The Bondage of Religion
If you have ever visited a prison, you walk away realizing it's a horrible thing to be incarcerated. When you are locked up, you are a slave, you have no freedom. If you know anything about institutionalized incarceration you will also know that inmates learn to depend on and work the system. The system gives them security, it gives them a rhythm to their lives. They know exactly what they can do and not do. Their meals are given to them, the time for exercise is set, their work routines are assigned.
When and if they are released, many ex-convicts have trouble with freedom - they don't know what to do with it. Remember the nation of Israel, held as slaves in Egypt? God gave them their freedom, but many of them wanted to go back. They liked the security of someone giving them three square meals a day, even if it meant being in slavery.
Jesus came to set spiritual prisoners free. He came to make us free in Christ. He sets us free from religious bondage. Perhaps you have been spared from the experience of doing time in a dark spiritual dungeon. Perhaps the only face you have seen of corporate, institutionalized religion is bake sales, soup kitchens and church picnics on lazy, idyllic, long summer days. Maybe you have never been exposed to mind-numbing tirades about the burning coals of hell fire. Maybe you have not experienced religious authorities who prod and push you to give and give and give and do and do and do.
Maybe you haven't seen your life go up in smoke as you attempted to meet the rigorous demands of religious taskmasters who insisted on your endless, unceasing involvement in church activities, outreach projects, service "opportunities" and work parties until you had no time for your own family. Maybe you haven't experienced in your personal life, or that of your family or friends, the end result of religious legalism - people who are stuck in spiritual cages, without the Bread of Life, so that they slowly wither and die, spiritually.
If you haven't seen the harsh reality of religion, then you might think I am overstating the case. However, I assure you that religion is alive and well, and in some cases operating in the name of God, dishing up authoritarian oppression, deceiving via its propaganda, and making lives a living hell. Here are 12 basic ways to proclaim the gospel:
1) God's grace flows to us from Him, as an expression of who He is.
2) God is love - that is, love defines Him. He doesn't just have love as an attribute -- He IS love.
3) Jesus, He and He alone, is all we need. The cross of Christ is sufficient for our needs.
4) God's mercy, tenderness and compassion, particularly as revealed to us in the ministry of Jesus, reflects His absolute commitment to us.
5) The unity of God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit may dwell in us - His love is the anchor and foundation of the unity we have in Him.
6) We are given a new commandment and a new covenant by the blood of Christ. We are not under any old covenant regulations. Even the ten commandments are not the basis of our relationship with God, though they may be emphasized by some Christians. The basis of our relationship with God, and His toward us, is love. Love is the key, it is the sign by which we are known as Jesus followers.
7) God's relationship with us, as produced in our lives, can be summarized as: faith alone, grace alone and Christ alone.
8) God's love for us is in-spite-of love, as contrasted with conditional love given to us by other humans, which is because-of love.
9) Because of Jesus, we rest in Him. We give Him our burdens. He bears our guilt and shame. We have peace, we enjoy God's presence, by and through Jesus.
10) Jesus has done for us what we can never do for ourselves - He paid a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay.
11) Our relationship with God is not based on our merit. God is not, nor will He ever be, obligated to us because of our behavior. It is impossible for us to do something so good, so pure and holy to cause God to be compelled or required to pay us back. God is not, nor can He ever be, in debt to us.
12) God's grace is the act of receiving something we do not deserve, whereas His mercy is the spiritual reality that we fail to receive something we do deserve.
These twelve themes are simply ways in which we might explain and further understand God's amazing grace. God's grace is the reason the gospel is the gospel - good news. On the other hand, the fact that there is good news means that the flip side exists - there is such a thing as spiritual bad news. We need the good news because bad news exists. We are given freedom in Christ because of the reality of religious slavery and bondage. Therefore, you will hear the bad news spoken of in a variety of ways - here are six:
1) The word religion itself needs to be examined and defined. I define religion as any attempt on the part of human beings to improve or enhance their relationship with God on the basis of what they do and produce - their religious performance. Bad news religion is the enemy of God's grace. Religion, thus defined, is aligned against authentic Christianity.
