Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Woe
Luke 11:46
And He said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
There is a young man in our church who recently came to faith in Jesus and got baptised. Since his baptism, we have been teaching him the fundamentals of the faith using materials that have been found to be effective in this area. Everything was going well, or so I thought until he called me to discuss the rules.
Apparently, someone close to him had been telling him that since he has been baptised he should know the rules and follow them. He was concerned that I had not given him any of the rules. I sat down with him and tried to explain that there were no rules as such. We are in a relationship with Jesus and His Holy Spirit produces fruit in our lives as the relationship grows and as a result, more and more each day we live the way God wants us to live. Our goal is that Christ is formed in us.
My friend is not happy. If I would just give him some rules life would be simple, he would know what to do and what not to do. Waiting for the Holy Spirit might take a long time and he might do the wrong things in the meantime.
It is amazing that we continue to reduce relationship with Jesus to a set of rules. Contrary to any notions we may have to the contrary people like rules. While they may not like a particular rule they like the idea of rules. And, we recognise that for many things there must be rules. For example, there must be rules for the road, if not there would be chaos and carnage on the roadways and so on.
Relationship with Jesus is different, however, because people like rules, church leaders have embraced the idea of rules and often reduce faith and relationship with God to rules, a list of dos and don’ts.
One of the six woes that Jesus declared in this encounter with the religious leaders was based on the common practice to set rules, regulations, and demands on the people of God that made following Him and relationship with Him very difficult for people. These leaders themselves then find ways to be exempt from such rules.
All through the New Testament, the teaching is about liberty and not bondage. In fact, the apostle James, in an interesting turn of phrase, in his letter writes about the “law of liberty.”
The apostle Paul, writing to the Galatian Christians, tackles this issue frontally. He establishes that there was always a tendency to attack liberty and establish rules by which to control people. At the time, he was referring particularly to those who wanted to include circumcision into the requirements to be a member of the church. “And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage),” Galatians 2:4
In Chapter 5 of the letter to the Galatians, the apostle continued on this matter of liberty, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1. Later, he does issue a warning about how our liberty is to be used writing, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Galatians 5:13.
One of the easiest ways to detect that something is wrong is when our leaders start to replace the word of God with a set of rules. The scriptures are our rule of faith, not rules set up by others. The apostle Peter came down very hard on those false teachers in the second chapter of his second letter.
That this practice remains today, in an age of so much knowledge, is very troubling. But, as we have seen in the last few elections in the United States and Europe, it is easier now to spread fake and false information as truth in an effort to deceive many. Even formerly trustworthy news sources have been uncovered as purveyors of things that are untrue. The same will be true in church, without the scriptures as our information source and rule of faith, we will be brought into bondage by purveyors of rules and demands that are simply not true. Online could be very untrue.
Jesus had a word for them then as he does for them now, “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.” Luke 11:52
Think on these things:
- Are you trying to live your faith by a set of dos and don’ts or are you depending on the scriptures and the leading of the Holy Spirit?
- Do you believe that a set of rules would make it easier to live as a Christian?
- Does your church have a set of rules for Christian living in addition to the bible?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would learn to search the scriptures and depend on the leading of the Holy Spirit to grow in grace and knowledge of God.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex