In recent weeks we have looked at our position as
Christians concerning government and society, as well as governmental
persecutions. We then looked at Paul and his position as a Pharisee and what he
did when he believed on Jesus as Messiah. Now we have to explore the question
as to how the law and various rules keep sneaking into Christianity today, and
how we can stop the rule making and alienation of others who do not do the same
things we do. We want to first remind ourselves that Christianity was not a
law, and it was never intended to be a law or rule of society. Jesus wanted his
disciples to live in any society and bring his new commandment there, which was
to love one another (John 13:34). Christianity was not supposed to be a
governmental system like Judaism or Islam, which is why Jesus told us to abide
by the laws of the government we live under. Yet we Christians make a whole new
set of rules, laws, and religious practices that put people into bondage and
not liberty. We harm people with our made up rules and wonder why we can’t get
along. We are severed from Yahweh because we are debtors to our laws.
The idea that Paul, a Pharisee and scholar, put off the law
and taught people to do the same has been a point of contention for two
thousand years. We observed Paul’s sarcasm towards those who set themselves up
as leaders over the church in Jerusalem. We also noted the problems that
occurred when people from Jerusalem traveled to Asia Minor and wanted to put
the new converts under the law. When Paul went to Jerusalem the first time the
matter was settled, but as we noticed, Paul did not put himself under the
authority of those leaders. This made it easier for the leaders of the Christian
Church in Jerusalem to betray Paul, stabbing him in the back by turning him
over to the Jewish religious leaders. Let’s read this in The Message as it
makes the language plain. The leaders of the Church were not standing against
the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, yet there were many thousands of Jews who made
Jesus their Lord and Messiah.
Acts 21:20-26 They had a story to tell, too: "And just
look at what's been happening here — thousands upon thousands of God-fearing
Jews have become believers in Jesus! But there's also a problem because they
are more zealous than ever in observing the laws of Moses. 21 They've been told
that you advise believing Jews who live surrounded by Gentiles to go light on
Moses, telling them that they don't need to circumcise their children or keep
up the old traditions. This isn't sitting at all well with them.
22 "We're worried about what will happen when they
discover you're in town. There's bound to be trouble. So here is what we want
you to do: 23 There are four men from our company who have taken a vow
involving ritual purification, but have no money to pay the expenses. 24 Join
these men in their vows and pay their expenses. Then it will become obvious to
everyone that there is nothing to the rumors going around about you and that
you are in fact scrupulous in your reverence for the laws of Moses.
25 "In asking you to do this, we're not going back on
our agreement regarding Gentiles who have become believers. We continue to hold
fast to what we wrote in that letter, namely, to be careful not to get involved
in activities connected with idols; to avoid serving food offensive to Jewish
Christians; to guard the morality of sex and marriage."
26 So Paul did it — took the men, joined them in their
vows, and paid their way. The next day he went to the Temple to make it
official and stay there until the proper sacrifices had been offered and
completed for each of them. (from THE
MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All
rights reserved.)
Paul, the former Pharisee, told the new Jewish converts who
lived among the new non-Jewish converts to go lightly on the law, but the new
Jewish converts from Jerusalem were not interested in putting off the law. It
seems the new Jewish converts were not quite converted. These people who now
claimed to make Jesus their Messiah did not really allow Jesus to become their Lord.
They may have believed Jesus was the Messiah but they didn’t believe his blood
atoned for their sins once and for all. If they did, they would not feel the
need to keep the law. Interestingly the Christian leaders in Jerusalem wanted Paul
to show himself as an observer of the law. Strangely, Paul did what they asked
him to do. Paul was trying not to cause division, but it didn’t matter because
someone came along later and accused Paul and that started the whole kerfuffle.
The Christian leaders do not defend Paul, they do not show up at his hearings,
they do not contest the false accusations, and they do not seem to care that
Paul is imprisoned. Isn’t that telling? The Christian church leaders at
Jerusalem were enjoying their position and probably making some profit as well,
and getting rid of Paul was for their own benefit. Paul was a troublemaker who
did not submit to their authority, except in this case he did and look where it
got him. Paul’s letter to the Galatians clarifies the new position of liberty
the believer in Christ has. The Jews at Jerusalem did not like giving up their
laws for freedom.
