Damned Religion

And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples,  "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

Luke 20:45-47

Jesus spent a lot of time pointing our the deceit and dangers of corrupted religion. That is what he is doing with this warning against the self-driven religion of the scribes. They had turned the worship of God into nothing more than another kind of selfish worldly self-promotion. And Jesus was not happy about what it did to them or taught the people.

The sick thing about being a human being born with soul depravity is that we easily make anything a bad thing. We can corrupt anything. In fact anybody can sinfully twist anything for any reason just about any time. That is what the doctrine of total depravity truly means. And no human being is immune to this. We are born selfish to one degree or another.

When we corrupt good things to our selfish purposes we are uniquely and particularly sinful. And when we do so while being viewed as a leader, big condemnation should be expected from God. That was Jesus’ point about the scribes. All that showing off, attention grabbing, pretense, and religion without substance made them robbers and liars. And it damned them more than if they had not ever been religious.

These words of Jesus still serve to warn Christians today. I know that I have a tendency to think and act “scribally” in the outward demonstration of my faith. I need the warning words of Jesus. It is sad to see so many Christian leaders who are no better than these damned scribes. Without the heart check that Jesus gives here, I know that I would be a headline-seeking selfish person as well. Jesus, keep me from duplicity in my faith!

Technorati Tags: Luke,Jesus,Hypocrisy,Religion

Commerce & Religion

And he was teaching them and saying to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

Mark 11:17-18

One clear sign of a degenerative religion is commercial activity in its practice. Jesus would not let the profiteering continue in the temple when He saw it. He took swift and decisive and controversial action. He drove out those who were making obscene profits from exchanging foreign funds at the temple. He chased away those who were taking advantage of the poor through the forced sale of sacrificial animals.

The practices that made Jesus so indignant were twofold: 1) The money changers charged way too high an exchange price for those coming in from foreign places to worship during the Passover. The temple tax was to be paid in Jewish currency, and the money changers made healthy, even outrageous profits, from the practice. 2) Those selling sacrificial animals also took advantage of those making a long journey to the temple. They would raise the price of a sacrificial animal to extremes. They also would insist that any animal brought for sacrifice would have to be traded (along with a chunk of cash) for a more acceptable animal. They would then more than likely sell the “trade-in” to the next unsuspecting customer. It was quite a racket.

Jesus had the authority to do this because this was after all His Father’s house! And no one could do anything about it at the moment. The chief priests and scribes saw that the crowd adored what Jesus had done. They had been oppressed by this evil practice for quite some time. So the leaders just decided to bide their time. The crowds were astonished at His teaching (again) because this time He physically demonstrated His authority over the very practices done in the temple courts.

I wonder what Jesus would think of our modern evangelical culture. I am all for resources and reading. I suppose there is a place for being able to purchase them at a reasonable price. I know that I could not take a royalty on a Christian resource in good conscience. I am not so sure that retailing the gospel for sheer profit is such a good idea, either. We can get bumper stickers, necklaces, candy bars, sweat shirts, rap CD’s, and nowadays, even Christian cologne in the name of the Man who cleansed the temple of its salesmen. Could something be not quite right?

Technorati Tags: Mark,Religion,Christian Retail

At the heart of the matter.

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.
Matthew 15:18-20a

This is the core teaching of Christ that gets to me. I know it to be real. I know that it is what is inside my heart that is most evil. And the sin there is what I cannot seem to control, no matter how much I resent it being there. Evil crops up and comes out. And it comes from the heart.

The Pharisees and Jewish authorities of Jesus' day had external religion tied down. They pushed so hard for conformance to rules. But they failed miserably at transformation of the heart. And that is where Jesus excels. He gets to the root issues by insisting that the kind of change He brings is one of the heart.

I personally know that is where the Christian life begins and grows in me. It is at the heart. It is internal. It is a war inside of me. And Jesus brings victory and not only defines the struggle, but offers hope beyond it.

Technorati Tags: Jesus,heart,religion