2) Legalism is a virus that lurks within all of us, to some extent, and it particularly flourishes in religious settings. Religious settings provide a rich environment and fertile breeding ground for the growth and propagation of legalism. Like staph diseases in hospitals, legalism can be found in churches - this doesn't make hospitals or churches "bad" places - but it doesn't mean that either place, physically or spiritually, is the only way, or sometimes even the best way to be healed.
3) The book of James speaks of pure religion. That very reference demonstrates that there is a need to modify religion, for if there is such a thing as pure religion then surely impure religion exists. Impure religion is the flip side of God's grace and love. Impure religion is legalistic religion, the antithesis of freedom in Christ.
4) A number of adjectives are frequently used to help modify and define bad news religion - among them, oppressive religion, authoritarian religion, legalistic religion, corporate religion, institutionalized religion, rules-based religion, toxic religion, performance-based religion, and unhealthy religion. Thus let’s proclaim Christianity without the religion, religion-less Christianity.
5) Certain catch phrases are used to further define the tactics and methodologies of bad news religion - among them, a) the pills, potions, prescriptions of religion, and b) religious regimentations, rituals, restrictions and regulations.
6) Bad news religion condemns, manipulates, threatens and deceives. By contrast, "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). [Back to Home]
Gravitation and Trajectory
Kids like to experiment with the laws of physics, right? Well, I was no exception. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I was old enough to have an air rifle (affectionately known as a “bee-bee gun”) – probably about twelve years old.
I loved that gun. And I was pretty careful with it when I shot bee-bees. But one day I decided that I wanted to do more with my gun. I had the brilliant idea that the gun would probably shoot wooden matches. I tried it out by shooting matches against the brick wall of my home and discovered that the matches lit every time. Spectacular!
Then the devil whispered in my ear and gave me an idea. Here is the setting. My home was on a two-lane street and our front porch was relatively close to the street. The porch had a brick wall around it and if I hunkered down behind it, I was not at all visible from the street. Across the street there was a heavily traveled sidewalk because of a mom-and-pop grocery just down the block.
OK – have you got the devilish picture? I practiced at night shooting matches over the street aiming at the sidewalk on the other side. And I got darned good at hitting the sidewalk – here was my physics experiment with gravitation and trajectory.
So….I began hunkering down so as not to be seen and shooting matches near pedestrians on the opposite sidewalk. I loved to watch their reaction when the match lit up in front of them. They would jump back and look at it wondering what it was and whether it was safe to proceed. Then they would look around trying to find where it came from but, of course, I was well hidden.
I got away with this fun routine of shooting matches near pedestrians for a long time. I couldn’t get enough of it even though my giggling almost gave my location away at times.
Then it happened! One unfortunate soul was bombarded on his walk from the nearby grocery store and proceeded to drop his bag of groceries on the sidewalk with a resounding crash of glass. He was smarter than the rest and it didn’t take him long to figure out where it came from – and he stopped to do something about it. My heart sank as he charged across the street and up onto my porch. Evidence of my marksmanship was still plastered on the opposite sidewalk. He separated me from my gun and with a firm grip on my wrist knocked on our front door and had a short but meaningful conversation with my mother.
At the risk of sounding politically incorrect as well as having my parents misunderstood or misjudged, I received individual, timely, well placed, corporal punishment. In other words - it stung! I started to cry while I was still in therapy. And when my Dad heard about it, I received some more therapy which stung!
