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Friday, September 5th, 2025
the Week of Proper 17 / Ordinary 22
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Read the Bible

Chinese NCV (Simplified)

歌罗西书 2:21

拘守那“不可摸、不可嘗、不可觸”的規條呢?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Asceticism;   Commandments;   Doctrines;   Law;   Ordinance;   Works;   Thompson Chain Reference - Association-Separation;   Contact;   Touch Not;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Defilement;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Colossians, letter to the;   Ethics;   Paul;   World;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Corinthians, First and Second, Theology of;   Denial;   Magic;   Myth;   Touch;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Colosse;   Cross;   Essenes;   Fable;   Fasting;   Flesh;   Laodicea;   Pharisees;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Colossians;   Sabbath;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Clean and Unclean;   Gnosticism;   Knowledge;   Law;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Clean, Unclean, Common;   Colossians, Epistle to the;   Gnosticism;   Judaizing;   Law;   Mortify;   Purity (2);   Timothy and Titus Epistles to;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Altar;   1 To Touch, Handle;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Philosophy;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Taste;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Elements;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Apocryphal Gospels;   Gnosticism;   Handle;   Jude, the Epistle of;  

Parallel Translations

Chinese Union (Simplified)
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Contextual Overview

16 So do not let anyone make rules for you about eating and drinking or about a religious feast, a New Moon Festival, or a Sabbath day. 17 These things were like a shadow of what was to come. But what is true and real has come and is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone disqualify you by making you humiliate yourself and worship angels. Such people enter into visions, which fill them with foolish pride because of their human way of thinking. 19 They do not hold tightly to Christ, the head. It is from him that all the parts of the body are cared for and held together. So it grows in the way God wants it to grow. 20 Since you died with Christ and were made free from the ruling spirits of the world, why do you act as if you still belong to this world by following rules like these: 21 "Don't handle this," "Don't taste that," "Don't even touch that thing"? 22 These rules refer to earthly things that are gone as soon as they are used. They are only human commands and teachings. 23 They seem to be wise, but they are only part of a human religion. They make people pretend not to be proud and make them punish their bodies, but they do not really control the evil desires of the sinful self.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Genesis 3:3, Isaiah 52:11, 2 Corinthians 6:17, 1 Timothy 4:3

Reciprocal: Genesis 9:3 - even Leviticus 11:8 - they are unclean Matthew 15:17 - that Mark 7:3 - the tradition Mark 7:19 - General 1 Timothy 4:8 - bodily

Cross-References

Genesis 15:12
As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, a very terrible darkness came.
1 Samuel 26:12
So David took the spear and water jug that were near Saul's head, and they left. No one saw them or knew about it or woke up, because the Lord had put them sound asleep.
Job 4:13
It was during a nightmare when people are in deep sleep.
Job 33:15
He speaks in a dream or a vision of the night when people are in a deep sleep, lying on their beds.
Proverbs 19:15
Lazy people sleep a lot, and idle people will go hungry.
Daniel 8:18
While Gabriel was speaking, I fell into a deep sleep with my face on the ground. Then he touched me and lifted me to my feet.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Touch not, taste not, handle not. This the apostle says, not of himself, but in the person of the Jewish doctors; who urging the use of the ceremonial law, to which they added decrees and constitutions of their own, said, "touch not" the dead body of any man, the bone of a man, or a grave, any man or woman in their uncleanness; not only their flesh, but the bed they lay on, or the seat they sat on; or any creature that was by the law unclean; of a Gentile, or any notorious sinner, or common man: hence the Pharisees used to wash themselves when they returned from market, lest they should have been by any means accidentally defiled by touching any thing unclean. There is a treatise in their Misna, called Oholot, which gives many rules, and is full of decrees about things במגע

