Religion
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What is Religion
What is Religion
Tyndale Bible Dictionary Religion
RELIGION The service and worship of God; an institutionalized system of religious beliefs and practices.
Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains 53.1 θρησκεία, ας; εὐσέβεια, ας; θεοσέβεια, ας
appropriate beliefs and devout practice of obligations relating to supernatural persons and powers—‘religion, piety.’
When I say religion I am talking about the concept of regulations and structure to our relationship with God.
I’m not talking about fish hats, incense, ritualistic practices, Christendom, Bishops, overseers and elders, denominations, none of that.
What i’m talking about in all actuality is our relationship with God.
What is a relationship? (Websters)
1: the way in which two or more people, groups, countries, etc., talk to, behave toward, and deal with each otherThe relationship between the two countries has improved.She has a close relationship with her sister.See More Examples
2: a romantic or sexual friendship between two people She has had many bad relationships.I am not in a relationship right now.
3: the way in which two or more people or things are connected the relationship between mental and physical health the doctor-patient relationship
Focus on 3 with an idea of the first two as well.
A relationship is not a relationship until it is defined?
It has to be defined
Familial
Sexual
Friendship
All 3 of those relationships have different structures and we should not enter into any of them with implicit bias, meaning having preconceived ideas of how that relationship should be formulated. It takes two to be part of and define a relationship except when it comes to creator and created. The creator defines His relationship with the created.
Can we even be in a relationship without defining it?
If a couple is dating? How would they know they were dating?
Dont they have to set some rules of engaegement to their relationship.
Are they going to date exclusively or are they going to still date other people?
Are they going to live together?
If a couple were married, how would they know that they are married?
Are they going to have joint bank accounts?
I am proposing that true religion of James 1:27 is the definition of how our relationship with Christ exists.
If we dont have any boundaries or structure to our relationship with God then its a free for all, and you can do whatever you want without any adverse implications and still say you are in a monogamous relationship with Christ.
What is the church called… The bride of Christ..
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.
Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory,
because the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has prepared herself.
She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure.
For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints.
Then he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.”
What is marriage that is a relationship that is defined by structure...
Again true religion is the structure to which we have a relationship with God, and when man tries to define that relationship man is out of place.
Lets look at Gen account
Post initial sin....
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Them sowing fig leaves and making aprons was mans way of rectifying the broken relationship that now existed between them and God because of the fall....
They were no longer comfortable in their nakedness before one another and before God. They were no longer comfortable with a vulnerable relationship with their creator, hence the need to cover and hide.
The church father Irenaeus wrote that the fig leaves could symbolize an act of repentance.
Old Testament I: Genesis 1–11 Their Clothing (Irenaeus)
THEIR CLOTHING. IRENAEUS: Now “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The understanding of transgression leads to penitence, and God extends his kindness to those who repent. For [Adam] showed his repentance in making a girdle, covering himself with fig leaves, when there were many other trees that would have irritated his body less. He, however, in awe of God, made a clothing that matched his disobedience.… And he would no doubt have kept this clothing forever, if God in his mercy had not clothed them with tunics of skin instead of fig leaves. AGAINST HERESIES 3.23.5.