Manmade Religion

Introduction

Today we are starting a 5 week journey as we explore the concept of reconstructing faith. We are living at in a post Christian society.. I have heard some philosophers actually refer to this generation as post, post Christians. Many have become disillusioned with Christianity for a number of reasons.

They way the modern church as reacted to the LGBTQ agenda, to abortion, to political candidates and issues have left many disappointed.

The Jesus that was preached to them has not lived up to their expectations.

They have had some kind of epiphany in which they feel they must throw away everything they once learned and adopt a more modern worldview. The reasons are endless. But the root cause of why people think that somehow what the Bible says, or God himself has fallen short is because of a wrong understanding of biblical, spiritual principles. They are expecting the fulfilment of promises never made while missing the blessing of assurance of promises that were actually made.

Ephesians 3:20 (LSB)

20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, according to the power that works within us,

God is able to do far more than what we can even imagine enough to even ask.

We sing a song for worship here where the lyrics say Christ is my firm foundation, the rock on which I stand, when everything around me is shaken, I’ve never been more glad, that I put my faith in Jesus, cause he’s never let me down, He’s faithful through generations, So why would he fail now, He wont.

Hebrews 10:23 (LSB)

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

So if all of this is true, what then is the problem? The problem is that we have infused into God said what he has not said and completely ignored what he did say.

This is not done blatantly. it is overt, many times subconsciously, yet the damage is the same as an open deliberate revolt.

It can start with a question I have heard many times. A question that either people ask themselves or they ask others as they contemplate a passage of Scripture. What does this Scripture mean to me? The answer should be “who cares.”

Proverbs 3:5 (LSB)

5 Trust in Yahweh with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.

It is not about how it makes you feel or what it means to you it is what does it mean. It can only mean that which the author intended it to mean. Our children have gotten in so much trouble over this concept in our house is not even funny…

When you go away believing, having great faith that God will do what He never promised you He would do, you go away feeling betrayed and abandoned and thinking this Christianity thing does not work.

Likewise when you go away not embracing the promises that are actually yours in Christ you feel empty and unfulfilled.

But also, and perhaps even more importantly, people begin deconstructing because they have embraced human tradition which are empty and void of meaning while abandoning God’s commandments, God’s word. (Ps 119:105)

Reconstructing faith is a return to thus saith the Lord. To do that we need to do what we must always do when we open the text of Scripture. See what it says, then find out what is meant by what it says, and then, and only then, can we extract from that the principle that ought to govern our lives.

Today specifically we will deal with Manmade Religion.

Matthew 15:1–9 (LSB)

1 Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,

2 “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”

3 And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

4 “For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’

5 “But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever you might benefit from me is given to God,”

6 he need not honor his father.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

7 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:

8 ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.

9 ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commands of men.’”

Matthew goes through the trouble of letting his readers know that these were not the local religious leaders but these came down to Galilee from Jerusalem.

This may have been a formal or semiformal delegation with seemingly more prestige or even perceived authority. This is not just your supervisor or upper management that came to check on the work of your department this was the corporate office.

They came to investigate, to interrogate Jesus since they were the foremost authority in religious, biblical observance and practice and had the immediate respect and admiration of the people.

The pharisees were a jewish religious group that emerged during the period of the second temple.

They were known for their strict adherence to the torah (1st 5 books of the Hebrew canon). and the oral traditions traditions that interpreted and supplemented the law.

The scribes were OT scholars considered to be expert in interpreting the law. They were the professional expounders, teachers, and transcribers of the OT. Many scribes were also pharisees but not all pharisees were scribes.

They were interpreters of the law, legal experts and record keepers.

at any rate they confronted Jesus picking a fight for sure and said,

Matthew 15:2 (LSB)

2 “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”

This delegation would consider the oral traditions. These commentaries or explanations of the law to be as authoritative and as binding as the law itself. They believed that the oral law, which explained and applied the written law, was given to Moses at the same time as the written law. The oral tradition that had grown up around the law was eventually put to writing around the 3rd century which is called the Mishnah.

The Mishnah is easily about 1000 pages of text that are expected to explain and expound on the law. But since the Mishnah is so complexed in explaining the law there is another body of works called the tamuld which is about 72 volumes of thousands of pages that explain the Mishnah that explain the law.

The pharisees here were not concerned with hygiene but with ceremonial purification…

And this was a fairly new tradition at the time of Jesus which was not even widely known yet.

Jesus did not waste His time debating something that was out of their own creation as if it was something biblically unlawful. He eventually addresses their question in verses 17-20 though in private to His disciples he explained that it is not what goes in that is defiled but what comes out.

But to the delegation he went straight to the Scriptures. He took the offensive and said,

Matthew 15:3 (LSB)

3 And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

He immediately addressed the implication of their question. Because their question assumed a posture of tradition as above or at least at the same level as the law of God.

This ceremonial washing is something that the Jews still do today…

Jesus does not refer to this as they did, the tradition of the elders but as “your own tradition.”

Jesus does not answer their question because their question, which is actually an accusation, has not validity. In other words, on the basis of what exactly are they suppose to do what you’re saying? so he does not answer

His counter, however, echoes the same accusatory tone as theirs but Jesus’ question has teeth he uses God’s commandments, the fifth on Ex 20:12 and Deut 5:16.

Matthew 15:4–6 (LSB)

4 “For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’

5 “But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever you might benefit from me is given to God,”

6 he need not honor his father.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

By this contrast of “God said” over and above what “you say” He makes clear where the ultimate authority must lay.

I have participated in many biblical discussions where participants have laid the Scriptures down in order to express their feelings.

At any rate, lets explain this. These people had come up with a loophole that would allow them the ability to keep their possessions intact without having to use them to care for aging and or needy parents.

You took whatever you wanted to keep, it could be food, money, or property and vowed it to the support of the temple. This was payable to the temple at the moment of your death. But until then, you have access to it for you, but no one else take claim of it. This practice would be used as a legal fiction in which there was never any actual giving of the item or money, but just avoided having to use it on parents because they could not be sold or transferred. This was a legal device that would allow a person to avoid having to provide for parents but without actually having to give anything to the temple.

In essence this was dishonoring your father and mother. By making this loophole available, they were invalidating word of God. These jokers smart. These is something more dangerous than evil, that is smart evil. They would justify this atrocity with Scripture:

Numbers 30:2 (LSB)

2 “If a man makes a vow to Yahweh or swears an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

I do not want to present you with too many specific applications of this practice today because people tend to zero-in on those specific examples and not take the time to consider the vast implications of all this which is greater than any specific example I can give you today.

pic of Donald Trump

pic of abortion

pic of trans

Just think of the different loopholes that many in America today have created which facilitate the invalidation of the Word of God for the sake of their own manmade religion. And they have done this with the Bible

He said,

Matthew 15:7–9 (LSB)

7 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:

8 ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.

9 ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commands of men.’”

This is the reason why this idea of private interpretation, what the Bible means to me is unacceptable.

As we reconstruct our faith by going back to the basics we must wrestle with what the text of Scripture says and what it means by what it says.. if we do not, we will not honor Christ we will embrace a false religion even if it employs Scriptures.

It is Christ. What He said, what he meant by what He said throughout the Scriptures that is our foundation.