We are
living in a time of name calling and classification our society has come up
with plenty. And the problem is these classifications
are constantly thrown out at people unnecessarily. There is no room for debate
these days, if a person is against homosexuality they call it homophobia if
they have a particular position on women they are called sexist or fascists, if
they believe in corporal punishment they are considered child abusers,
disagreeing with a disabled or under privileged is called discrimination, calling
people false teachers is called judging and in the same vein holding a standard
is called legalism or pharisaic. It happens theologically, politically,
socially and religiously. People cannot argue logically these days without
being called a name!
Now I am
not any way saying we do not have racists, sexists, child abusers etc. My point
is simply that people use these as a way of avoiding truth. So just because a
person has a position on music for instance does not make them pharisaic.
Simply put a legalistic is one who believes and teaches that works will gain you
salvation. So legalism is generally connected with salvation. In other words
legalism is heresy that leads to hell! The word Pharisee means separate one and
it is important to note that they had righteous and noble roots. They up held
the word of God. However they slowly drifted from upholding the law that they
became a law in themselves.
In Matthew
23 Jesus brings out the major problems with the Pharisees when he gives seven
woes to them. And the issues he raises are quite instructive for us. To begin
with they failed to recognize Jesus as the messiah hence hindering kingdom
seekers (v13). The second problem was that they were full of pretense (v14).
Their message and actions did not line up. Furthermore they were zealous but
did a lot of damage in other words instead of making Disciples of Christ they
reproduced themselves v 15. Their main concern was people conforming to their
standards and teaching. The other problem was that they missed the main
(central) things and focused on the secondary-misplaced priorities (23-24). They
emphasized tradition over text (25-28). They were more concerned with keeping
what they historically believed and how they had done things than with what the
bible actually said.
Pharisaic
behavior is a really danger for any believer. It is therefore very important to
guard against its spirit at all cost. We should not try to be more spiritual
than God is! There clear matters of doctrine that we should die for and there
are matters of in different and we should Paul’s instructions in Romans 14. But
whatever you do always remember, Christianity is not about everyone having the
same haircut, wearing the same clothes, listening to the same music, playing
and watching the same games or buying the same things. So do not demand others
to keep and follow your standards!
Layton
Talbert in his article published in Front-line magazine in 1999 gives five
helpful suggestions to help us from having a Pharisaic attitude and behavior
and I would like to end with them.
1. Maintain
a tough Biblical evaluation of yourself and your motives in all things.
2. Maintain a charitable Biblical evaluation of
others and their motives.
3. Guard against a self-righteous attitude and a
hypocritical observance.
4. Guard against a preoccupation with externals
over or at the expense of internals.
5. Maintain the distinction between applications/interpretations
and the changeless truth upon which they are based, that is, between Tradition
and Text.
