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Rules of the Road |
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An article by Tom Gilbert — September 2005
How can it be that a religion that professes a God of unconditional love, forgiveness,
and mercy can get so bogged down in rules, restrictions, and judgments?
This is the dilemma facing today’s
Christianity. Despite the Gospels’ harsh criticism
of the overbearing legalism of the Pharisees and
religious leaders of the day our modern day practice
of religion often falls into the same trap. This
is done even with the best of intentions. Denominations
that put God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit at
the center of their doctrine and creed can still
be full of hierarchy, bureaucracy and countless rules.
Aside from specific Christian denominations and their
various ways of conducting things we have the same
kind of problem deep within each individual. There
is always the battle between selfish living and surrender
to God’s will. Be honest. This is within you,
me and everyone. The saints we’ve admired through
the ages were the first to admit it. That wasn’t
false modesty. It was rigorous honesty. Paul put
it best in his amazing letter to the Romans. The
constant struggle inside each of us doesn’t
just go away when we decide to follow God and do
what is right. In Chapter 7 it is clear that Paul
is agonizing over his desire to do the right thing
and his inability to do it on his own power. The
conclusion he came to is that on his own he is powerless,
but with God all things are possible.
Fortunately for us we have the great writing and
theology of Paul in his many letters dealing with
the dilemma of the human condition. The apostle was
merely trying to help the various new and small communities
with the struggles they were having. What they were
going through is really no different than the difficulties
we see in our churches today. Because that is the
case we can rejoice that we have a God, a Savior
in Christ, and the wonderfully inspired words of
disciples such as Paul to guide us in our inevitable
conflicts.
Nevertheless, it is frustrating. How can we keep
reading scripture that speaks of love, compassion,
and caring for the poor and less fortunate as the
true way to worship God and yet keep building walls
and empires? We can’t say we don’t know
better. If we do Jesus’ own words will judge
us! We must recall that Jesus not only spoke of love
and forgiveness. He also intervened when his closest
followers, the disciples with him on a daily basis,
became arrogant or self-righteous. Jesus knew the
human dilemma and how years of being raised with
bias and prejudice meant selfishness would keep asserting
itself. When his disciples argued over which of them
was the greatest the Lord brought a child into their
midst and gave another counter-cultural lesson. “Whoever
is least among you is the greatest.” – Luke
9:48.
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It's the Journey
Life is a journey and we’ve
all heard that before. Yes it’s a cliché,
but don’t let that detract from the wisdom. We
are all travelers on this journey and that means lots
of traffic. Where there’s traffic there is congestion.
Without some rules for the road there would be chaos.
Inevitably there will be “accidents” because
some of us don’t follow the rules. The great traffic
director we have – Jesus – doesn’t
dwell on who is at fault when a major accident happens.
He’s more concerned with giving first aid. With
smaller infractions we might just get a warning.
So, as we travel along this road of life let’s
be courteous and considerate. God’s invitation is for all and that
means lots of traffic. We don’t have to go and build new highways
of living just because we can’t or won’t get along with some
of our fellow travelers. If we do we just might end up with a needless
detour. The “rules of the road” are posted. Accidents will
happen if we don’t follow the rules, but that’s not God’s
fault. He gives us the freewill to “drive our cars”. Christ
has already given us the direction to head in and instructed us to show
everyone the way. I don’t think he told us to be the traffic cops
along this road, handing out citations to sinners. Good Samaritans was
the example He gave.
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Scripture taken from the
Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.Copyright ©
1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights
reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International
Bible Society.
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered
trademarks of International Bible Society. Use of either
trademark for the offering of goods or services requires
the prior written consent of International Bible Society.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy
Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996. Used
by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton,
IL 60189, USA. All rights reserved.
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PSALM 16:7-9 |
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"I will praise the LORD , who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I have set the LORD always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure."
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(NIV) |
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