Receding Heirs

Matthew 5:19-20 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

There is a lot of relaxing going on in God’s kingdom these days. A commandment is no longer a commandment; it’s an option or maybe it’s a debate about what that commandment really means as interpreted by popular culture. Churches are relaxing century-old morals and standards and teachings in the vain attempt to accommodate those who simply don’t like them. Jesus constantly ran into a religious system that had placed man-made traditions and rules ahead of the clear and concise word of God. God is delivered to us a perfect book called “the Bible.” The words of that book are miraculous in the truth that they reveal and in the affected has on our personal lives. Jesus is telling us to not mess with, reinterpret or dilute what has been plainly spoken to us.

Here are some ways that we “relax” God’s word:

1. We pretend the Bible doesn’t mean what it literally says. We are surrounded by sophisticated scholars who like to tell us that the Bible addresses the culture of its day but it must be reinterpreted to address the culture of our day. I guess they mean that God wasn’t smart enough to be able to put down in writing his thoughts and his ways that would transcend all time and culture. So they say, “he didn’t really mean that for today; he meant that for back then.” It’s very convenient that the things God once called sin are no longer sin today. It’s a good thing that we have people who can second-guess God and tell us what he really meant to say.

2. We treat the Bible like a buffet restaurant. The great thing about the buffet is that you get to eat what you want and leave the rest. For me that means I load up on the meat and potatoes but usually leave the green stuff alone. When it comes to the Bible it means we gorge ourselves on the love and forgiveness and grace of God but we have a tendency to leave the “pick up your cross and follow me” items on the buffet. When we do that we are relaxing the word of God.

3. We claim that “Jesus never directly addressed that issue” and thereby justify our actions. It is very popular today to find permission to do some things because Jesus never said not to do those things. Jesus never directly addressed smoking weed and so somehow there is permission to do it. That is ludicrous and very poor Bible understanding. Scripture, on the whole, addresses just about every conceivable issue that we will ever wrestle with. Just remember that even if Jesus didn’t directly address it Jesus believed the authority of the whole Scripture. All the Bible is inspired, not just the words in red.

4. We can relax Scripture by handling it clumsily. Instead of diligently studying the Bible we just latch onto a few verses here and there and repeat things that we’ve heard from others. The Bible should be studied seriously. The Bible should be honored and read attentively. Cults are the ones who lift only certain passages of Scripture to prove a point and ignore the rest.

5. We water down the offensive, hard and exclusive commands of God. What do you do with Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek, to love your neighbor, to go into all the world with the gospel, to not get divorced, to forgive like you’ve been forgiven, to love your enemies and to treat every needy person like they were Jesus himself? These are forceful and heavy duty actions that are laced with kingdom power. But they are distasteful to our pride and so we relax the commands of God by claiming that “God understands our situation” and we exclude ourselves from obedience. I run into people all the time we think they are found a loophole to avoid having to do anything that their flesh doesn’t want to do. We are simply saying that those scriptures don’t apply to us.

The word of God doesn’t need your approval. Jesus said, “thy word is truth.” Truth is just the truth. It’s always the truth no matter how we feel about it, what a judge may rule about it or how we vote on it. I was building an apartment above my garage and when I began to connect the electrical outlets I had to follow the laws of electricity in order for those outlets and switches to work properly. It didn’t matter how I felt about electricity, electricity doesn’t care how you feel. The laws of electricity must be followed if it is to work properly. Jesus says that in obeying and teaching God’s great commands (which are for our benefit!) you will become great in the kingdom of God. Those who relax those commandments are least in the kingdom; ineffectual and weak and the power will never flow through you.