Gal 5:1-4 IN [this] freedom Christ has made us free [and
completely liberated us]; stand fast then, and do not be hampered and held
ensnared and submit again to a yoke of slavery [which you have once put off]. 2
Notice, it is I, Paul, who tells you that if you receive circumcision, Christ
will be of no profit (advantage, avail) to you [for if you distrust Him, you
can gain nothing from Him]. 3 I once more protest and testify to every man who
receives circumcision that he is under obligation and bound to practice the
whole of the Law and its ordinances. 4 If you seek to be justified and declared
righteous and to be given a right standing with God through the Law, you are
brought to nothing and so separated (severed) from Christ. You have fallen away
from grace (from God's gracious favor and unmerited blessing). AMP
Don’t be ensnared, hampered, or a slave to the law. If you
practice circumcision you are now under obligation and bound to practice the
whole law and its ordinances. You are not justified or declared righteous by
the law, instead you are severed and separated from Christ. This goes for us
too brother and sister Christian. If we follow the laws or rules to become
justified we will instead be separated from Christ. The Message says this a
little different.
Gal 5:1-4 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So
take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
2 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you
submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment
Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. 3 I repeat my warning: The
person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the
free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.
4 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what
happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you
are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in
Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
The moment any one of you submits to any rule keeping
system, you have lost the advantages of the free life in Christ. When you
attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects you are cut off from
Christ. Wow. Have we ever really considered this? We Christians do this all the
time, we have denominations that have rules and structures and if someone
doesn’t live the way we think they should they cannot join our church. We seem
to make so many rules that pretty soon we can’t be friends with anybody because
everyone else is living “wrong”. Think about this. Judaism and Islam, as well
as many Christian denominations, hunt after disciples with a magnifying glass,
looking for each and every mistake. If a person sins, regardless of whether it
is intentional or unintentional, someone is always close by with the hammer to
beat that person over the head. How self-righteous must one be to hunt for sins
in other people with a magnifying glass and beat them with a hammer?
If we truly live in the liberty we are called to we will
not be hunting for sins in others because Jesus is not asking us to. Jesus is
not asking us to point out the speck in our friend’s eye but instead work on
the log in our own eye. Somehow we have made all sorts of rules regarding sins,
such as “lying is not as bad of a sin as adultery, and adultery is not as bad
as a catamite, and really we “shouldn’t have to pay our taxes since we are
working for God”. We tend to rationalize what we want to, and throw stones at
what we don’t like. Unfortunately that comes under the category of “rule
keeping system”, hence so many different denominations living by their own
plans and projects and all of them cut off from Christ.
The Jews of the first century did not understand that the
law had been fulfilled. Jesus said he came to fulfill it, then he gave us a new
way to live, without the magnifying glass and hammer. Paul has a few word for
those folks.
Rom 2:17-24 If you're brought up Jewish, don't assume that
you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug
because you're an insider to God's revelation, 18 a connoisseur of the best
things of God, informed on the latest doctrines! 19 I have a special word of
caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and,
because you know God's revealed Word inside and out, 20 feel qualified to guide
others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God.
21 While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I'm quite serious.
While preaching "Don't steal!" are you going to rob people blind? Who
would suspect you? 22 The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. 23 You
can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God
and his law. 24 The line from Scripture, "It's because of you Jews that
the outsiders are down on God," shows it's an old problem that isn't going
to go away. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible
in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
There are plenty of smug Christians who believe they are
“insiders” too. Once people take the position of spying out other’s sins, they
have put themselves above others; but who then is spying out their sins? So
this is how top church leaders become corrupt, no one is going to hammer the
hammerer. Then when all the dirt becomes public knowledge, as Paul says “it’s
because of you hammerers that outsiders are down on God”. It’s not just the Jews,
but the Christian hammerers who are pointing out specks and beating people over
the head that make outsiders or non-Christians want to stay non-Christians.
