Today's Scripture Reading (February 12, 2021): 1 Corinthians 4
American Philosopher Henry David
Thoreau said, "Any fool can make a rule, and
any fool will mind it." Perhaps, it takes a fool in both cases. Our culture
seems to excel at creating rules, and religious denominations are even better.
We love rules. Sometimes our "do nots" far outnumber the "dos."
Depending on the denomination, you can find yourself forbidden to drink
alcohol, smoke, go to movies, dance, and even listen to music. And the list is
just beginning. As people, we can find reasons to prohibit or judge anything,
sometimes for good but often just because we have the power.
And
the power to make rules is infectious. I have noticed that rule books seldom
get smaller. We just keep adding to the rules and rarely decide that the rules
need to be repealed. And that is probably the reason why there are still so
many silly rules on the books. We are the fools who keep making the rules and
the fools who follow them.
There
is a warning here. We often talk about following the Spirit of the Law, and not
just the letter of the law. By recognizing Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, we follow
the Spirit of the Law, not the letter of it. The law designates Saturday as the
Sabbath, but we have taken the Spirit of that law and celebrate Sunday as our Sabbath
because Jesus rose on that day. I had a discussion some years ago with an older
woman who argued that if the church offered a Saturday evening service, people
wouldn't come on Sunday. And she was right, but she was also missing the point.
For her, the letter of the law meant attending church on Sunday, a curious
transformation from Christians who believe that we should worship on Saturday,
the Jewish Sabbath. When we follow the letter of the law, we are often looking
for loopholes that will allow us to do what we want rather than following the
law. And we don't want to be "that kind of people."
But
we can also carry the rules too far. We follow many rules that just aren't
biblical, even though we think they are. An interesting discussion for the
contemporary church is the prohibition of alcohol. Jesus drank alcohol,
although admittedly, the percentage of the alcohol in Jesus's wine was much
lower than is present in the alcohol that we have today. The letter of the law
says "do not get drunk" (Ephesians 5:18), and not "do not drink."
The question is, by prohibiting alcohol, are we following the Spirit of the law,
or are we going "beyond what is written?" It is a discussion that we
need to have so that we can understand the reason behind the rules and not become
followers of a rule some fool created. However, Churches who judge their
leaders on things like appearance, entertainment value, or skills in marketing
and sales would seem to be going "beyond what is written."
The
problem is that when we become followers of the rules, we begin to be "puffed
up" and "prideful" of our place in Christianity because of the
rules that they have kept. I know of Christians who are proud that they have
never consumed alcohol or gone to a movie theater, following the directions of
their faith, but they also struggle with loving that neighbor who does not share
their values. And I don't think that Jesus is going to be too impressed with us
as we go "beyond what is written" but don't do the things that he
explicitly told us to do.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 5
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