2:18 worship of angels. This can be taken as a reference to practices found among some Jewish mystics, whose goal was to participate in angelic worship before the throne of God and to attain to ecstatic prayer through asceticism and strict observance of the Torah. In this case, “worship of angels” would mean “worship along with angels.” This line of interpretation assumes that the false teachers actually practiced a more-or-less orthodox Judaism and wanted to worship God. But the appearance given by Colossians is that the church was being tempted to worship not God but spirits intermediate between God and humans (Introduction: Interpretive Difficulties).