Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote a letter from a Roman prison cell to a group of Christians he had never met, and buried inside it was a single question that still breaks modern life today. He asked: "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?" That one verse, Colossians 2:20, exposes how most believers are still living as slaves to a system Christ already freed them from.

Paul wrote the letter while awaiting trial before Caesar, and he had learned about the Colossian believers through Epaphras, his fellow worker who later joined him in chains. The Colossians were mostly Gentiles being pressured to follow Jewish law and were absorbing false teachings, with some boasting about secret visions and hidden spiritual k ...