This blog serves as an outreach for Pastor Randy Powell of the First Baptist Church of Franklin, PA. Feel free to ask questions or send me an e-mail at pastorpowell@hotmail.com
{Due to a technical glitch, this week's original sermon video was not recorded, this video is the audio from Sunday combined with the PowerPoint slides from the sermon; sorry for any inconvenience}...
What is the path to greater piety and devotion to God? One attempted answer to this question that has been active throughout Church history has been the related methods of legalism and asceticism. Legalism seeks to impose rules, as if becoming closer to God were a simple matter of following them, while asceticism seeks to deny biological impulses and needs (such as food, drink, sex), as if being biological they are somehow inherently unholy and opposed to the things of the spirit. Church history has featured hermits and monks attempting to be holy along these paths, as much as their efforts were self-centered, and self-powered, they were doomed to failure.
Paul addresses this issue at the church at Colossae, where a mixture of Mosaic legalism and Greek philosophical asceticism had combined to tempt the believers there away from their trust in the all-sufficiency of Christ, a danger that Paul warns strongly against, reassuring them that the path of legalistic asceticism is doomed to failure because it has lost its connection with Christ, and thus the power of God, the only true source of spiritual growth.
While teaching in a synagogue, on the Sabbath, Jesus was confronted with the implications of a cultural/religious phenomenon known as expansion of piety. In this case, it was observance of the Sabbath that had grown more elaborate and restrictive over time to the point that by the first century, it was even considered to be a violation of the Law to heal someone of infirmity on the Sabbath. This has, of course, nothing to do with the original intent of the law of Sabbath rest, but is instead a result of small incremental steps of increasing piety/devotion over time and the eventual integration of those new facets of keeping the Sabbath into the accepted form of obeying the Law. Eventually, the traditions surrounding the Sabbath came to be accepted as being as sacred and binding as that which was contained originally in the Law of Moses.
This same phenomenon occurs in Church history, as pious scribes over time magnify the name of Jesus in the text that they are copying such that what was originally simply "Jesus" eventually becomes "our Lord Jesus Christ". Similarly, appreciation for Mary as the mother of Jesus eventually builds and grows until it becomes full blown Marian devotion in the Middle Ages, the same thing applying to the Saints and their relics. Likewise, the church liturgy itself, along with the church buildings, communion items like the candlesticks and cups, and the priestly vestments, all grew more elaborate and complex over time.
The problem with this tendency arises when a would be reformer seeks to return things to their original intent or purpose only to be viewed as a heretic for daring to attack the sacred when in reality he/she is only seeking to peel away the layers of human additions to what God instituted. Some such additions and growths are harmless, but others, like the change of how the Sabbath was observed that Jesus confronted, can lead to a twisting of what the original purpose was to the extent that it actually becomes harmful. The enhanced Sabbath observance not only led to hypocritical and silly extremes, but it eventually raised keeping the Sabbath above the needs of real people such that the crowd became indignant with Jesus when he dared to heal on the Sabbath.
In the end, what God had decreed, we have no right to change, what man has built upon that foundation, should always be open to reform, especially if what we have built puts tradition, rules, and preferences, above the needs of the people of God.