The notion that we can do as we please and not experience separation and pain from those we love has been around for a long time. An old lie is still a lie - and believing it still yields the same results. Distance from home only adds inertial weight to the mistake which finds its destructive mark. As children of our heavenly Father we have believed lies about Him that keep us running back to the porch and shooting matches because it is “fun”. Missing our mark in life (the literal meaning of the word “sin”) means attempting to make our own physics experiments in all the wrong places. As grownups, we try at times for the fun of “shooting our matches”. But God has reached farther than we can run. While we hope that the stupid things we've done won't come back to haunt us, we have each experienced enough of life to know that we reap what we sow. What goes up must come back down – or what lights up might cause groceries to fall.
But we were put here to grow up into children of God weren't we? Surely we all won’t become a permanent version of every stupid thing we've done! We're meant to see where we're headed and aim for plan and action which does our neighbor good instead of harm. The One who entered our life on this planet once for every man did so out of love for His creation and we are lifted to a higher calling and higher reward in Him. The One who came down for us was lifted back up with us in his arms. His discipline is always filled with hope and not hatred, diligence and not damnation. He knows the limits of our frame and our habitual weaknesses!
Thanks, Dad and Mom, for helping me realize that becoming good at hitting that sidewalk was really missing the mark. Thank you also for teaching me that what happened in our savior's life, death and resurrection eclipses anything we could mess up across the street, or anywhere else. Real dads love forever.[Back to Home]
Saying Grace Graciously
I have been thinking about how we “ask a blessing” at mealtime. I learned it as a child: “Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts which we are about to receive through thy bounty in Christ our Lord, Amen.”
In light of all the health problems, even among Christians, maybe we should say something like this:
“Please make this food healthful and nutritious, take out the impurities, restore the vitamins and minerals, remove the carcinogens and replace them with numerous antioxidants, make the calcium/magnesium ratio 2:1, annihilate the bad bacteria and put in some good bacteria. Please replenish the trace elements, make the pH 7.0, provide the electro-chemical energy for the synapses in our brains to snap properly, normalize the glucose, reduce cholesterol, and may it build strong bodies eight different ways. And, oh, yes, may it shrink our hemorrhoids. And please, God, don’t let me eat like a glutton. Amen.”
It would be nice if God would rearrange the atomic particles making them less full of calories and less hazardous to our health. If God would perform a miracle on the food we eat and make it healthier, and if God would miraculously make us close our mouth when we have had enough, wouldn’t that be the right thing to do for His children?
Many of us experience numerous health problems, often caused by years of poor diet. If we could just eat fries and get the nourishment of veggies.
Experience tells me that if I eat a sugary doughnut, it tastes like a sugary doughnut in my mouth, and I strongly suspect that it goes into my digestive tank as a blob of devitalized sugar and flour. Nutritionists tell us that the most nutritious part of a doughnut is the hole. I doubt that God would transform the solid portion into something healthful on the way down. Maybe I’m wrong, but won’t we assimilate pretty much whatever we poke into our mouths? Those Twinkies don’t turn into carrot juice.
In looking in the Bible, I could find only one incident of God cleansing food. It’s in 2 Kings 4:38-41. In this case the chow was so toxic that the diners would have died on the spot if God hadn’t intervened.
OK – since we don’t want to change what we eat or how much we eat, then what should the mealtime blessing consist of?
Scripture cites several occasions when Jesus prayed before eating. Matthew 14:19 uses the Greek word eulogeo, meaning “speak well of.” The King James translation reads, “he blessed” (the food). However, in John 6:11, which recounts the same event, the sense is “thank, be thankful.” The NIV translates both verses as Jesus “gave thanks.” Matthew 15:36 and Mark 8:6 are other examples where Jesus “gave thanks.”
Jesus didn’t ask the Father to purify and cleanse food. He simply expressed thanks to Him. Romans 14:6 speaks of giving God thanks for food, and 1 Timothy 4:3 says to receive food with thanksgiving.
Incidentally, we often use the phrase “saying grace.” The word “grace” comes from the Latin word gratia, meaning “good will” or “free gift”, and implies “thanks”. It’s the origin of the Spanish word gracias or “thank you.”
