Resumè madness…

If you have a moment, please pray for me.  I have been sending resumès to churches for months and I have had very few bites.  I have had a number of churches call me and set up phone interviews, but nothing more beyond that.  This is where I’m at presently.  A church opportunity that, admittedly, I would love to have has set up a phone interview with me for next Monday evening.  As I said, I would love this opportunity, but I also want to be doing what God wants and nothing else.  Pray for me and pray for the church as they seek to make this decision.

Legalism in Seven Movements: Jagged Little Pill

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:23-24 TNIV)

Another dangerous aspect to legalism is that it truly does look like righteousness. Every letter of the Law is obeyed. Every ritual is preformed. The proper amount of money is given to the work of the church. The problem is, it only looks like righteousness, it isn’t really righteousness.

Legalism in Seven Movements: I Swear

Woe to you, blind guides! You say, “If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound by the oath.” You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, “If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but whoever swears by the gift on the altar is bound by the oath.” You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits in it. (Matthew 23:16-22 TNIV)

This indictment by Jesus against the Pharisees echoes other comments made by Jesus elsewhere against the Pharisees. In Matthew 15, He told them,

And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, “Honor you father and mother” and “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.” But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is “devoted to God,” they are not to “honor their father or mother” with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. (Matthew 15:3-6 TNIV)

What Jesus is getting at in both of these indictments is that they word their rules in such a manner that people are no longer bound by the commandments of God. In the first instance, they have made swearing by the money on the altar or the gold in the temple to have greater authority than swearing by the temple or altar itself. Most likely this was an excuse for the Pharisees to take public oaths and sound “Godly” but not be bound by those oaths later. It was a way for them to justify their sinful actions.

Legalism in Seven Movements: Converted to Hell

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and then you make that convert twice as much a child of hell as you are. (Matthew 23:14 TNIV)

While the adherent to legalism shuts heaven’s door in people’s faces, they are simultaneously zealous for the gospel. It is this combination that is so deadly. The gospel must be preached, but there are certain people who are unworthy to hear it. You don’t throw pearls before swine, so also you don’t share the gospel with certain types of people. At least that’s what they say.

Further than this, though, is the indictment that Jesus makes against these people. What makes His comment so powerful is that He is not totally critical.

Legalism in Seven Movements: Knocking on Heaven’s Door

At the end of my previous post, I mentioned the word “legalism.” I hear this word thrown around a lot within Christian circles. It comes up especially when someone says that, to be a Christian, you have to act in a certain way. It is almost as if the Christian community is so scared of falling into a works-based mentality that any talk of works is treated with contempt. But this is not biblically true. According to the Bible, if you have no actions to accompany your faith, then that faith is a waste of time. The Bible is clear that just believing is not enough because even demons believe the right things, but, obviously, they are not Christians.

So what is legalism? This is the question that I want to seek to answer in the next seven posts. We will base our entire discussion out of the words and teachings of Jesus Christ. Specifically, we will spend our time studying His comments toward the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23.

Christians and the Old Testament

Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. (Psalm 119:97 TNIV)

Since Jesus has fulfilled the Law, and we are now bound by grace rather than the Law, what are we supposed to do with it?

One thing we can’t do with it is just rip it out. There are a couple reasons for this. First, this would make the OT fairly useless. If you ripped out the Law and the Prophets, you would be left with some stories, a bit of history, some poems, pithy quotes, and some erotica. Practically speaking, this wouldn’t come in very handy. The stories would be left without any grounding, some of the poems would make no sense, and the pithy quotes…well…who needs more of those?

Old/New Testament Christianity

When it comes to the issue of the Old Testament (OT), Christians are at somewhat of a disadvantage over their Jewish and even Muslim counterparts. While the Jews adhere to the OT literally, and Muslims pay it lip-service, Christians are called to something radically different. What are we as Christians called to in regards to the OT? Let’s find out.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18 TNIV)

In this very loaded passage, I believe that Jesus lays out for us how He viewed the OT and how His followers are to treat it. What I am going to discuss here may be a bit controversial to some, but I think, if we are honest, we already behave this way toward it in practice, if not in how we speak. And if we don’t, I believe that this is how we ought.

Reflections On My Reading

As I read more of Richard Dawkins‘ The God Delusion, I am beginning to wonder if atheist scientists and Christian fundamentalists have too narrow a view of both science and religion. The religious use science only to 1) prove that God does exist, but only when it fits their particular understanding of creationism or 2) to make the point that science is out to “kill God” so to speak. Atheist scientists only use religion as proof that God doesn’t exist. The religious use religion to prove that everything was created ex nihilo. The scientist uses science to prove that everything came into being naturally.

But this doesn’t do either school of thought justice.

Why?

There is a serious problem with modern American Christianity, and it doesn’t seem as though those in leadership are interested in doing anything about it. The problem? We no longer have the answers to the questions that people are asking. People are asking “why” questions and we are giving “how” answers. And this obviously doesn’t solve anything. This obviously doesn’t answer any of their questions.

And yet we continue to do it. We continue to ignore the questions people are really asking and turn the conversation to things that we know how to talk about. How.

Hurts So Good

I was reading an article on RelevantMagazine.com, and I got to thinking about love and marriage.

Statistically, the divorce rate overall is something like 52%. But it is higher among Christians than anyone else. That being the case, it makes me wonder if something that we have been teaching for a really long time is even remotely true.