What non-Christian wants to go to your church when you march around with signs
and look so angry that the world doesn’t live by your rules? Ouch. Paul goes
on.
Rom 2:25-29 Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks
you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with God's law. But if you don't,
it's worse than not being circumcised. 26 The reverse is also true: The
uncircumcised who keep God's ways are as good as the circumcised — 27 in fact, better. Better to keep God's law
uncircumcised than break it circumcised. 28 Don't you see: It's not the cut of
a knife that makes a Jew. 29 You become a Jew by who you are. It's the mark of
God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. And
recognition comes from God, not legalistic critics. (from THE MESSAGE: The
Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights
reserved.)
Legalistic critics in the Church today have made up rules and
religious plans that keep many people away from becoming Christ followers, and
yet the irony is that the legalistic critics are severed from God. So just as
Paul was telling the believing Jews they were maligning the name of God, today
we Christians do the very same thing.
Rom 2:24 For, as it is written, The name of God is maligned
and blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you! [The words to this effect are
from your own Scriptures.] [Isa 52:5;
Ezek 36:20.] AMP
We have to understand, the Jews came from a lifestyle of
living the law and they did not want to change, but Christianity was supposed
to be different. The church was not to be full of man-made rules and laws, it
was to function under the covenant of love, the new command Jesus gave us.
Christianity was not to be a legal system, but a belief system where its
disciples walk in love, not law. Paul the former Pharisee had to take a three
year sabbatical of un-learning and re-learning to be able to put off his
legalistic ways. Jesus told us a few things that really helps us understand why
we changed from a dispensation of law to a dispensation of grace. Simply put,
we can’t escape hell without Jesus’ atonement, therefore keeping the law is
useless.
Matt 5:21-22 "You're familiar with the command to the
ancients, 'Do not murder.' 22 I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as
angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother
'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell
'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral
fact is that words kill. (from THE
MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All
rights reserved.)
This is so incredibly harsh, it’s shocking. We are all
murderers!
Matt 5:27-28 "You know the next commandment pretty
well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' 28 But don't think you've
preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted
by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody
notices — they also corrupt. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary
Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Oh no, we are all adulterers!
Matt 5:31-32 "Remember the Scripture that says,
'Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers
and her legal rights'? 32 Too many of you are using that as a cover for
selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are 'legal.'
Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you're responsible for
making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual
promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you're automatically
an adulterer yourself. You can't use legal cover to mask a moral failure. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary
Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Hmmm, a cover for selfishness, isn’t that why Jesus told
the religious leaders that Moses gave them a letter of divorcement, because of the
hardness of their hearts. All of us have been selfish and hard hearted at times,
but not everyone has divorced a spouse. But let’s get out the magnifying glass
and hammer, who’s been divorced?
Since we are all murderers and adulterers it is safe to say
we need an atonement to escape hell. We simply can’t live by the law, it is not
possible to get atonement without the temple. That is why we need Jesus. But on
this subject of divorce, we have to stop hammering for a moment and consider
this. Marriage is a covenant between two believers, it’s a covenant of love
before God. Marriage is technically not for the unbeliever, however there is
societal marriage. Societal marriages are not marriages under a covenant of
love before God, but under legal benefits of the law. Many states and countries
have the legal aspect of the marriage license which can stand alone, and the
ceremonial aspect of the service officiated by clergy. Now in the case of
spousal abuse in a Christian marriage, the covenant of love before God has been
broken by the abuser, but we tend to victimize the victim by making rules that
the victim has to stay in an abusive marriage because it’s the “Christian”
thing to do. Nonsense. The victim is not obligated to become the punching bag
for the abuser. It is because of the selfishness and hardness of the heart of
the abuser that the abuser broke the covenant of love before God. The abuser
broke the covenant, therefore the victim has the right to legally end the
marriage. Once there was a woman who was regularly beaten by her husband. The
Pastors and church leaders kept telling this woman she had to stay in the
marriage. One day the husband killed her and their son, then committed suicide.
There is blood on the hands of those people who insisted that this woman keep
their rules. Shame on the church for not protecting the victims of abuse! Why
are we continuing to victimize victims? Every situation is different and must
be handled with fear and trembling, and with the leading of the Holy Spirit.
