By David O. Dykes
Every church has what I call "the cold-water committee." Whenever the fire of God starts burning in the hearts of some folks, they rise up and pour cold water on it. Whenever there’s a new and creative way to do church, they pour cold water on that idea. The cold-water committee is not an elected committee; the members are self-appointed. They think it is their job to make sure things don’t get out of hand in their church. Their favorite phrases are, "We don’t do things like that around here," or, "We’ve never done it that way before." Like the ruler of the synagogue, these people may even quote a little Scripture; but they are more into rules than into the liberty Jesus gives.
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Don’t become a part of that committee, and don’t pay any attention when someone on that committee corners you to complain about something he or she doesn’t like.
There are some religious traditions that are completely benign. But when you allow traditions to overshadow the Word of God, that’s when they become dangerous. Jesus said in
Mark 7:8,13, "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men ... thus, you nullify the Word of God by your tradition which you have handed down."
God is always at work in the now, and a tradition always anchors us to the past. Someone has written a clever definition of a religious tradition: "A clock that tells you what time it was." It’s sad to say that many churches and many Christians still want things to be the way they "used to be." When they sing about "the old-time religion" they aren’t talking about 2,000 years ago in the Book of Acts; they are talking about church in the south in the 1950s and 1960s!
Here’s the
Life Lesson: God’s laws aren’t to tie you down but to set you free! The law of God was never intended to restrict you but to set you free. Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In
Galatians 3:24 Paul is writing to a group of Christians who have forfeited their liberty under grace and have slipped back into the straightjacket of the law. He says, "The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law."
Legalists don’t enjoy their faith—and they don’t want anyone else to enjoy it either. A legalist is someone whose list of rules is longer than God’s, and they want to impose their list of rules and regulations on others. Max Lucado wrote: "Legalism has no pity on people. Legalism makes my opinion your burden, makes my opinion your boundary, makes my opinion your obligation. Nothing will keep a Christian more immature than trying to keep a long list of rules" (
Up Words, May 1993).