Tag: legalism

You Live For Whatever You Love (Luke 16:14-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year B1 Comment

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

“The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.

“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (New International Version)

No one can serve two masters. Everyone is committed to something, based upon who or what they are truly serving. Everybody has a master which informs them of ultimate values in life.

In other words, we live for what or whom we love.

Money

The Gospel writer Luke flatly and unequivocally mentioned the Pharisees as loving money. They lived for it. Money was their ultimate value.

With money as master, God is not.

If one’s thoughts, desires, and motives are fueled by Master Money, then that person can say they love and serve God, but they would be lying through their teeth.

If one’s activities are dominated by investments, buying and selling, and conversations with financial planners, then it isn’t God to whom they are praying; Mammon is their God.

The servants of Master Money may attempt to justify themselves, and rationalize their service to Mammon. They might talk about how much they give to charitable organizations, support their local church with monetary gifts, and underwrite a community building project. Yet, the real muster of benevolence is to whom all the money is truly being directed.

Money itself is not the problem; it’s the love of money that’s the issue (1 Timothy 6:10). Such a love of money had taken root into the Pharisee’s heart. They were offended by the words of Jesus, who exposed their true master.

Kingdom

The religious leaders claimed to be all about the Mosaic Law – which is why Jesus addressed this. In Christ’s view, the law and the prophets were until John the Baptist. John’s ministry caused a kerfuffle, because he was the forerunner of Messiah. He pointed to Jesus as the hoped for Savior.

The kingdom of God was at hand. But the religious establishment was too rooted in money as their ultimate deliverer.

Jesus is the Son over God’s house, and the Ruler of God’s empire. Christ is the kingdom. Since the time of John, the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is pressing into it.

Multitudes of people flocked and followed Jesus in his earthly ministry. They listened to him talk of God’s kingdom being near. They seized hold of it, striving and pressing to get in.

There were folks who dropped everything, gave up everything, and forsook everything, just to pursue the kingdom of God. Their press toward the kingdom was a reflection of their values. And money had nothing to do with it.

Those who are Christians, in name only, may know something of Jesus and might talk a good line of theology, but they are far from the kingdom of God. They talk, but they don’t press. Someone who presses cries out with the psalmist:

How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God. (Psalm 84:1-2, NIV)

Someone who presses is ready and willing to do some heavy spiritual lifting. They’ll put in the time and the effort toward the kingdom of God. It’s Jesus they think about, not money.

Law

Believers and followers of Jesus are concerned for what God cares about. And Jesus was concerned about Holy Scripture. He intended on keeping every jot and tittle of the Torah, the Law.

Although we have many differing interpretations of varying passages in the Bible, Jesus is still concerned for the fulfillment of all God’s good promises. Our own angst about upholding the Bible isn’t shared by Christ. Our arguments and divisions don’t sway Jesus into our anxiety.

Christ knows that every word of God shall not fail. It would be easier for the world to spontaneously blow up than for any one word of God to fall away unfulfilled. Money and stuff will pass away, but not God’s Word.

The basic moral and ethical will and law of God hasn’t gone anywhere. Just because the Ten Commandments are not posted publicly anywhere, doesn’t mean they have disappeared.

God’s holy law is like a mirror in front of us, showing us how we are to judge ourselves. The Apostle Paul likened the law to a schoolmaster that drives us to Christ (Galatians 3:24-27).

Furthermore, the law acts as a restraint to evil in the world. It has the value of revealing to us what is not pleasing to God. And if I am pressing into the kingdom of God, I want to know what God loves and hates.

The Pharisees were supposedly the experts in God’s law. Some folks are quite hard on the Pharisees. Yet, rather than bashing on them as a group of people, we need to let the law be our own mirror; we must be concerned with our own righteousness, or lack thereof.

It’s easy for us, along with the old Pharisees, to be legalists – adding principles and traditions to the law that are not the law itself. Holding to these traditions can become as important, or more, as the actual law. They can end up becoming the standard we judge everything by, instead of the actual law, as it is.

Divorce

The morass of traditions surrounding the law is what Jesus was referring to in speaking about divorce. Christ had no use for a husband who could divorce his wife for various incidents, including not being pretty anymore, breaking a dish, or burning the toast.

All of that rigmarole was why Jesus came back to affirming the sanctity of marriage. He pointed out that divorce under conditions of tradition, not law, were tantamount to adultery. Christ was thinking of women’s rights.

In a society in which women were dependent upon men for having their needs met, Jesus did not want women to experience injustice from men. In God’s economy, men are neither free to do whatever they want with women, nor with marriage. Their money needs to be used for wife and family, and not in cleverly contrived ways to get around the law.