We can see how detrimental it is to make rules and
religious programs to judge people by. Instead of seeing the Christ in others
we look for the sin. Instead of loving others we stay guarded because we can’t
love someone who is a rule breaker. Interestingly, Paul had to confront Peter
on his behavior. Peter was well accepted in Jerusalem and probably kept the law,
but when he was not around those people Peter lived under grace. However, as
soon as the legalists came to Antioch, Peter put on a show.
Gal 2:11-16 Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a
face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. 12 Here's
the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter
regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from
Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could
manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That's how fearful he was of
the conservative Jewish clique that's been pushing the old system of
circumcision. 13 Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church
joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.
14 But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady,
straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them
all: "If you, a Jew, live like a non-Jew when you're not being observed by
the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to
conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old
Jerusalem cronies?"
15 We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over
"non-Jewish sinners." 16 We know very well that we are not set right
with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How
do we know? We tried it — and we had the best system of rules the world has
ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we
believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by
trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary
Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Hypocrisy, it’s an interesting thing we Christians do as
well. We put on our “church face” on Sunday mornings, but as soon as we get
home we kick the dog, yell at the kids and fight with the spouse. Hypocrisy. We
are not to behave one way around those with the magnifying glasses and
differently when they are not around. And Paul again says we are not set right
by rule keeping. Rule keeping makes people hypocrites. Rules encourage
perfectionism which then inspires more magnifying glasses for looking for sin
in others. Paul points out that he, and we, are not perfect but “trying to be
good” is keeping rules and laws not living by grace.
Gal 2:17-21 Have some of you noticed that we are not yet
perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation
that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right
with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to
sin? The accusation is frivolous. 18 If I was "trying to be good," I
would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a
charlatan.
19 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules
and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a
"law man" so that I could be God's man. 20 Christ's life showed me how,
and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I
have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer
important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I
am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me
living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping,
peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free
in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If
a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died
unnecessarily. (from THE MESSAGE: The
Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights
reserved.)
Keeping the rules didn’t work. It doesn’t work. It can’t
work. We have to be crucified with Christ, so that it is not about us it is
about Him. Rule-keeping and peer-pleasing is bondage, not freedom. We cannot
have a living relationship with God by rule-keeping. Yet this is what the
Christian church has become, rule keeping, magnifying glasses, and hammers.
James points out that we pick and choose what rules and
laws to keep and ignore the rest.
James 2:8-13 You do well when you complete the Royal Rule
of the Scriptures: "Love others as you love yourself." 9 But if you
play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted
by it. 10 You can't pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping
one or two things in God's law and ignoring others. 11 The same God who said,
"Don't commit adultery," also said, "Don't murder." If you
don't commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery
will cancel out your murder? No, you're a murderer, period.
12 Talk and act like a person expecting to be judged by the
Rule that sets us free. 13 For if you refuse to act kindly, you can hardly
expect to be treated kindly. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every
time. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in
Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
James’ point is to behave like we will be judged by the
rule that sets us free, the law of liberty. That means we should extend grace
and mercy to others. That means we should not be judging the lives or decisions
of others. We have all sinned, we have all fallen short, and we all need Jesus.
The grace we have does not give us an excuse to intentionally sin, but instead
we should use our freedom to love and serve each other.
Gal 5:13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you
to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to
do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom
to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. 14 For everything we
know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you
love yourself. That's an act of true freedom. 15 If you bite and ravage each
other, watch out — in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where
will your precious freedom be then?
This is what we do to each other, we bite and ravage each
other. Truly we have no right to force non-believers in Jesus to live the way
we do. We don’t control the world, and we don’t have the right to expect that non-Christians
should live under the made up rules and religious practices we institute for
ourselves. Non-Christians do not want us staring at them with our magnifying
glasses while we hold our hammer behind our back. How many times has someone needed healing but
only received a hammering? When we force non-Christians to live under our rules
non-Christians try and force their lifestyles and beliefs on us. We are
annihilating the church and losing our freedom. We are acting poorly, like the
first century Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah but refused to make Him
Lord by keeping the law. We are severed from Christ.
