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COLOSSIAN PHILOSOPHY: "BORROWED" FEATURES

I used to collect basketball cards. This was way back in the early 90s, though I still have held on to them. Basketball cards took off well after baseball cards, and each brand over time had its own unique features. Some were UV coated, others had gold foil on them, some had extensive stats, and some just had the best 'insert cards' or special cards that you’d find with varying odds per pack.

When I started collecting, there were only a few major brands – Fleer, Topps, Upper Deck. However, in the next few years, new brands started to branch off of the old, and some new competitors came into the forefront, as well. After a short while, there were TONS of brands. Many of the brands would take one good feature of another brand and then change everything else to make it unique. It was like a smorgasbord of questionable usefulness, and it was often very confusing to choose given the vast number of trading card brand options.

Anyway, this is similar to the way philosophies were in 60 AD, in the time of the boom of the Colossian church. Many simple philosophical theories would be 'borrowed from,' and other more complicated and sometimes completely different philosophies would branch off. In Colossae, there was a smorgasbord of empty philosophy, and many held eclectic beliefs about existence and the world around them.

(From a sermon by Sterling Franklin, Jesus Christ, the Preeminent One who Reconciles, 10/26/2010)

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