We live for what we love. If someone loves money, it will not end well for them. If someone loves God and doing God’s will, then there is life and peace.

Let’s just make sure that we are truly doing God’s will, and not our own secret or unconscious intentions. Because no one can serve two masters.

Blessed God, help me to do Your revealed will fully, gladly, and immediately; and to love You with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Enable us all to love our neighbors as ourselves; and to seek the good of people from everywhere. Save us from being unhappy Christians. Deliver us from the sinful habit of complaint. May we rejoice in You, be constant in prayer, and give thanks in all circumstances; through Jesus Christ our Lord, in the strength of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Develop a Virtuous Ethic (Matthew 7:15-20)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” (New Living Translation)

God has always been concerned for ethical virtue. And Jesus was always careful to take that ethic and help others identify it and apply it.

Virtuous ethics was well-known in the ancient world, especially thanks to the Greeks and Aristotle – who espoused that a person’s character is the determinative factor in discerning the extent to which that person is a good person.

For Aristotle, ethics includes moral virtues such as courage, temperance, compassion, generosity, honesty, and justice. The person in whom these moral virtues are to be found as steadfast dispositions can be relied on to exhibit a good character, and therefore, is able to make morally correct actions in moral decision-making situations.

For Jesus, religious legalism was a clear outward sign of the lack of inward moral virtue. Bad religion was a result of bad character. Therefore, everyone ought to beware of the religious leaders who exhibited stifling religious legalism.

Nothing can choke the heart and soul out of a person’s true spirituality, and hinder the development of virtue, like the legalist who teaches a precise extra-biblical list of do’s and don’ts.

For many folks, it seems easier to live by the list than to pursue the harder road of developing the character qualities needed for a solid and virtuous religious ethic. Christian discipleship involves growing into spiritual maturity and allowing a seasoned character to shape how we make decisions. 

To do so, we must patiently and consistently follow in the way of Jesus, which is the way of grace and of life.

Today’s Gospel lesson is Christ’s conclusion to his Sermon on the Mount. It is a sermon that sets forth the values of God’s kingdom and devalues the core of legalistic thought. 

I define legalism as a compulsion to spell out, in great detail, how everyone is to live a godly life; purposely going beyond the stated commands of Holy Scripture so that all persons can know exactly what they are supposed to do in any situation.

The problem with this approach to the Christian life is that godliness is merely an outward expression of our ability to hold to the list. It really has nothing to do with cultivating a virtuous ethic of life.

“Do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see.”

Jesus on the legalist (Matthew 23:3-5, NIV)

The legalistic way of life and religion feeds human pride and boasting; it goes against the inner heart values of humility and meekness in Christ’s Beatitudes. The teaching of Jesus ends up getting lost in trying to do everything right or perfect.

Jesus, through the Sermon on the Mount, led the crowd to a point of decision, letting them know they are at a crossroads. There are two alternatives: Choose the way of life as expressed in Christ’s teaching, or else choose the way of destruction through the legalistic list. In order to press the crowd toward the necessity of choosing wisely, Jesus used metaphors to make his point.

False teaching in the form of legalism is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Be wary of people who seem pious and sincere, yet who do not quite pass the smell test. After all, Satan himself, the Apostle Paul once said, masquerades as an angel of light, appearing righteous, yet, is intent on deceiving many. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)

So, how do we recognize a wolf who spiritually and emotionally devours people, and has no intention of helping but harming? Look at the fruit of the tree. 

Jesus is the good tree. Christ advocates for a searching of the heart. This leads to the result of righteous fruit. The bad tree is also seen by its fruit. Anyone who fails to live the Beatitudes of Jesus will be seen by the rotten fruit of boasting and pride.

False teachers tend to believe they are above others. After all, they are experts at keeping the list of do’s and don’ts! Yet, a false disciple will always be shown by their profound lack of grace, gentleness, and genuine humility. They inevitably advocate for holding to their brand of religion and keeping the unscriptural list. The absence of true righteousness and justice in their lives eventually results in their being cut down and thrown into the fire.

For Jesus, there is no riding the fence between the two alternatives presented – and it is a matter for him of life and death. The way of Jesus leads to life, good fruit, entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and stability. The other alternative ends in destruction, bad fruit and fire, exclusion from the kingdom, and being ruined.

The sobering reality of Christ’s teaching is that many people can be deceived with a devil’s bargain: “Take the nice handy legalistic list and you will become godly. Here are twelve principles to change your life. Follow these rules, pray this prayer, give your money to this, and all will be well.” It is, however, a highway to the grave.

