Resist the Proud?
I am interested to hear if anyone has any Scripture or revelation on how (or whether) to handle legalists gracefully.
It seems consistent throughout the new testament that there was confrontation and Jesus himself really pulled them apart ....
Yes we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.
Obviously God's heart toward all of us is without favouritism, but we don't see a graceful model toward the religious people of Jesus' time.
We see Him giving grace to the humble and resisting the proud.
Where does that leave one of us when we are called to defend the Gospel?
I would appreciate your input on this coconut!
6 comments:
I'm not sure there is one set answer to this, and the reason that I think that is because there are various kinds of legalists out there, or perhaps better said they are legalists for different reasons and I think we need to approach each one according to where they're at.
For example, there are staunch legalists who are like the self-righteous Pharisees of Jesus' day. Think about the various ways that Jesus dealt with even this one group. At times they asked Him questions or made accusations against Him, and sometimes He didn't respond and at other times He turned it around and asked them questions. I think that a lot of this was for the sake of pointing out their own hypocrisy for their own sakes, but also for the sakes of the people around them to help them get out from under the strict legalism of the Pharisees.
Other times, Jesus went all off on them, calling them names ("brood of vipers," etc) and using strong language to point out their religious hypocrisy.
But He didn't do this with all the Pharisees. Nicodemus was a legalist, and Jesus knew he was blind to the truth, but yet Jesus was gentle with him even though ol' Nic didn't "get" grace. Nicodemus, it seems to me, was a "law man," but yet was humble and was seriously seeking to understand what it was about Jesus that made things different.
And then there are people like me, when I was in my legalist days. Nobody ever confronted me to my face about my legalism. Nobody called me names and strongly pointed out my religious hypocrisy, although there was much there!
The person who really said the things that got me pointed in the right direction was Mike, who cohosts Growing in Grace with me. We worked in radio together and he heard and saw the way I lived my life. I would say some of the most legalistic things over the airwaves! And in real life, I'm sure he could see the legalistic way in which I lived my life and how I tried to pass it on to others.
But he never got in my face about it. He never called me names. He simply shared the truth with me, and over a period of time I began to really get it.
Since that time, there have been many legalists who have crossed my path and I've dealt with each of them differently. Sometimes I try to reason it out with them through the scriptures. Sometimes I just live my life in front of them and they see how I live and what words I use in my relationships with others.
I've written letters and emails to people, and I've sat down and talked with people, including my pastor who I've had disagreements with. As we sat and casually talked, once in the church cafe and once in his office, I didn't have to get up in his face in order to make it clear what I believe the truth is, compared to where I believe he's been off.
In other words, I don't believe it's always necessary to get people upset with us. :) However, chances are, whether we're in their face or whether we're just casually talking with various legalists, we're bound to be rejected and we're bound to be called heretics and it's going to be said of us that we're preaching a false gospel.
My personal temperament, at least so far in life, is such that I can calmly accept all of that without getting overly upset with others. I think our passion does have a lot of potential to speak to others (such as Paul's passion when preaching the gospel and standing up to legalists), but so much more than that, the truth - God's word - speaks for itself. It does not return void but it accomplishes He pleases for it to accomplish (
Isaiah 55:11). We're the agents who speak the truth and the Holy Spirit is the agent who works it into people's hearts.
This is my experience so far, and my current view of the matter. I'm looking forward to what others have to say as well!
Hi Joel
Great to hear from you.
Hope you are well.
Thank you for your insight again.
Take care buddy.
I kind of ask the Spirit for discernment, I respond VERY strongly against demonic powers, very gently to those who are deceived and hungry for grace, and make no apologies for never ever ever backing down on the truth that we are not under law but GRACE!!!
Careful my friend. We never want to be accused of becoming ungracious. I agree with Joel, the self righteous can be handled firmer, but the way to do it would be to show them how unrighteous they are through thelens of the law. This can be subtley, it does not have to be name calling aggression.
The other thing is this, and i've given it alot of thought.
DO WE WANT TO BE RIGHT?...or bring others INTO truth?
In my dealing with people i want to get them across the bridge and INTO grace.
We need to be careful that our agressive, and possibly prppud stance does not push people away from grace rather than towards it.
Our loudest message is who we are and how we live.
So i would encourage love and tenderness towards people with an attempt to bring them through, rather that be right.
Hope that helps mate
Wayno
Hi there guys, great and helpful comments from all of you..thanks.
Thanks Wayno for always speaking the truth.
It's hard for me to look at injustice and misrepresentation without my blood getting up!
There is definitely pride there as well ..I love to be right!
You know my heart though.
I think of a song by Jason Upton that really gets me going..it's a real warfare song off the album "faith"
"We live in a country supposedly Pharaoless.
But all over town and in churches abide,
Powerful weaklings who practice their politics..
Stealing from Jesus His beautiful bride.
Whether you're Pharisees, Sadducees, Heresies..
you best get out of God's way.
God is saying freedom
freedom to dance
freedom to sing
freedom to grow
I'm telling you Paraoh
let my people go
to worship me.
Thanks again, and thanks G for the blog, it's a great, safe platform.
I am loving the dynamic of this blog at the moment. It is not my blog or your blog, but our blog. The thrashing out of ideas and scripture is what it's about. Engaging brain.
Another thing that stuck out in my mind, from the Bloem L.T.T. 2007 is when Tyrone Daniel said that "it is Jesus's job to look after His bride. Our job is to look after the bride (our wives) that the Father gave us.
Jesus is building His church, His way. He is in control."
I am not advocating a passive/surrender stance by any means. What I am trying to point out is that we can become legalisits very quickly if we don't gaurd our heart motives.
I feel that Romans 8v33 even covers "legalists", because they are also God's children.
This is a quote from a letter I received recently from a very trustworthy source. I feel it is good advice:
"If you'd told me 6 months ago that you felt called to.........to bring the grace message I would have encouraged you to go straight away. It's a misconception that we often have that we're called to bring change/message to a movement or church. especially if we haven't been asked to!!! it inevitably becomes manipulative and divisive which is unhelpful to everyone."
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