here’s what I’ve noticed:

pastors do it without realising it.

and it’s all a by-product of the system they create around them.

and they wonder why they are criticised?

there’s so much about the church system that is set up for performance: we’ve got a stage at the front, great music, hi-tech radio mikes, etc, etc, and an audience.

how do you not think afterwards “wow, that was great” or “man, he was off there” or whatever
and immediately I’m (a) consuming the sermon / service (McDonald’s, anyone?), and (b) making some kind of judgement call on how well the guy/gal at the front did.

it’s subtle and insidious.

I do the “wow that was great” thing so readily – I just don’t need it. so I tend to hang around with people just outside the auditorium. have great conversations that way, and build relationships.

When churches do not properly seperate the law from the gospel (and there are a lot of them), this is a real danger.

When churches place an inordinate amount of emphasis on fixing the sinner, instead of the real antidote…this can surely happen.

We are no different from the world. We just have a relationship with God. We didn’t deserve the grace we received. How can we look down on others when we commit the same sins?

Brilliant! I love it!

But Luke, are you sure YOU are saved? You might be deceiving yourself….after all you use that new translation of the bible and they say your pastor is a lesbian…..maybe you need to come and have MY pastor baptize you just to make sure.

Societyvs,

There are different kinds of problems that churches have. BNot being able to distinguish law from gospel creates legalists, self-righteous, and phoney people.

The law is not to make us better theologically , but to kill us off to the religious project of the self. Then the gospel (the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus, makes us new people, and gives us life again.

Good cartoon. Forgive me if I didn’t feel the need to talk about what it means and just chuckled.

From where does your creative genius come? My reaction: we don’t do that! surely wedon’t do that!! Lord forgive us when we do that!!!

I would like to think that is not the message we send to the world but I am sure that is too often the unspoken message. You would think that we would be able to love and respect others who are different from us without fear that we will be contaminated or that we will condone their moral choices. Sigh!

“The law is not to make us better theologically , but to kill us off to the religious project of the self. Then the gospel (the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus, makes us new people, and gives us life again)” (Steve)

The law is meant to kill us – was the teaching of Paul – and even then I think he was being extremist for the sake of the Gentiles…he was well aware Judaism followed this (and he even obliged it himself).

So for you the law (coming from Torah – which comes from God) is a suicide project? God gave something to us that was not actually good for us?

No Societyvs…not a suicide project…a homicide project.

God wants to expose us and kill off our little ‘we can do it ourselves projects’.

“God wants to expose us and kill off our little ‘we can do it ourselves projects’” (Steve)

What does this say about Judaism as it has been practiced for some 3000 years? This is the part I don’t think you are even venturing to stare at – since it paints a whole other group of people with a brush that seems outstandingly unfair. You see a burden in the law, they don’t…you think Paul is right about the law…many rabbi’s dont.

ok, i’m an idiot…that last statement was to be posted in yesterday’s post but sentiment will still work…sorry!

“Jesus surely exposed the religious Jews for being the hypocrites that they were. And rightfully so, since NO ONE can keep the law” (Steve)

I got an interesting question to this lovely piece of theology. Was Jesus a Jewish person – if so what religion did he follow…Christianity or Judaism? If no one can keep the law – how come is it most theologians think the Jewish person named Jesus did exactly that?

As for your generalizing language – it’s pretty harsh to read because it’s rather insluting to someone that knows a thing or two about Judiasm and studies the Christian texts at the same time.

Now all the ‘Jews’ were the people Jesus debated with – and in even in his debates with them (excluding John’s gospel) he approves the law not denies it…you should read those debates a little bit closer.

“Will Christ bring the Jews back in the last days. I hope so. St. Paul seems to think so” (Steve)

Confused much? In one hand you are condemning the Jews as hypocrites and not being ‘the correct way’; then on the other hand you think Paul believes they will all be ‘saved’. But if God is going to ‘save’ them regardless of the right way or not – that means there is a clear exception to the rule of Jesus being the ‘only way’ or maybe you don’t read much Christian history.

It’s a known biblical fact there were 2 original factions of ‘the way’ when Paul arrived on the scene…one to the Jewish nation (which Jesus even admitted existed) and one to the Gentiles (which Paul led). Prior to Paul it was only presenetd for Jewish people more or less.

However, after Paul we see 2 camps of ‘the way’ – original Jewish adherents and Paul’s new Gentile communities (the letters speak to a lot of this). In Acts 15 and even in Pauls Galatians letter (ch 2) we see that the 2 branches work together – Paul taking his answers from the original disciples of Judaic belief (who oddly enough were partners with the Pharisee’s in that chapter). There may be one messiah ideology that was part of this ‘way’ – but that changed with Paul’s gentile communities.

You see Paul was quite a shock to the system of what Peter, James, and John were saying in the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). It did take a while for that Council to warm up to the idea of Gentiles coming into the ‘way’…which they eventually did accept. However, this did not mean the Jewish portion was now ‘clipped’…they were the truest form of the faith to what Jesus taught – they were the originals.

So one can see how Judaism and Christianity can function alongside one another – just as Paul and James could in the early church. Of course, this type of history is forever lost on Christianity since it’s inception because to them the Jews were just ‘wrong’ for not accepting their messiah…a messiah that changed quite intensely from what the original 12 were speaking about.

“Matt 5:18 “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled”

Jesus stated that he has other sheep than these (John 10:16).. could mean Judaism… could mean Mormons… could mean Atheists… or maybe we should shut up, serve, and not try to prove our religion is the best and right way because if we seek to represent Christ to the world we shouldn’t misrepresent his methods. when he was here, he had more bad things to say to those who were assured of heaven than to the sinners. after all, God is God and you are not… grace still abounds.