Years ago, a hymnbook came out called Sacred Selections. It made numerous changes to the words of songs to adapt them to fit the beliefs of the editors. For example, instead of “When We All Get To Heaven,” this book had “When The Saved Get To Heaven.” Critics called it Scared Selections.

The subject of “safety” in Christian practice came up the other day. Too often, we let fear determine our practices, what we will do and what we won’t. (I wrote about “The Ticking Time Bomb” a couple of years ago) While actively seeking to do what is unsafe is foolish, focusing on “safety” in religion can lead us to an even more dangerous place.

It’s like the rabbinic concept of “the fence around the Torah.” To keep from violating the Torah, they made rules that would keep them from getting close to lawbreaking. This created a safety zone. It also created a new set of laws.

Think about this principle in real life. What if every choice we made was determined by safety? We’d probably eat baby food, just to reduce the risk of choking. No elevators; it’s the stairs for us. Speed limits would be set at 10 mph, or maybe cars would be banned altogether. Human contact would be restricted, to avoid the risk of contagion. See what I mean?

We see it in sports. The teams that play to “not lose” rarely win. Frankly, I think we see it in churches as well. That atmosphere of fear doesn’t foster healthy church relations. It kills creativity, spontaneity and leaves little to no room for the Spirit to work.

Part of this comes from the lost/saved mentality, the one that says that all that matters is being saved. In a sense, that is the ultimate goal, yet Christians that focus on that rarely enjoy the fullness of life in Christ. Our focus needs to be on pleasing God. It needs to be on the imitation of Christ. It needs to be on living life as a citizen of the kingdom, promoting the good of that kingdom. It’s not just a focus on “Am I in or out?”.

Or is there a way to focus on safety without focusing on fear? Am I defining things too narrowly? Am I misunderstanding what others have said?

Looking forward to your input.

Photo by Kevin Rosseel

Yesterday we talked about the danger of making laws where God hasn’t. I’m still not sure why we tend to take such things lightly. But Danny made an interesting observation: hardly anyone realizes that they are binding manmade laws on others. Rarely does anyone say, “I’m going to make a new law.”

Most of the time, we feel that we are merely applying the logical extension of another law. It’s like the Pharisees with their Sabbath traditions. They were trying to follow the commandment about keeping the Sabbath. They did so by creating a series of definitions of what was work and what wasn’t, what was allowed and what wasn’t. Then Jesus came and violated their manmade regulations… and they accused him of violating God’s law.

Our history is full of examples of laws laid down in the pursuit of holiness, some which seem quaint now. No movies. No “spot” cards (you could use Rook cards, but the other cards were for gambling). No “mixed bathing” (which I still oppose, though I have no problem with mixed swimming). No rock and roll. No smoking. No drinking. No dancing.

My great-grandfather allowed no dominoes on his property; they too could be used for gambling. He also forbade the reading of fiction, for fiction is a lie. When my mother was at ACU, women couldn’t wear polka dots; might draw the boys’ attention in a bad way.

As I said, these laws are an attempt to make it easier to fulfill God’s law. It’s easy for me to look at another man’s home-brewed laws and laugh; it’s harder for me to see them in myself. Here’s part of Danny’s comment from yesterday:

One hurdle, I think, is that hardly anyone (if anyone at all) sees himself as guilty of binding man-made commands. I suppose our core problem may be in recognizing them as merely that. It’s like we all have friends who need this post, but not us.

The yeast of the Pharisees is as bad as the yeast of the Saducees. I think we need to openly talk about the dangers of creating our own laws.

What attitudes can help us avoid the trap of creating new laws? What heart adjustments need to be made? How do we make them in ourselves, or what outlooks can we avoid personally? How do we walk the fine line between legalism and lawlessness?

Somewhere in all of this discussion of biblical interpretation, we need to talk about one of the biggest dangers in our churches: making laws that God hasn’t made. In my faith heritage, that seems to get brushed off lightly. Somehow Nadab and Abihu became main characters in the biblical story (though they are mentioned less than their brothers: Eleazar and Ithamar); Leviticus 10 is made to teach about the danger of doing things that God hasn’t authorized, with next to nothing said about God’s forgiving disobedience in that very same chapter. For whatever reason, the sin of unauthorized worship was deemed worse than it’s counterpart: the creation of new laws, laws which God did not make.

I look at Jesus’ ministry, and “unauthorized lawmaking” was the biggest source of conflict between the Jewish leaders and the Messiah. Jesus challenged their authority to take God’s law and extend it, to surround God’s law with manmade regulations.

Creating laws is something that God has reserved for himself and no one else. “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.* The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” (James 4:11–12) God is the lawgiver. God is the judge. When we try to step into those roles, we cease to be “doers of the law.”

When we begin to speak of what God has commanded, we should tread carefully. Usurping God’s authority is not something to be done lightly.

Last week I mentioned that I reject the idea that the New Testament is a constitution. There’s a lot of things that the New Testament isn’t. It’s not a love letter from God. It’s not a science text. It’s not a history book. It’s not legal code.

I do believe that the New Testament is scripture. The different books inspired, sacred writings. There is a human element to them, which explains the differences in writing styles, but that does not mean they are limited by human fallibility. They are inspired books, unique in that way. We can apply certain literary principles that we would apply to the reading of any book, yet we must recognize that they are different from all other books.

There is legal code in the Bible. It’s not hard to recognize. Read the Torah and you will several sections of legal code. Take a chapter like Exodus 25 and lay it alongside any of Paul’s epistles, and you’ll quickly realize that Paul isn’t writing legal code.

Paul is writing letters, letters motivated by specific situations and written to address those situations. That’s what we mean when we say they are occasional, they were written in a specific context for that context. While this seems less true for some of the other writers (Peter and James seem to address a wider audience), yet each letter was written for some specific purpose. And none of them was written for the purpose of establishing a constitution for the Lord’s church.

That’s not to say that nothing in those letters is of general application. Much that is said applies to all Christians, everywhere. But we won’t find that by reading the New Testament the same way we would read the U.S. Constitution.

Does it matter? How do things change when we read the New Testament as if it were a series of statutes and laws? What role do literary genres play in our understanding of the Bible?