The false teacher proclaims himself a “fruit inspector” and then goes on to judge everyone by his own contrived legalistic list. So then, there is a need to repent of religious lists, political agendas, and teachings which ignore and demean Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.

One of the telltale signs of holding to a conjured list is when we are not honest with one another about our struggles. The bald fact of list-living is that we cannot fulfill it. So, when we know we are not measuring up to the list, the temptation is to keep up appearances as if we are doing just fine. 

List-living eschews showing any weakness or imperfection:

  • I cannot admit my sin to anyone because the list pronounces me a failure if I do. 
  • I cannot enter a deep and prolonged grief over my loss because the list says I need to stay strong. 
  • I cannot profess my doubts about God because the list says if I doubt, I am not a real Christian.

My response and recommendation to legalistic list-living is this: To hell with the list! 

Instead, give praise to Jesus Christ who has given us the way of grace! For it is grace which transforms hearts, turns lives around, and provides genuine joy and satisfaction. If grace is not the answer, we are not asking the right question. The tree of life has an abundant supply of gracious fruit.

The greatest anti-legalistic prayer we can pray is the tried and true ancient prayer of the Church: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Restoring True Religion (Micah 1:1-5)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—the vision he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Hear, you peoples, all of you,
    listen, earth and all who live in it,
that the Sovereign Lord may bear witness against you,
    the Lord from his holy temple.

Look! The Lord is coming from his dwelling place;
    he comes down and treads on the heights of the earth.
The mountains melt beneath him
    and the valleys split apart,
like wax before the fire,
    like water rushing down a slope.
All this is because of Jacob’s transgression,
    because of the sins of the people of Israel.
What is Jacob’s transgression?
    Is it not Samaria?
What is Judah’s high place?
    Is it not Jerusalem? (New International Version)

What is true religion?

Divine union with God is the whole point of religion.

In saying that, you may have reacted reflexively or viscerally. That’s because it’s likely that your experience of religion has been anything but a mystical and wondrous connection with the Lord. The religious trappings, that you perhaps grew up with, were anything but helpful in knowing God.

That is both unfortunate and sad. In the absence of genuine unity with God, moralism diabolically worms its way into religion to replace spiritual practices of helpful connection, with legalistic rules of unhelpful separation.

Religion gets a bad rap. That’s likely because how we may typically think about it is really no religion, at all. True religion has a singular aim: how to connect us with the divine, that is, how to make one out of two. If we have to keep overcoming man-made obstacles in order to connect with God, this is irreligious, not religious.

How ought we to understand sin?

As a little test to this, as you read today’s Old Testament lesson from the prophet Micah, did you assume that the sins of Israel had to do with disobeying the rules, of breaking the law, of immoral worship? Or did you wonder if the sins of the people had to do with all the ways they created distance and separation between themselves and God?

The word of the Lord to the prophet Micah was not speech directed against the usual supposed devils of secularism or scientism. Instead, God was deeply concerned about the things that widened the gap between God and the people.

A divine/human union, a loving relationship between the Lord and people, an intimate knowing of one another, has always been at the heart of God’s understanding of religion. Anything less is demonic. God desires a mutual knowing and seeing, and not setting up altars which block the connection.

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

Meister Eckhart

Have we become separated?

Israel had lost their connection with God, and so, were no longer participating with the Lord in the divine/human cooperative of love. And God was not letting this happen without a clarion call to come back to the relationship.

The language of coming down from heaven and melting things is a reference to eliminating all the obstacles that stand in the way to true religion. The Lord will cataclysmically level everything in order to smooth the way between God and God’s people.

The capital cities, Samaria of Israel and Jerusalem in Judah, were the offenders in creating the blockage. Their high places of worship will be leveled to pave the road for unhindered fellowship; and a renewed and restored religion, based upon social justice for all, economic equity, and inclusive practices.

The severed connection with God became the fodder for all sorts of unjust thoughts and actions.

Woe to those who plan iniquity,
    to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
    because it is in their power to do it.
They covet fields and seize them,
    and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
    they rob them of their inheritance.

Shall I acquit someone with dishonest scales,
    with a bag of false weights?
Your rich people are violent;
    your inhabitants are liars
    and their tongues speak deceitfully. (Micah 2:1-2; 6:11-12, NIV)

Idolatry, in the guise of alternative forms of worship, is sinful in the sense that it’s humanity’s attempt at having their ultimate needs met outside of the religion given to them. Religion must be a conduit for enabling us to spiritually connect with the Lord. Establishing practices which marginalize God put people at risk of becoming feral worshipers who run about doing everything but discovering their true selves and the one true God.

