I want you to know in how great a struggle I am engaged for you and for Christ's People at Laodicea, and for all who have not yet seen me;

It is true that I am not with you in person, but I am with you in spirit, and am glad to see the good order and the unbroken front resulting from your faith in Christ.

Take care there is not some one who will carry you away by his 'philosophy'--a hollow sham!--following, as it does, mere human traditions, and dealing with puerile questions of this world, and not with Christ.

By your union with him you received a circumcision that was not performed by human hands, when you threw off the tyranny of the earthly body, and received the circumcision of the Christ.

Do not, then, allow any one to take you to task on questions of eating or drinking, or in the matter of annual or monthly or weekly festivals.

Do not let any one defraud you of the reality by affecting delight in so-called 'humility' and angel-worship. Such a man busies himself with his visions, and without reason is rendered conceited by his merely human intellect.

He fails to maintain union with the Head, to whom it is due that the whole body, nourished and knit together by the contact and Keynesian of every part, grows with a divine growth.

To such ordinances as 'Do not handle, or taste, or touch'?

Fix your thoughts upon the things that are above, not upon those that are on earth.

Slaves, always obey your earthly masters, not only when their eyes are on you, as if you had but to please men, but giving them ungrudging service, in your reverence for the Master.

Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as if working for the Master and not for men,