What is the path to greater piety and devotion to God? One attempted answer to this question that has been active throughout Church history has been the related methods of legalism and asceticism. Legalism seeks to impose rules, as if becoming closer to God were a simple matter of following them, while asceticism seeks to deny biological impulses and needs (such as food, drink, sex), as if being biological they are somehow inherently unholy and opposed to the things of the spirit. Church history has featured hermits and monks attempting to be holy along these paths, as much as their efforts were self-centered, and self-powered, they were doomed to failure.
Paul addresses this issue at the church at Colossae, where a mixture of Mosaic legalism and Greek philosophical asceticism had combined to tempt the believers there away from their trust in the all-sufficiency of Christ, a danger that Paul warns strongly against, reassuring them that the path of legalistic asceticism is doomed to failure because it has lost its connection with Christ, and thus the power of God, the only true source of spiritual growth.
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