It is time for us to recognize and celebrate that we are connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to God and each other is grounded in love and compassion.

How do I make a spiritual connection?

There are three dimensions to the spirit: the head (thoughts), the heart (emotions), and the gut (actions).  Each dimension is meant to work together in alignment so that we can move forward toward healing, health, wholeness, integrity, peace, and relationship.

  • The Head deals with questions such as, “Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Who is God?”
  • The Heart considers our emotional selves by asking,“What am I feeling? What is my view of God? How do I give and receive love?”
  • The Gut taps into the embedded image of God within us by contemplating, “What is the good life? To whom will I show compassion? Will I listen to myself and others?”

My friends, we have 15 prophetic books in the Bible because this problem of messed up religion has become an awful impediment to genuine spirituality. It was not only a problem all those millennia ago; it’s still an issue today.

So, let’s take a serious reading of the prophet Micah, and his prophetic biblical companions; and let us restore and renew true religion among ourselves, so that humanity can become the just and good people we were always destined to be by our Creator.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them peace, which is the fruit of righteousness, so that they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

It’s All About Faith, Grace, and Love (Galatians 5:7-12)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.

As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves! (The Message)

It’s a beautiful thing when someone comes to faith, connects with their spiritual self, and discovers a deep truth about their need and how to meet it. It’s like starting a whole new life of wonder and freedom.

But then, someone else comes along and questions the life-giving and life-improving project. And, in their estimation, grace needs a bit of help, and love isn’t quite enough. This someone throws doubt on the nature of faith. Then, like a naïve computer user caught in a phishing email scam, they’re caught in a worldwide web of deceit, half-truths, and false teaching.

The Apostle Paul was both sad about and frustrated with the Galatian Church for giving into the scam without even having the spiritual sense to know that they had been duped.

I have found throughout my Christian life that folks with a past in which they did not live by grace, but only looked out for themselves, have a temptation to embrace strict rules from legalistic teachers after they come to faith in Christ. They know what it feels like to not have Jesus in their lives, so they sometimes go beyond Scripture and become open to imposing standards on themselves, and then others, in order to keep on the straight and narrow.

If, and when, that happens, the Apostle Paul has something to say about it. Embracing certain practices to obtain or maintain a right standing with God and others means absolutely nothing. There’s no spiritual value in it. And, in fact, it’s even destructive.

For the Galatian Church who bought the snake oil of strict outward rule-keeping, Paul had strict words. Here is how one version of the New Testament puts it:

“You people who are trying to be made righteous by the Law have been estranged from Christ. You have fallen away from grace! We eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness through the Spirit by faith. Being circumcised or not being circumcised doesn’t matter in Christ Jesus, but faith working through love does matter.” (Galatians 5:4-6, CEB)

Any Christian tradition or individual believer which ignores God’s grace in favor of controlling one’s own faith through certain rules is no Christianity, at all. Paul will have nothing to do with it.

The Apostle’s position was clear and pointed. We are called to freedom, and we are to use that freedom to serve others through love. Freedom is not something where we do whatever we want without regard to others. That is selfishness, not freedom.

Freedom is a gift of grace. It is given to us so that we will live freely into who we are meant to be as humanity. That means there are to be no obstacles of extra-biblical or unbiblical rules impeding us in realizing our full potential as Christians saved by grace through faith.

The possibilities of grace through faith include full unhindered expressions of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control for the benefit of ourselves and the entire community of the redeemed.

Grace is the currency of God’s kingdom, flowing freely through love. God has your back – not because you have a superior form of righteousness – but because grace has already given us everything we need for life and godliness in this present evil age. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

God’s amazing grace forgives, and never runs out. God’s love endures and never withdraws. When we grab hold of this essential and beautiful truth about God with spiritual gusto, then the only rule we want to keep is to love one another.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.

Romans 13:8, NIV

Outward displays of righteousness and piety for all to see how spiritual we are is like a dog returning to it’s vomit. Once we get the bad stuff out of our spiritual stomach, it makes no sense whatsoever to turn around and gobble it up again. If grace is what’s needed for deliverance, then grace is good enough to sustain us throughout the entirety of the Christian life.

For when we are in union with Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor the lack of it makes any difference at all; what matters is faith that works through love. (Galatians 5:6, GNT)

Are there any practices, rules, beliefs, or doctrines you impose on yourself which are burdensome to you, or others?  Why do you do them?  Do you expect others to keep them?  What would change if you threw grace and love into the mix?

May the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit be with you, now and forever. Amen.