave us all of our offenses, 14having erased the charges that were brought against us, along with their obligations that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross. 15And when he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross.

16Therefore, 

• let no one judge you in matters of food and drink or with respect to a festival, a New Moon, or Sabbath days. 17These are a shadow of the things to come, but the reality belongs to the Messiah. 
• 18Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels cheat you out of the prize (see 1 Cor 9:24 at bottom) by rejoicing about what he has seen.r Such a person is puffed up for no reason by his carnal mind. 19He does not hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, which is nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God enables it. We see much interest in angels today. Watch out for this deception. We are not to look for angels, we look for the Lord. These people do not stay connected to Christ. I have met some of them. They think they are seeing God's angels and they "go to heaven regularly". They do not try the spirits, but accept them. Very sobering. 

20If you have died with the Messiah to the basic principles of the world, why are you submitting to its decrees as though you still lived in the world? 21“Don’t handle this! Don’t taste or touch that!” 22All of these things will be destroyed as they are used, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23These things have the appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, humility, and harsh treatment of the body, but they have no value against self-indulgence.

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1 Corinthians 9:   ISV

24You know that in a race all the runners run but only one wins the prize, don’t you? You must run in such a way that you may be victorious. 25Everyone who enters an athletic contest practices self-control in everything. They do it to win a wreath that withers away, but we run to win a prize that never fades. 26That is the way I run, with a clear goal in mind. That is the way I fight, not like someone shadow boxing. 27No, I keep on disciplining my body, making it serve me so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not somehow be disqualified.

This is a warning, but the prize Paul is talking about is not salvation, which cannot be earned. He talks of "being embraced by Jesus" below. There is a prize for obeying God's call with our lives. 

Philipplians 3:   ISV

12It’s not that I have already reached this goal or have already become perfect. 

• But I keep pursuing it, hoping somehow to embrace it 
• just as I have been embraced by the Messiah Jesus. 

13Brothers, I do not consider myself to have embraced it yet. But this one thing I do: Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,

• 14I keep pursuing the goal 
• to win the prize 
• of God’s heavenly call in the Messiah Jesus.

15Therefore, those of us who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will show you how to think. 16However, we should live up to what we have achieved so far.