Unnecessary Obstacles to Christ

[Nahum]

To substitute humanly devised laws for God's laws, as the Pharisees did, is legalism.

To rely upon the keeping of any law to make one righteous in God's eyes, instead of faith in Christ, is legalism.

[Neck]

Originally Posted by Pastor Poster

"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in." (Matthew 23:13 RSV).

I am not frustrated with the Obstacles too Christ.

I am frustrated with the road to heaven.

Where many think they are the road crew putting up Deer crossing signs every quater mile, and putting up school zone signs everywhere.

When they need to pave a fork in the road and head the other way...


Nathan Eckstadt

[Neck]

Originally Posted by Pastor Poster

To substitute humanly devised laws for God's laws, as the Pharisees did, is legalism.

To rely upon the keeping of any law to make one righteous in God's eyes, instead of faith in Christ, is legalism.

Wow now you have joined our liberal team....

[Nahum]

The teacher is responsible for the teaching of doctrine and leads the recipient to truth; the Holy Spirit is responsible for taking the person into truth. The Holy Spirit produces the attitude and the resultant application will be spiritual instead of fleshly. If the conviction and attitude is appropriated by the believer then it will be his or her own personal conviction and they will willingly change with a happy and contented spirit. No one will have to make them do things and check up on them.

There will be no pressure and coercion. However, the attitude developed is governed by where we start. We must start with the truth of Scripture and doctrine and trust the Holy Spirit to do His promised work! But what if we were to start in reverse as multitudes do - with "application"?: Application > Attitude > Doctrine...

...The pastor/elder/teacher sets the rules and standards or pushes his "hobbyhorses" that he wants the believers to adhere to. As he finds more and more things that he sees as wrong behaviour he sets more rules in place. (Likewise the Pharisees continued to add to their already long list of laws. These kept people under bondage but also made it even harder for the Pharisees themselves to live up to these laws.

[SDG]

Originally Posted by Pastor Poster

To substitute humanly devised laws for God's laws, as the Pharisees did, is legalism.

To rely upon the keeping of any law to make one righteous in God's eyes, instead of faith in Christ, is legalism.

The author of Jesus Creed, Scott McKnight also describes them like this ....

"So, this permits us to see the Pharisees as those who both believed in the Torah but who knew it needed interpretation, applications, and it needed to do so along careful lines of thought and procedure.

If you want to use the terms of today, then the Sadducees were the political conservatives and the Pharisees the political liberals — in the legal sense (both were conservative morally).

Jesus agreed with neither? Where would you put him in the first century legal struggle of “how do we live under the Torah?”

"Put together, Jesus accused the Pharisees for “hypocrisy” because they had abused their teaching authority by teaching false things, not living according to what they taught, and for the desire for power. In addition, their teaching was a focus on minor issues to the neglect of major issues.

... they flattened the Torah into a listing of God’s will while Jesus saw love of God and love of others as the center of that Torah. If the Pharisees saw love as one of the commandments, however important, Jesus saw love as central and everything as expressive of that love.

To be “hypocrite” is to be a false teacher who leads both self and others astray from the will of God. The term should not be limited to “contradiction between appearance and reality.”

Jesus and the Pharisees got into it with one another at a deep, deep level because (1) both were committed to the revelation of God in the Torah, but (2) they differed radically on how to interpret that Torah. Let this be clear, though: they did not differ that it was the Word of God, they did not differ on the importance of Abraham, Moses, David or the Prophets. They differed, and you will know this if you know about The Jesus Creed, because Jesus thought the Torah should be interpreted in light of Deut 6:4-9 and Leviticus 19:18 (Love God, Love others).

It is simplistic to talk like this, but it is essentially on target to say that Jesus thought the Torah was about loving God and loving others, and the Pharisees saw the Torah more as a comprehensive listing of God’s will.

[Nahum]

Taken from Cephas Ministry:

Holy Spirit conviction comes only through the Word of God as the starting point! The above method (PERSONAL PREFERENCES) would also not be in the spirit of Sola Scriptura , and is not only legalistic but actually a counterfeit method to the work of the Holy Spirit! As legalists develop methods of applying God's laws (and some of their own) to others, the person becomes the authority, the administrator. In practical terms legalism is someone or something taking the place of the Holy Spirit!

[Nahum]

Legalism is....

1. Confusing personal convictions/persuasions with Biblical mandates, ascribing equal authority to both categories.

2. Enforcing extra-Biblical moral standards on other Christians.

[SDG]

Originally Posted by Pastor Poster

Legalism is....

1. Confusing personal convictions/persuasions with Biblical mandates, ascribing equal authority to both categories.

2. Enforcing extra-Biblical moral standards on other Christians.

To many of the lost sin and guilt are already perceived as insurmountable ... it pains to see that the Church is making an encounter with Jesus Christ IMPOSSIBLE in the name of self-interpreted "holiness".

[berkeley]

what is goin on with Pastor P??

[SDG]

Originally Posted by Berkeley

what is goin on with Pastor P??

Maybe he's just venting ... He's still a hard-core UC.