Avoiding Legalism

As a Christian, I have been guilty of being legalistic about things when it really wasn’t truly a violation of God’s word or nature. In most cases, it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me individually about an area in my life which needed to be addressed/corrected because it was affecting my relationship with God. Although a problem for me, it may not have been an issue or sin for others. I know that I am not the only individual who has struggled in this area.  In fact, Christians have struggled with questions about what is right or wrong for centuries. The Bible teaches standards of morality and personal relationships by giving instructions like “Stay away from every kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22-NIV).” There are many things specifically listed in the Bible as being evil. In Ephesians 5 for example, it lists sexual immorality, greed, obscenity and coarse joking as just a few. There should be no question about those evils that are listed, but other behaviors are not specifically mentioned in the Bible. How are they to be judged?

In order to truly answer this question, we have to dig deeper into God’s word to identify an important principle.  I Samuel 16:6 tells us, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”. In this passage, we see that the heart (motivation) is more important to God than the specific act that a person does. So, if the Bible doesn’t specifically condemn certain behaviors, then we have to rely on guidance from the Holy Spirit to help us identify those behaviors that please God versus those behaviors that displease God. As a believer studies the scriptures, they learn three principles about pleasing God:

1.      Personal convictions are not always universal commands.  Sometimes people will not do something because they feel it is wrong. In these cases, it may be the Holy Spirit who has convicted them about that issue because it may be causing them spiritual or physical harm. I knew a Christian woman who strongly opposed playing any games that required the use of dice. Her personal conviction came from the fact that the scriptures stated that the soldiers who crucified Jesus Christ cast lots for his garments at the base of the cross. She felt that throwing dice was wrong because it was the same as casting lots. Although a lot of people don’t see any harm in playing games that utilize dice, to her it was a sin. In my own personal life, the Holy Spirit convicted me because I was spending way too much time on Facebook and I would get irritated by some of the posts that I would see. It got to the point where I was allowing it to interfere with my productivity and joy and I finally chose to deactivate my account.

2.      The influence our actions may have on fellow believers must also guide our choices. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:9, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” Although playing games with dice didn’t violate my convictions, because playing games utilizing dice violated a friend’s convictions, we made sure we only played games that didn’t require dice. In the area of Facebook, I explained my feelings of addiction with my “real” facebook friends who understood and were supportive of my decision to deactivate my account.

3.      The Christian’s personal rights are no reason for denying fellow believers their rights. A real mark of spiritual maturity is the move from a self-centered concern about what’s in your own best interest to concern for what is in others’ best interest. The woman whose personal conviction was that playing games utilizing dice was wrong never showed condemnation to those who wanted to play games that utilized them. She just wouldn’t participate in those types of games and those of us who wanted to include her as much as we could, would choose games that didn’t need dice. It never was really a problem. In my own personal life, I don’t have a problem with others who continue to utilize Facebook as a way to communicate and share with others. In fact, I still hear snippets of what is going on because my wife will on rare occasions share with me what has been posted that is of significance to her.

The bottom line is that the person who is led by the spirit, with a desire to be pleasing to God, will avoid lawyerly exercises to create biased rules by which to judge other believers. They realize that the only true standard by which man may be judged is the inerrant Word of God and that the Holy Spirit is here to guide fellow believers in making choices that are pleasing to God.