Tag: fruit

Legalism is killing the church

Legalism – and the legalists that preach it – are like cancer in the church. Until we remove the infection, it will continue to drain our strength and corrupt our good works.

There are legalists in all strands of the church. They serve only to weaken us and leave the body ineffective. We decry the decline of church numbers and the apparent disintegration of morality in the world around us. It is not some outside force that is to blame but the legalists that we have allowed into the body.

Legalists that trade the purity of Christ’s teachings of love and grace for a return to a doctrine of impossible laws. Laws like, “agree with me or you will go to hell”. Laws that place the teachings of the legalists beyond reproach and above question. Laws that condemn anything that differs from the culture the legalists wants to create.

Legalism can never be a form of true Christianity

However, they dress it up, however righteous the legalists claim to be – and they so frequently do – and however cleverly they defend their teachings with Bible quotes, what they preach should never be called Christianity. It has the trappings of the faith but has sold its soul for power and pride (2 Timothy 3:1-7).

Christianity means being like Christ. Christianity means following all of His teachings. Teachings like, “love your enemies” (Luke 6:27-36). Teachings that say truly loving God and a complete love of your neighbour fulfil all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37-40). Teachings that show that true Christians and fake Christians are separated only by the good they do for those most in need (Matthew 25:31-46).

The legalists pay lip service to the doctrine of grace (Ephesians 2:8-10) but see no disunity with placing ever greater burdens for salvation on the individual. The legalists boast in their self-appointed status as “God’s elect” due to their keeping of laws they have made for themselves. As the prophet, Isaiah says – they honour God with their lips but their hearts are far off (Isaiah 29:13).

Legalism neglects mercy

Puffed up with pride, the legalists neglect mercy because they look with disdain upon any that fail to achieve their impossible standards. There is no grace for the humble sinner, no love to cover a multitude of sins – there is only condemnation and with it hate dressed up as righteousness.

Jesus warned of such people, calling them false prophets. Outwardly they look like sheep but inwardly they are hungry wolves (Matthew 7:15-20). Often they will dazzle you with their fierce passion for “the truth” and rise to leadership roles. Rather than protect the sheep, these shepherds will savage and abuse them. In place of pastoral care, there will be only guilt, condemnation, and a heavy burden.

The legalists do not strengthen the weak. They do not heal the sick. They never bring back the strays but condemn them for straying. They rule over the church with cruelty and verbal violence. Jeremiah spoke out against such shepherds in the harshest of terms (Jeremiah 23:1-2). So too did Ezekiel (Ezekiel 34:1-4).

It was perhaps these legalists – the false prophets we were warned about – that, from the third century until the present day, have led the church into institutionalised racism in the name of the faith. A lingering Christian anti-semitism that has tarnished the church and has yet to be rooted out and purged from our ranks.

Legalism is the enemy of grace

It is tempting to see the legalists and their law-heavy teachings as simply a misapplied passion for the Gospel. This is not the case. Legalism is a poison that corrupts and defiles the church. Even a little spoils the whole body (Galatians 5:7-9).

The fruits of legalism are heaviness, divisions, elitism, pride, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, heresies, envy, and many other things that stand in opposition to the nature of Christ and the work of grace (Galatians 5:16-26). In place of love comes harsh rebuke. In place of peace comes conflict. In place of humility comes boasting dressed as righteousness.

It is not true that legalists are simply overly enthusiastic Christians. The Bible calls them servants of Satan (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). There can be no place for legalism in our churches.

A call to repentance

Repentance worked in Holiness and humble compassion are what we need. It is in that spirit we must root out all forms of legalism. First within ourselves and then within the church. We must recognise that legalism is a grave sin that brings certain death both to the credibility of our witness and to the body of Christ – the church.

If we desire to see a change in this world. If we are to see the day when righteousness is the rule and not the exception. If we desire what some are happy to call revival then we must humble ourselves in repentance (2 Chronicles 7:14). This must not be a lip-service repentance, for a faith without resultant works is dead (James 2:14-26), there must be true change.

This may mean taking a winnowing fork to long cherish doctrines. Your church may shrink as the legalists depart for easier prey elsewhere. It might be painful to give up the righteousness that is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). It may also mean selling or giving up the signs of wealth within your church (Luke 12:32-34) in order to care for those in need. But when the legalism is gone, and only then, will the Holy Spirit be free to usher in true Christianity.

It is time for our churches to call on the Name of the Lord and be saved.

A Biblical view on Brexit

I feel that the church has been lacking a sound biblical perspective on Brexit. While I doubt that I am the one to write a definitive study, here is what I have decerned from scripture.

Polling from Lord Ashcroft showed that nearly 60% of those that identified as Christian voted to leave. Why?

According to Christianity Today:

A host of blogs, websites and claims of ‘prophetic words’ have fuelled a fear of the European Union’s apparent spiritual side. A minefield of ‘prophetic’ websites, many of which border on the extreme end of conspiracy theories, warn of a supposed darkness in the EU project.

I want to take a clear-headed look at what the Bible really has to say.

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Metrics for assessing doctrine

fruit

There are numerous methods (or metrics) for assessing doctrine. By this, I simply mean that we have a wealth of tools for evaluating the quality of our faith.

There are few, however, that are as simple or effective than the one I wish to share. This particular tool for assessing doctrine does not require years of study. It does not even require months of study. It is a tool that any Christian can apply right from the get-go.

The fruit of a doctrine

That is the metric of the character the doctrine inevitably leads to. A doctrine that is righteous should lead to righteousness. If a doctrine is loving then it should lead to love. While a doctrine that leads to pride, factions, conflict, aggression, condemnation, and all those other bad things must, self-evidently, be bad.

This stems, from Matthew 7:15-20 which tells us “by their fruits you will know them”. Given axiom zero (that all scripture is good for teaching), we can know that this has something to teach us. Specifically, that the fruit of a doctrine must be good for it to be considered a good doctrine.

What is good fruit?

Now Galatians 5:22-23 shows us what fruits we should be looking for when assessing doctrine:

  • love
  • joy
  • peace
  • patience
  • kindness
  • goodness
  • faithfulness
  • gentleness
  • self-control

A doctrine that leads to these sorts of characteristics must, at the very least, be good even if it is not perfect. Yet a doctrine that leads to the opposite is fatally flawed.

Why this matters?

Too frequently we Christians have been quick to insist that a doctrine is right because we say “the Bible says” and yet the very attitudes it leads to are anything but Biblical.

Such characteristics as found in Galatians 5:20 such as hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, and factions. These are the symptoms of a doctrine or belief that are at odds with the character of Christ. They lead to the sort of behaviour I call “trolling for Christ” – which we need to stop doing.

If at any time we find our belief leading us towards hostilities, strife, and dissension then it is our belief and not those of others which needs to be assessed. I can assure you that if we are not readily assessing doctrine that we preach then others will do it for us and be far less kind when they do.

If you need a scripture for this act of self-assessment – 2 Corinthians 13:5 directs us to examine ourselves.

Let us examine our own doctrines to be sure that they produce good fruits and be ready to uproot any that have failed to yield good fruit.