EVERY TIME I go onto the Internet, even just to check my email, my web browser inundates me with links that have nothing to do with why I logged on in the first place. The browser’s built-in AI already knows the links I’m most likely to click, and serves up related content. Don’t you want to read this story about the latest political intrigue or natural disaster? Did you hear about the terrible thing that happened to this celebrity? Ooh, here’s a quick and delicious recipe to try. Oh, and while you’re doing that, here’s some advice on what you need to do to stay healthy!

If I click a link, it may take me to a story or article that I actually want to read; but more often than not, that story is hidden behind a paywall. Sorry, you’ve reached your limit of free articles. But you can subscribe for just a dollar — for the first month, anyway. Just click this enormous button right here to subscribe. Oh, you want to know how much it’s going to cost you after that. That’s in the fine print.

Shopping is worse. Browse for something without buying it, and you can expect it to keep popping up in your browser later, along with other items related to it that you might want to buy instead. And that’s the point: all of this is designed to capture your attention — literally, to take your attention captive — and get you to buy something.

The apostle Paul, I’m sure, could not possibly have imagined the world we live in now, a world of computer algorithms and artificial intelligence, of things bought and sold without any physical currency passing from one hand to another. But that’s not to say he knew nothing about people’s attention and imagination being taken captive by others who had something to sell.

AS PAUL BEGINS the main section of his letter to the Colossians, he summarizes right up front what he wants them to do overall, and what he doesn’t want them to do. We looked at that first and more positive lesson last time: he wants them to be rooted in Jesus and the apostolic gospel, filled with gratitude for what they’ve received:

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (Col 2:6-7, NIV)

But he moves quickly from the “dos” to the “don’ts”:

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. (vs. 8)

Paul isn’t objecting to philosophy itself. At root, after all, the word means the “love of wisdom.” Paul could throw down with Athenian intellectuals as he did on Mars Hill, even quoting the Greek philosopher Epimenides (Acts 17:28). The problem isn’t philosophy per se, but what the New International Version translates as “hollow and deceptive philosophy,” or literally, “philosophy and empty deceit,” which can imply trickery or fraud.

Jesus, for example, uses the same language to speak of the “deceitfulness of wealth” in his parable of the soils (Matt 13:22). Worldly wealth seems to promise security, but that promise is a lie that keeps the implanted gospel of the kingdom from flourishing in a person’s life, like a seedling being choked out by weeds. Similarly, Paul wants the gospel to take deep root and flourish in Colossae. But the problem here isn’t the deceptiveness of wealth but the deceptiveness of false philosophies which depend on human traditions. This is probably less about the love of true and godly wisdom than it is about the love of appearing wise.

But what does Paul mean by “the elemental spiritual forces of this world”? The phrase “elemental spiritual forces” is only one word in the Greek, and its meaning has been endlessly debated and variously translated. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, refers to “empty superstitions of spirit beings,” paraphrasing Paul in a way that’s similar to the NIV. The New American Standard goes more broadly by referring to the “elementary principles” of the world, and the Common English Bible goes more broadly still, with Paul pointing to “the way the world thinks and acts.”

We don’t have to choose one and only one reading. After all, before they heard about Jesus, the Colossians likely believed in a whole pantheon of gods, deities, and cosmic beings who were thought to have power over human affairs and whose rules needed to be followed. Think, for example, of what Paul tells the Galatians:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? (Gal 4:8-9)

“Forces”: that’s the same word Paul uses in Colossians, and again, it can be translated more broadly as “principles.” But either way, Paul’s point is that the gospel brings freedom from legalistic religion, and turning back to legalism in whatever form, old or new, is to subject oneself to slavery all over again.

That’s why Paul tells the Colossians not to let themselves be taken “captive” by false philosophies. The word is used only once in the New Testament, and pictures someone making off with booty or plunder. It’s vivid language. To be deceived is not merely to commit an error of judgment; it’s to let yourself be kidnapped.

WE LIVE IN what many are calling an “attention economy.” People with something to sell are vying for our attention, luring us with clickbait. And in some ways, much of what we click may seem relatively harmless. What isn’t harmless, however, is how accustomed we’ve become to having our attention hijacked. We click here, we click there, sometimes even forgetting why we opened our browser in the first place.

Paul may not have been able to envision the technological society we live in now. But in a way, he did understand the importance of not giving our attention to every shiny new thing that comes our way. And as we’ll see, to reinforce his teaching, he will put before the Colossians once again the cosmic Christ, the one who is supreme over every philosophy and every spiritual being.