Please pardon the little joke – playing with words. The point of this article is just to get us thinking about where our emphasis is. It is hard to write on this because anytime you put something to pen and paper (even digitally), it is there and people begin finding exceptions to what is written.
When you consider those involved or claiming some connection to the Restoration Movement, we seem to automatically go to our corners and come out fighting. Perhaps we as a movement need to consider some “sy-la-bles” more carefully.
Growing up in the conservative Churches of Christ, I understand the feeling of discomfort of changes being made through the years and in our brotherhood today.
GRACE – Grace is deep and considerably wider than we usually teach. It is marvelous, and hard to get over once discovered and really applied with some consistency. Grace is neutralized by legalism, abused by attitude of license, missed by pride, and just plain ignored by lack of study. I have done my share of ALL of the above. This is why I sometimes refer to myself as an ‘ex-Pharisee’ and I understand now how dirty the Prodigal son must have felt, and how difficult the trip home, and how grateful for a Father who “loves so much!” This “amazing grace” has helped me so much in dealing with things such as “congregational differences.”
– I have seen how much legalism has hurt the church and chased away so many our brothers and sisters in Christ. Legalism is when one takes the Gospel (GOOD NEWS) and makes it a system of how perfectly one performs to gain acceptance of God (this is BAD NEWS). “Bad news,” because one can never be good enough, perform well enough, give enough, love enough, sing enough, work enough, win souls enough, or be just GOOD ENOUGH to be pleasing to God. Under LAW if you break one part and you’re guilty of ALL (Jms.2:10,) and if one knows to do good and doesn’t do it, it is sin, (James 4:17). It’s a double “gotcha!” Yet Law is good, needed, provides, protects, prohibits etc… It just cannot save! Should our emphasis be LAW or GRACE? Law without grace is unbearable. Grace without law is unnecessary. Without law there would be no need for grace, without grace there is no way to be saved from sin. Grace is a vital teaching in Scriptures. Our trouble comes when applying it. The GRACE-LESS attitude has lead to churches dividing over silly things as well as not so silly things. “Autonomy of congregations,” becomes a nice sounding phrase with little meaning, as seen when one congregation withdraws from and publicly blasts another. Does grace cover differences that exist in those who claim to be part of the Restoration Movement? What puts one and keeps one in Christ? Performance? Perfection? Maybe it’s the blood of Jesus! Grace allows for growth, but legalism does not. Law can operate under grace, but grace cannot live or breathe under LAW, much less allow for change and growth.
So what’s with this wrong “sy-la-ble” business. Simply this, Jesus calls us to FOLLOW HIM, copy HIM, be like HIM, be in relationship with HIM. Like James Woodruff says in his marvelous volume “Sayings that saved my Sanity,” Jesus did not come to introduce us to a shinier cage to keep us from doing what we really want to do.” IT’S A LIFE, A RELATIONSHIP, A WALK, A HELPING HAND, A SHOULDER TO CRY ON, SOMEONE TO RUN TO… It is easy to fall from a SYSTEM, but hard to fall from a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus. May the Lord help us grow in grace and emphasize Him, walk with Him, forgive like Him, wash feet and serve like Him, be humble and empty ourselves out like Him. To emphasize TRUTH and ignore GRACE (“graceless truth”) is just as wrong as emphasizing GRACE and ignoring TRUTH (“truthless grace”). Jesus was full of both… So must we be…
By the way, preaching on Divorce and Remarriage without grace is lop-sided at best. Quoting Matthew 5 and 19 is necessary. Sin is sin. He means what he says right? However, when discussing the subject of sin one must ask the question, “What now?!” We are not dealing with stealing a cow, but broken hearts and relationships. Ignoring what Jesus says results in SIN, but what is the answer? My opinion has pretty much always been, only the blood of Christ! We sing it, put it on our signs, teach it in Bible classes and tracts, and the pulpit, but does the blood of Christ forgive sins? If so, how completely? Read the book of Acts with all the sermons and conversions… and ask yourself, “How many are told (if divorced ‘un-scripturally’) you have to separate and live celibate or return to the one you divorced”? What about reading through the New Testament… same thing. God will judge adulterers (Hebrews 13:4), so it’s not up to well meaning brethren to put people through a personal check list or history check. Besides, WHERE IS GRACE?
Run from immorality for sure! Do not fornicate absolutely (I Corinthians 6:15-20). Read carefully I Corinthians 7 where marriage is encouraged (1-4), different ‘groups’ are addressed (5-15) with commands and opinion. It’s truly complicated, but Paul deals with it. What about verse 20-24 (“servants” stay in the situation you were “called” in.) Virgins? Paul deals with them in view of present difficulties (25-26). “Are you bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. BUT AND IF YOU MARRY, YOU HAVE NOT SINNED, and if a virgin marry, she has not sinned. Nevertheless, such will have trouble in the flesh; but I spare you.” (27-28).
Read further in I Corinthians 6:9-11, “Don’t you know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived… (big list of sins)… AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU; but you WERE washed, but you ARE sanctified, but you ARE justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
Do you see grace in this? How big is grace? Does the blood of Christ forgive sin? Stop where you are. Don’t divorce anymore. Be the husband/wife you should be in Christ.
Trying to win the world to Christ when divorce is at least as rampant as in the first century, is difficult under LAW, but offers HOPE AND GOOD NEWS when grace is the ‘leading edge.’
Well what’s this “sy-la-ble” stuff? Where should we focus? When a topic becomes the center for a congregations focus/emphasis (one cup or many, instrumental music or not, kitchens, water fountains in buildings or not allowed, long hair or short, hats or not, alcohol or teetotaler, institutional or non-institutional, Holy Spirit indwells personally or only through the word, etcetera!!!)… When one thing becomes the main focus except for JESUS, then it is out of balance with Scriptures. IT’S ALL ABOUT BALANCE in Scriptures. Teach sin as sin but include the precious grace filled answer and balance it out.
I have to offer this last word… I for sure do not understand the depths of grace nor do I understand everything about the many topics that disturb and divide us… I can only encourage you to study, pray, and brethren, grow in grace. We need it.
