¹⁶ Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 

Food, drink, festival… these are not bad things. They were just some pointers that signposted to the real thing. Now the reality is here.  

¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 

We should rightly move from observing the signs to observing and staying in the reality, our Christ. – who God sent to break off our yoke bound to serving my own stomach (Phil 3:19) and fear of death (Heb 2:15)!

¹⁸ Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 

False humility, being puffed up… these come from knowledge that does not belong to God (1 Cor 8:1). The opposite is knowledge that belongs to God, which is also called love in other words, and that knowledge build others up, letting them know the truth about God and themselves.

¹⁹ They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

God does all the work from signalling in the brain to passing it on through the nerve. The holding together of the body, the ligaments and sinews/tendons is the work of the Spirit of God. Even in giving this analogy Paul urges the puffed up ones to stop playing the head but connect to the head!

^20-21 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’? 

Things that used to pointed to the real is likened to the elemental spiritual forces of this world. They were not bad things, but the ‘valid until’ date is well passed.  

²² These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 

It is like Paul saying he regards his background, education as refuse compared to the surpassing truth (Phil 3:8).

²³ Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

The ‘sensual indulgence’ of knowingly or unknowingly turning myself into God can only be ‘restrained’ by the real thing and not by the shadows that pointed to it.

Lord, by these words you do not desire to create fear in us but rather to drive out that fear that we may be free to come to you. Now you have worked out  everything in place for us, let us not fear but use our time and effort to keep focusing on the good you have provided for us. Let us see you. Let us believe the faith you have provided for us and remain in it today.  Let me be slow to apply my own standard to myself and others. I do not lack anything and do not have to cover up my shame. Because you have filled me with you and see me with your stadard. I want to live as this person today.