[Cvengr]

I haven’t had time to perform that study. Feel free to help in conjugating the verb and sharing your study, if you like.

It reads as though it would be an interesting study, if those questions are indeed the right questions.

I recalled the verse from recent readings upon reading the third point, which I hadn’t seen as a qualifier form any dispensational studies I’ve seen, but I also haven’t focused on that aspect, so perhaps I’ve simply missed it in the past. I don’t know.

Some things are spiritually discerned and I suspect my recollection of the verse was spiritually initiated.

[Tzfat]

The verb is in the present tense. So, it indicates the things that are a "shadow" are things that are in process of being revealed - not a dispensational "past tense" where the "old things have been replaced by new things."

I am a Torah-observant Messianic believer (which means I am absolutely not dispensational). I once had a dear friend of mine (who is dispensational) take me to task for "keeping the Sabbath" and "not eating pork" etc. Then he quoted Colossians 2:16. I asked him to read it again, and then I said, "I am not judging you at all, so why are you judging me for those things." Of course, it had completely escaped his notice that the passage could be read exactly the opposite of what he was used to seeing.

It is my conviction that this passage was being written to people who DID keep the Sabbath etc, and they were being told that instead, they should not - and to adopt a form of astheticism, founded upon man-made regulations ("don't touch" etc.). Further proof of this is found in Paul's use of stoicheion in verse 20 (elemetary elements) which in classical Greek refers to "earth, wind, and fire" - in other word, a form of asthetic paganism that was being coupled with biblical theology.