It seems to me that since we can’t count on God purifying our food or keeping us from eating too much, it is up to us to control the quantity and quality of what we eat. Our part of the equation is self-control using the strength of Jesus Christ living within us and not depending on our own weaknesses.
We live in a society where “Give us this day our daily bread” is just a formality. Let’s remember those millions around the world where food is scarce – for them every meal is something to be grateful for. As recipients of God’s generosity, we can give abundant thanks for the food our Father so graciously provides. [Back to Home]
If God gives us everything by His grace - what about rewards?
Jesus spoke of God rewarding people for charitable giving, for prayer and for fasting:
"But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matthew 6:3-4).
"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matthew 6:6).
"But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matthew 6:17-18).
If God gives us everything by grace, what did Jesus mean here?
In the light of the clear message of the New Testament, it would be a serious mistake to take the merit theology of Judaism (which of course was well known among the primarily Jewish recipients of the Gospel of Matthew) and try to force it into the gospel of Jesus Christ. Removing ourselves from the historical context, it would be an equal mistake to try to make the empty promises of performance based religion appear to be a part of God's grace. It would be like attempting to put new wine into old wineskins, or trying to patch an old garment with a piece of new cloth (a passage we also find just three chapters later in Matthew 9:16-17). Matthew is deliberately targeting a predominantly Jewish readership, to tell them the good news of Jesus, and therefore he uses terminology and language familiar to them, while transforming meanings traditionally associated with some of that language. I think that the concept of reward is one of these (particularly in Matthew).
C.S. Lewis, in They Asked for a Paper provides one of the best discussions of this topic of which I am aware. He draws distinctions between the idea of a reward, a word which usually evokes a word picture of some kind of a ceremony, a trophy, a ribbon, a certificate or a diploma being awarded, together with the applause of spectators. That kind of a reward is not the reward that God gives, for the gifts, awards and rewards of God are all based on his grace, not human achievement, prowess or performance. Even to the degree that we have been involved in some kind of activity that precedes the award, the new covenant makes it clear that the abilities we have to perform are God given, and thus all will be to his glory.
Lewis notes that a man may marry a wealthy woman - he marries for money - and he is "rewarded" with her money. However, he is a mercenary if he is not marrying for love, and in addition he is not being rewarded for a beneficial activity, but rather because of his deception and greed. That's one kind of reward. On the other hand, marriage itself, if and when two people love each other, is its own reward - and that reward generally flows out of their love for each other, rather than a self-centered love. In that case, reward results not from performing religious duties of some kind, but it's a natural outgrowth of the love we give to another - taken far enough, if that love is agape love, the very expression of that kind of love is given to us by God, because agape love is love that directly flows from God. So Lewis comments that spiritual rewards are not directly linked, or, in his words, "tacked on" to an activity for which they might seem to be given, but rather they are the "activity itself in consummation."
Put another way, we might say that many rewards we are given in life are received as a part of our journey, not necessarily the destination. There are rewards in life which we are given, both from physical sources, and certainly from God, that have no direct connection with things we might do to earn or merit them.
New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd spoke of God's kingdom as being already, but not yet. There is a present sense of the kingdom, a kingdom which we are now given, and therefore rewards which we now receive and enjoy. There is also a future complete fulfillment of that kingdom, and rewards, by God's grace, which will be once again be given to us. One of these future rewards we do not now enjoy is detailed in 1 Corinthians 15 - the hope of the resurrection, when our bodies of flesh will be glorified and made immortal, no longer subject to decay and pain.
If we persist in trying to directly link God's rewards to our earthly efforts then we place ourselves in direct conflict with the gospel of God's grace, proclaimed throughout the New Testament. If we wish to confine our study of the idea of rewards that Jesus teaches to the predominately Jewish audience as revealed in the Gospel of Matthew, we would also want to study Matthew 11:25; 19:16-26; 20:1-16 and 25:31-46. [Back to Home]
