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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven and Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Persecuted but Not Forsaken

02 Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer

03 Life and Death

04 Unity Through Humility

05 Shining as Lights in the Night

06 Confidence Only in Christ

07 A Heavenly Citizenship

08 The Preeminence of Christ

09 Reconciliation and Hope

10 Complete in Christ

I'm Cameron DeVasier, and I'm Mark Howard, and this is Talking Points.

We're on our tenth lesson now, continuing our study of Christ in Philippians and Colossians.

And we're in the Colossians portion of the Philippians and Colossians set, now looking at chapter 2, if I'm not mistaken.

What are we, what is the landscape, what is chapter 2 just for an overview all about?

My lesson study intro in our handout this week says, this week's lesson takes a closer look at Colossians chapter 2.

I should say, maybe I should add that very often when Adventists discuss Colossians 2, we are discussing what it doesn't mean.

And so today we're gonna be talking about what it does mean.

We're gonna be looking at what the Bible does say, not what it doesn't say today.

Okay, well you did put the talking points together, as we've just alluded to, so I'm gonna pray, and then you can lead us through our lesson.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Colossians chapter 2, and the whole book of Colossians, the whole scripture that you give to us, and you share with us for our benefit, for our salvation.

Thank you for this Word of God that leads us to Jesus Christ, and as we study Him and His Word today, help us to understand it more clearly and be more like Him in the end.

All right, so Our talking points from this week's lesson are 3.

Talking point number 1 is, Christ gives assurance through doctrinal understanding.

The lesson this week is really just chronologically walking through chapter 2 of Colossians.

Talking point number 2, Christ crucified the flesh on the cross, not the law.

And that is drawn from Tuesday, primarily.

And then talking point number 3, we have been crucified with Christ, drawn primarily from Wednesday and Thursday's lessons.

I obviously, you're good there, but let's go back to number 1.

Christ gives assurance through doctrinal understanding.

So why don't we start out, I'm going to have you read Colossians chapter 2 verses 1 through 3.

It says here, For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." This is classic Pauline.

We are zeroing in, though, there on verse 2.

Notice he says that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love." Now there's a lot of unity talk there, but we looked at that prior in Philippians, so I want to spend my time on that other part where he says, "...and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding." And I want to 0 in on that.

Notice that this riches of full assurance of understanding to the knowledge of the Father.

Riches of the full assurance of understanding results in the knowledge of the mystery of God, the Father and the Son, in whom are hidden all the riches, or all the treasures.

Now I want you to notice that it's not the understanding, and I have this in our outline, nor the riches of understanding, but the riches of the full assurance of understanding that Paul refers to.

In other words, it was the understanding that gave the assurance, the assurance, it was the understanding that gave the assurance, and that assurance was the treasure Paul wanted his readers to have.

But the assurance came from, the insurance was the treasure or the riches, but it came through the understanding.

So he wants them to experience the assurance that it could be theirs, but you get it through understanding.

And so that's why a Word of Talk point number 1, Christ gives assurance through doctrinal understanding.

I looked up his notes on Colossians 2 and verse 2 if you want to read what he says there It was the desire of the Apostle that they might have entire conviction of the truth of the Christian doctrines Okay, so that that's Scholars understanding as somebody wants to argue and say well I don't think understanding the full assurance of understanding has to do with doctrine which because doctrine is a bad name today, but doctrine simply means teaching and The scriptures full of teaching Jesus ministry was a teaching ministry as well as a healing ministry I'm happy Well, I was just gonna say he's using phrases here that he's used other times before, the mystery of God, the hidden wisdom, and all the...

Well, we've discussed that before, too, that that is the whole plan of salvation, the entire gospel message, and that is doctrine, right?

Every element is a doctrinal element that gives this big understanding.

He wants to have an assurance of God through an understanding of this land.

Paul understands that the believers are not going to have assurance without the understanding of Christian doctrine.

Now, the SDA commentary brings it up this way.

They quote Paul, riches of the full assurance, or alternately they use the phrase, the wealth of the firm persuasion.

And they make this comment, as believers learn the deeper truths of God's teaching or doctrine, their assurance becomes firmer.

When Christians truly know the Lord's ways, they cannot but trust.

In other words, they can't help but trust.

And this trust is based on understanding.

And that's just basically an exposition of what Paul is saying here.

As we're going through this, the mission conference is finishing up in a lot of areas, full doctrinal expositions of, you know, a revelation series of meetings, right?

And it is—I was just listening last night to another presentation on the truth of the state of the dead, and it's like, it could be abstract, academic, whatever, but you realize, oh, this makes sense that God has a plan, like, I have more faith in God when I better understand the things that His Word teaches about life and death and the hope of the resurrection, that I have more assurance in my personal life with the head knowledge corrected by Scripture of who God is and what His teachings are.

Well, there's a great statement I don't have in here, but you're bringing it to mind, in Desire of Ages, Ellen White talks about the Holy Spirit being called the Spirit of truth, and also the comforter.

And she makes a statement where she says, there is comfort in the truth, but there is no comfort in error.

And using that to describe why the Spirit is called the Comforter.

Because uncertainty does not bring comfort.

Having the knowledge of the truth brings a certainty.

And so this is what Paul wants them to have.

He knows that if they have this knowledge of understanding, which is in its fullness a knowledge of the mystery of God, both the Father and the Son, right?

In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom.

My next bullet point makes the point, you know, we talk about doctrine, and 1 of the reasons doctrine is kind of a bad word in many parts of the Church today is there are people who want to talk about doctrine as though it's separate from Christ, and they say, what we really need is Christ and relationship with Christ, not all these doctrines.

Well, the lesson makes the good point here that Monday, paragraph 1, we receive salvation by receiving a person, not just a body of teachings.

We would usually stop and say, Amen, yeah.

But receiving Jesus also includes accepting all his teachings.

So I put as a heading here, Christ is the substance of all true Bible doctrine.

So yeah, Christ gives assurance through doctrinal understanding, but he's the substance of all true Bible doctrine.

There's no doctrine you're gonna teach that's somehow apart from Jesus, or doesn't lead to teach Jesus, or give your clear understanding of Jesus.

So in verse 3, and then 6 and 7, if you would read that in chapter 2.

Chapter 2, verse 3 says, "...in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, " and then in 6 and 7, "...as you therefore have received Jesus, a Christ Jesus, a Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." Okay, doctrine is teaching, as you have been taught, established in the faith, rooted and built up in Him.

You can't separate Him from His teaching.

So this is what Paul is doing, is he's realizing that this is where that being rooted and being confident and having assurance comes from this understanding of Christ and his teachings.

And so he links the 2 together and there's a great statement from Second Selected Messages that I've included in the handout.

Yeah, page 87 says, "...the truth for this time is broad in its outlines, far-reaching, embracing many doctrines.

But these doctrines are not detached items, which mean little.

They are united by golden threads, forming a complete whole, with Christ as the living center.

The truths we present from the Bible are as firm and immovable as the throne of God." But that idea is Christ as the living sinner of all the...

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Series

Talking Points 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven and Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

10 Complete in Christ

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

01 Persecuted but Not Forsaken

30m

02 Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer

31m

03 Life and Death

30m

04 Unity Through Humility

30m

05 Shining as Lights in the Night

30m

06 Confidence Only in Christ

30m

07 A Heavenly Citizenship

30m

08 The Preeminence of Christ

30m

09 Reconciliation and Hope

30m

10 Complete in Christ

32m

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