Gal 5:16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and
motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness.
17 For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a
free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These
two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and
at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. 18 Why don't
you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a
law-dominated existence? (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language
© 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Paul has more good ideas for us. Live freely, motivated by
the Holy Spirit. We should be led by the Holy Spirit so that we can escape the
erratic compulsions of a law dominated existence. Christianity is not a law,
and it is not rules and religious programs. We are heirs of Abraham only by
faith, not works, not in keeping the law, not by following my churches rules,
but by our belief in Yahweh. Keep in mind there was no law at the time of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Torah wasn’t written until the Jews were
wandering in the desert.
Rom 4:13-15 That famous promise God gave Abraham — that he
and his children would possess the earth — was not given because of something
Abraham did or would do. It was based on God's decision to put everything together
for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed. 14 If those who get what
God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling
out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust
completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That's not a holy
promise; that's a business deal. 15 A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer
and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to
collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise — and
God's promise at that — you can't break it. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in
Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
There is no contract, no business deal, no rules or
religious practices, just a promise from God. The promised Messiah came, and
now we believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Simple. Now the hard part is to trust
Yahweh. And also trust Paul the former Pharisee. Paul is not the only Pharisee
that believed on Jesus, he is one of the few we have written letters from. He
did not spend three years in Arabia arguing with Yahweh as to keeping the law,
he spent three years un-learning and re-learning the law and the new
dispensation as we noted last week. Paul did not confer with flesh and blood,
therefore the mysteries he reveals to us regarding this new administration,
grace, the gathering, the one body, etc. did not come from man’s own ideas.
There was no directional meeting of church leaders, Paul got the revelation of
these things from something other than flesh and blood.
Rom 5:20 All that passing laws against sin did was produce
more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition
with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace,
grace wins hands down. (from THE
MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All
rights reserved.)
The law makes more sin. It produces sin consciousness. It
also produces pride. Have you ever noticed that when there is a set of rules
laid out there are people who can follow them so well that they become prideful
about how great they themselves are because they keep the rules so well? Then
have you noticed that those very people condemn others with different
lifestyles and different beliefs? Rules make more sin. Over and over Paul has
told us this, yet we have churches and various groups that keep putting others
under laws and rules and religious practices. Why haven’t we understood this in
this day and age? Those who wish to live personally under rules and laws cannot
impose that on others and cannot have a “superiority complex” over those who do
not do what they do. But the devil is a clever adversary and twists our
thinking until we cannot even understand the words Paul wrote. Thus reading the
Message makes these ideas plain and understandable to us all. Once we get it,
we can dig into these ideas deeper. Paul sums this up nicely in the next verse.
Rom 5:21 All sin can do is threaten us with death, and
that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again
through the Messiah, invites us into life — a life that goes on and on and on,
world without end. (from THE MESSAGE:
The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights
reserved.)
We can’t earn our position, we are saved if we believe and
then we have eternal life. Do we trust Jesus? Do we trust Paul? Do we trust
that Jesus’ blood atoned for our sin and there isn’t anything else we can ever
possibly do to contribute to that? There is no temple, so if you disagree with
Jesus’ atonement, you are dead in your sins with no possibility of being made
right before God. It is our choice. When we attempt to live by our own
religious plans and projects we are cut off from Christ as Galatians says.
This is what Jesus did:
Eph 2:15 He repealed the law code that had become so
clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped.
Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated
by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being,
a fresh start for everybody. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary
Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
And this is the way we are to live, without man-made rules
and laws.
John 13:34-35 "Let me give you a new command: Love one
another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. 35 This is how
everyone will recognize that you are my disciples — when they see the love you
have for each other." (from THE
MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights
reserved.)
What will it be, rules and laws that sever us from Christ,
legalism that magnifies sin in others and hammers people for not living our way,
or living in freedom and loving others as we love ourselves, led by the Holy
Spirit? When people look at us, do we look like disciples of Christ?
