What does these verses mean?

[MatthewG]

Colossians 2:20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:

21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?

22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.

23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

 

[CPerkins]

The answers come in reading the fuller context of the entire chapter of Colossians 2. The first Greek word is οὖν (Strong's 3767) according to Thayer Greek Lexicon

a conjunction indicating that something follows from another necessarily;

So this is tell us that Paul is saying that based on what he said previously it follows ....

 

[Garee]

Colossians 2:20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:

21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?

22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.

23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

I would think rules that follow after the natural course of this corrupted creation with no vision of the unseen work of the spirit would be called children of "no faith" void of the faith of Christ as it is written. In that way its a flip of the coin .Give to God whats from Him and give to men that which is of them, the termporal

I would think we are given some keys to help us walk by or unlock the unseen understanding of eternal faith hid from those of no faith.

One of my favorite tools is shown below to I believe help rightfully divide or mix the things seen the temporal with the unseen faith eternal. A life time process .If he has begun the good work in us he promises to work with us till the end . (Philippians 1:6)

2 Corinthians 4: 18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.