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.
Excellent post.
There should be a law against such posts! No, seriously, great post.
Great points, Tim.
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. :)
For me, one personal warning sign of a man-made law is if I am tempted to bind it as the “safe thing to do.” As you’re pointing out, Tim, binding such inferences on others is not very “safe,” after all.
It is amazing how so many could have digressed from New Testament Christianity, as it was first established. Laws and regulations became a bane to the early church not even 20 years after its inception, and Paul had to battle those who were guilty of binding regulations to the Gentile believers in many places. Many of those in our own fellowship have struggled mightily with regulating themselves to the detriment of the whole. “Speaking where the Bible speaks…being silent where the Bible is silent” has been a good precept and commitment for those in our fellowship. If only we didn’t have so much to say where silence should have lease. It seems to be a human problem. I thank the Lord that His Holy Spirit frees us from such constraints in order to be “free indeed” in Christ.
This is where Patrick Mead’s reversal of old RM precept has always intrigued me.
We may neither add to nor take away from what the Bible speaks. We zip our lips and get to work.
Once we get the first one right – that the Bible is the authority and we are *not* – the second phrase allows our leaders to make many decisions for how we are going to implement what the Bible says… what we will do and what we won’t… without transforming our practical decisions into fellowship-defining creeds.
Most church divisions occur in the areas of silence. When we choose to bind what God has not bound (or to loose what God has not loosed) we err. The one makes law where God has not; the other unties what God has bound. Each is as bad as the other.
I have wondered why we cannot allow “silence” to be “silence?” It has to do with pride, lack of faith. If we are going to be honest students of the Word of God, then we truly need to let the Bible speak where it does give instruction, but respect silence for what it is. This is a liberating stance in every respect – any other position binds us in ways that we should not be bound. The funny thing is that it requires faith to be able to do this – it is not easy. It is much easier to have an opinion to defend and with which to try to defeat those of the opposite stance than to have no opinion. If matters of expedience — the simplest, easiest way to do something — come into play, let it be with respect to the silence of the Word and not with respect to trying to make the Word say something that it does not say.
we make laws because we don’t want to love.
Regarding your post I say Amen. Amen. And Amen. And Danny Corbitt is right. We can’t bind something as law and say that we are opting to be safe. It is a contradiction in terms.
Regarding your post I say Amen. And Danny Corbitt is right. We can’t bind something as law and say that we are opting to be safe. It is a contradiction in terms. And again I say . . . Amen.
Oh well . . . I always wanted to be heard.