מטמאים, "that defile by touching". And so they likewise said, "taste not", neither the fat, nor the blood of any creature which might be eaten itself, nor swine's flesh, nor the flesh of any creature that chewed the cud, or divided the hoof; nor might the Nazarites taste wine, or strong drink, or vinegar made of either, or moist grapes, or even the kernels and husks; and if a man ate but the quantity of an olive of any of the above things, he was, according to the Jewish canons, to be cut off, or beaten x: and they also said, "handle not"; or, as the Syriac and Arabic read, "do not come near", or "draw not nigh", to a Gentile, to one of another nation, or any unclean person, to whom they forbid any near approach or conversation; or "handle not" any of the above things. Some think that these several rules have respect only to meats; as "touch not", that is, do not eat of things forbidden ever so little; nay, "taste not", do not let anything of them come within your lips; yea, "handle not", do not so much as touch them with your fingers. Others think that touch not regards abstinence from women; see 1 Corinthians 7:1; and respects the prohibition of marriage by some in those times; and "taste not", the forbearance of certain meats, at certain times, which God had not restrained any from; and "handle not", that is, make no use of, or enjoy your own goods, and so designs that voluntary poverty which some entered into under the direction of false teachers.

x Maimon. Maacolot Asurot, c. 7. sect. 1. & c. 14. sect. 2. & Nezirut, c. 5. sect. 3.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Tough not; taste not; handle not - These words seem intended as a specimen of the kind of ordinances which the apostle refers to, or an imitation of the language of the Jewish teachers in regard to various kinds of food and drink. “Why are ye subject to ordinances of various kinds, such as this - Touch not, taste not, handle not?” That is, such as prohibit you from even touching certain kinds of food, or tasting certain kinds of drink, or handling certain prohibited things. The rapid succession of the words here, without any connecting particle, is supposed to denote the eagerness of the persons who imposed this injunction, and their earnestness in warning others from contaminating themselves with the prohibited things. Many injunctions of this kind are found in the writings of the Jewish rabbis; and the ancient Jewish sect of the Essenes (Notes, Matthew 3:7) abounded in precepts of this kind.

See Schoetgen, and Pict. Bib. in loc. “They allowed themselves no food that was pleasant to the taste, but ate dry, coarse bread, and drank only water. Many of them ate nothing until sunset, and, if anyone touched them who did not belong to their sect, they washed themselves as if they had been most deeply defiled. Perhaps there was at Colossae a society of this kind, as there were in many other places out of Judea; and, if there was, it is not improbable that many Christians imitated them in the uniqueness of their rules and observances;” compare Jenning’s Jew. Ant. i. 471, and Ros. Alt. u. neu. Morgenland, in loc. If this be the correct interpretation, then these are not the words of the apostle, forbidding Christians to have anything to do with these ordinances, but are introduced as a specimen of the manner in which they who enjoined the observance of those ordinances pressed the subject on others.

There were certain things which they prohibited, in conformity with what they understood to be the law of Moses; and they were constantly saying, in regard to them, “do not touch them, taste them, handle them.” These words are often used as a kind of motto in reference to the use of intoxicating drinks. They express very well what is held by the friends of total abstinence; but it is obvious that they had no such reference as used by the apostle, nor should they be alleged as an authority, or as an argument, in the question about the propriety or impropriety of the use of spirituous liquors. They may as well be employed in reference to anything else as that, and would have no authority in either case. Intoxicating drinks should be abstained from; but the obligation to do it should be made to rest on solid arguments, and not on passages of Scripture like this. This passage could with more plausibility be pressed into the service of the enemies of the total abstinence societies, than into their support; but it really has nothing to do with the subject, one way or the other.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 21. Touch not; taste not; handle not — These are forms of expression very frequent among the Jews. In Maccoth, fol. xxi. 1: "If they say to a Nazarite, Don't drink, don't drink; and he, notwithstanding, drinks; he is guilty. If they say, Don't shave, don't shave; and he shaves, notwithstanding; he is guilty. If they say, Don't put on these clothes, don't put on these clothes; and he, notwithstanding, puts on heterogeneous garments; he is guilty." See more in Schoettgen.


 
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