Christ must be reasonable

"Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind" Colossians 2:18

As I read this verse last night, it really made me stop and ponder the implications that Paul is setting forth. It seems that the one of the reasons why Paul considered the false teaching circulating in Colosse to indeed be false, or at least disqualified it from being truthfully considered by Paul (aside from his apostolic authority), was that it was "without reason". In other words, the was no reason to believe that this teaching (which called the Colossian Christians to worship the earthly and heavenly spirirts in addition to Christ in order to be justified before God) was indeed true. These teachers had no way of defending the veracity of their truth-claim. Consequently, this must therefore mean that Paul believes the Gospel DOES have the ability to defend itself against skepticism and verify its central truth-claims.

I think this is a point often not emphasized enough in our evangelistic efforts or even those of discipleship. As a result, I think this is one of the reasons that such a popular stigma placed on Christians from those in the secular realm is that we live by "faith" while the rest of the intelligent lives by "reason". However, according to Paul, it seems that instead of these two virtues being divorced (as seems to be the belief of our current culture) they are in fact intimately intertwined with each other. Indeed, for Paul the sign of true faith is that it must be reasonable--and if it is not, it cannot be true.