16
impinges on one's salvation. In general one senses that there are only a few very central
issues for Paul that are not adiaphora like these issues of what one eats.
42
The Prison Epistles
Despite the tantalizing number of possibilities suggested for the false teaching at
Colossae, a fair consensus has emerged that we have some uniquely home-grown
combination of Judaizing and proto-Gnosticizing, perhaps with elements of local mystery
religions and magical practices thrown in.
43
Ephesians provides even less evidence for
specific false teaching, though Clinton Arnold has shown the pervasiveness of spiritual
warfare as a unifying theme for the book, particularly in light of the use of magical papyri
in Ephesus reflected in Acts 19:17-20.
44
Four potential opponents to the gospel may be inferred from Philippians. The two
clearest include the rival teachers of 1:15-18, whose motives are bad but whose content is
good, and thus Paul, perhaps surprisingly to us, can still rejoice. Conversely, Judaizers
appear here, too, and come in once again for harsh rebuke (3:2-4:1). They may well have
been quite sincere, but when the message is so wrong it cannot be tolerated. Philippians
3:18-19 may also refer to these Judaizers' insistence on the dietary laws, but these verses
may also somewhat more naturally be taken as referring to the more hedonistic practice
of over-indulgence. Finally, Paul's imprisonment, probably in Rome, coupled with his
warning against unnamed opponents in 1:27-30, could suggest the very beginnings of
imperial persecution, or at least hostility from local non-Christian Roman supporters of
the growing imperial cult.
45
42
Cf. Leif Andersen, "Heresy and Church Discipline: What Are the Limits of Tolerance in the Church?"
EJT 10 (2001): 13-23.
43
See esp. Clinton E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996).
44
Idem, Ephesians: Power and Magic (Cambridge: CUP, 1989).
45
For a concise survey of the debates, see Peter T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1991), 26-35.