Road Trippin’ with Paul: Are you Legalistic or Lax?
It’s worth asking what faithfulness looks like.
When I worked at Pine Haven, a Christian summer camp in Minnesota, back in the 1970s we had this old washing machine with an old-fashioned wringer. You would feed the wet clothes through rubber rollers which would squeeze out all the water. Units like that were built before the age of “automatic safety shut off” features. I learned the hard way you don’t want to get your hand stuck in there.
Which brought clarity to the expression “he’s been through the wringer.”
Antique Wringer Washing Machine with White Linen Cloth by egiadone
Once in a while you meet a rare person who seems like they truly “get” grace – someone for whom grace is not a theological concept, but a deeply lived daily disposition, an outlook on people and life.
It seems these people have all been through the wringer.
Paul became “the apostle of grace” which is crazy considering where he came from.
The Temple in Jerusalem was the center of Judaism, the place where heaven and earth met. At the Temple God revealed himself to his people, the locus of God’s presence and holiness.
When the Jews became scattered throughout the Roman Empire, many lived far away from the Holy City. When they came back from the Babylonian exile the synagogue became the center of local spiritual life for God’s people, Israel. It was a tether tying them to the Temple, the Torah, and the one True God.
I’ve seen excavated remains of nearly intact synagogues from the first and second century. I remember a low chair carved from stone in the center of the room. It was called “Moses’ seat” where the rabbis sat when they read from the Law and Prophets while the people stood out of reverence.
Concrete Seats in Ancient Theater by @casoly2
Next door to the synagogue a small building housed important work: the bet midrash or “the house of learning” It was filled with Jewish boys studying the Torah – those first five books of the Hebrew scriptures (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). Sitting at the feet of the rabbi those lads would hear the story of God’s special relationship with their ancestors – and with THEM.
They would learn things like:
We are children of Abraham.
God has chosen us from among all nations to be set apart, to worship him alone.
God rescued us from Egypt where we were slaves and gave us a land of our own. But we were not faithful, and bowed at the feet of idols, so God allowed our ancestors to be taken away into Babylonian exile.
After 70 years God rescued us again and returned our ancestors to their homes, but now slavery has come on us again as the Romans rule over us, occupying our land. So again, we wait on God’s Deliverance.
That is why we loyally honor the Temple, study the Torah, and must remain faithful to the one True God. Because in doing so, we bring the time near when God will again Deliver us.
As those boys memorized scriptures and learned Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, no doubt one little guy named Saul stood out.
He learned how to make tents from his father, a trade he would utilize throughout his life. But his father was a Pharisee as well, which meant little Saul not only went to bet midrash school, but he watched his father ceremonially wash his hands throughout the day, as good Jewish men did. Little Saul no doubt studied how his dad measured out a tenth of his spices so that he could tithe accurately even the smallest items. He surely observed his father tie a phylactery to his forehead – that strange little leather box filled with bits of holy scroll, and another to his arm with long strips.
Men with Phylactery by rick734's Images
So little Saul went to class, studied the scriptures, kept the Law, prayed the prayers, and grew to be LOYAL -- believing that was his role in God’s plan. He knew his special place in Israel’s history: if he and his people expected to break free of Roman occupation, they absolutely HAD to remain perfectly faithful to the Torah, the Temple, and the one True God.
This meant any hint of disloyalty must be corrected by any means necessary. If someone didn’t take God seriously, they were a contaminant in the people of God, and needed to be straightened up or shipped out. Because only as God’s people were perfectly loyal and pure would God as Deliverer come!
In order to help this project along, you may need to flog some folk, put a few in prison, or even kill some. That was not too great a price to pay in order to keep God’s people pure and hasten the Messiah’s coming.
It’s easy to bash the Pharisees. But you understand their motive was pure, right? They were desperate to please God. To stay pure. No cost was too high if it meant being faithful to God and ushering in God’s deliverance. Pollutants must be flushed out – a responsibility the Pharisees took very seriously.
Sometimes we’re so convinced we’re on God’s side, even Jesus can’t talk us out of it.
Judging Man Holding a Bible by Ivan Samkov from Pexels
When Jesus came along, He understood their noble goal of keeping Israel faithful to God. He never condemned that. But he does correct the way we are to express that faithfulness.
Jesus quotes from their own prophet Isaiah to remind them they had lost sight of God’s heart behind the Law. To keep folk obeying God’s commands, they built man-made traditions around them, and emphasized those so strongly they missed the intent of the law they were trying to uphold.
“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.” (Jesus in Mark 7:6-7, quoting Isaiah 29:13)
“You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition.” (Mark 7:9)
Shanna Noel says, “The Pharisees were considered the spiritual leaders who most accurately interpreted the law. This is what motivated them to build ‘hedges’ around each law. The idea was to establish so many standards around the law that one would have to break them all before he was in danger of violating the law itself. This is what Jesus called “traditions of men.” The problem with the Pharisees’ ‘hedges’ arose when they began to judge each other on how well they kept these man-made rules.”
Saul was taught the importance of keeping the law from an early age. Jesus later opened his eyes to recognize his narrow focus on keeping the law caused him to lose the heart and intent behind the law – and the God behind the law.
When they asked Jesus to sum up the whole Law, he wasn’t unclear: “Love God with everything you’ve got. And love your neighbor as yourself. When you miss that, you’re missing everything.”
Obeying the scriptures faithfully, closely, scrupulously, is not a bad thing.
But when God’s word fails to lead us to love God and neighbor, and instead becomes a weapon to judge others, we’re doing it wrong.
Young Saul couldn’t see this. He was convinced being “faithful” meant correcting people who were not following the scriptures (and traditions) closely enough.
It is only after he met the living Christ and had been through the wringer that he becomes the apostle of grace. Then he came to adopt the “law of love.” After the risen, living Christ changed his heart, this former Pharisee and keeper of the Law shouted as loudly as he could, “And now faith, hope, and love remain, just these three things. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)
That should tell us something.
Jesus Comforting by Pete Will
Saul hunted down, threatened and even killed a bunch of followers of the Messiah. His condemnations were based on being righteous, faithful, bold, zealous. He was absolutely sure he was doing God a favor in doing so.
But then we see him transformed from judgment to love.
Going through God’s wringer will do that to you.
Let’s get personal:
If there was a “spirit of judgment” meter on your heart, how high would it register lately?
Think of times you tend to judge others. Who do you tend to judge more harshly – other Christians you feel are lazy, unfaithful, and don’t follow Christian ways? Or people (maybe unbelievers) who live, speak and act in ways that are offensive to you?
You have probably seen someone who struck you as legalistic, who emphasized their understanding of “faithfulness” but lacked the law of love and missed the heart of God behind the scriptures. You have likely also seen someone who struck you as lax, who spoke of “having grace” and “being loving” but left you feeling like they were not taking God’s holiness or God’s Word seriously. Who comes to mind as someone who is devout and committed to the scriptures without being legalistic? Someone who is full of grace, but also to being faithful?
Faithfulness to God usually means moving one direction or the other: toward greater LOYALTY to the Word (away from LAXITY) or, alternatively, toward greater LOVE and grace (away from LEGALISM). Would Jesus say your greater problem is too much LAXITY with the Word, or too much LEGALISM with it? Would the Holy Spirit most likely want you to move more toward LOYALTY to obeying God’s word or LOVE and grace toward people?