one's plausible sophistry.
002:005 For although, as you say, I am absent from you in body,
yet in spirit I am present with you and am delighted to witness
your good discipline and the solid front presented by your
faith in Christ.
002:006 As therefore you have received the Christ, even Jesus our Lord,
live and act in vital union with Him;
002:007 having the roots of your being firmly planted in Him,
and continually building yourselves up in Him, and always being
increasingly confirmed in the faith as you were taught it,
and abounding in it with thanksgiving.
002:008 Take care lest there be some one who leads you away
as prisoners by means of his philosophy and idle fancies,
following human traditions and the world's crude notions
instead of following Christ.
002:009 For it is in Christ that the fulness of God's nature dwells embodied,
and in Him you are made complete,
002:010 and He is the Lord of all princes and rulers.
002:011 In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not
performed by hand, when you threw off your sinful nature
in true Christian circumcision;
002:012 having been buried with Him in your baptism, in which you
were also raised with Him through faith produced within you
by God who raised Him from among the dead.
002:013 And to you--dead as you once were in your transgressions
and in the uncircumcision of your natural state--He has
nevertheless given Life with Himself, having forgiven us
all our transgressions.
002:014 The bond, with its requirements, which was in force against us
and was hostile to us, He cancelled, and cleared it out of the way,