Readings for 15,16 Aug & comments incl legalism
The Bible readings for Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 August are -- Deut 4:1-49; Ps 40:1-5; Pro 10:6-8; Lk 5:21-6:11.
Please leave your comments any time.
Ps John has left a comment on Psalm 40 on salvation.
Callum has a comment sympathising with Pharisees.
Ps John has a reply to this about hypocrites.
Callum has a comment/question in reply on same theme.
Ps John has a reply mentioning Ps 40:6&8, Lk 6:42 and K Rudd.
Ps John has a comment on Gordon's sermon on Ps 40 and Beatles.
Ps John says to see Gordon's bulletin "editorial" posted on 19/8.
posted by Ps John @ 2:41 PM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
Psalm 40 is a favourite of many, and it's easy to see why. The experience David describes in these opening verses has been the experience of so many. The cry for help has been heard; God has delivered. Once down and out in the mud; Now standing firmly on the rock. Once crying out in desparation; now singing out in praise. As David says, how happy those who put their trust in the LORD.
I find myself increasingly wondering if we are too hard on the Pharisees of the New Testament. We know now that they had the wrong end of the stick, and sure they were legalistic and were responsible for Jesus' death, but after reading most of the Torah now, and seeing the continual emphasis on obeying God's law, is it any wonder they were legalistic? At best they could hope to be confused: see the apparent contradiction of Deut 6:24,25 and Psalm 40:6-8, conveniently located side-by-side here.
Yeh, but.. Jesus was pretty hard on them! He didn't chide them for being confused -- he taught them. He didn't criticise them for obeying the Law -- he encouraged them. But he did condemn them for being hypocrites.
Hypocrites are two-faced; they put on a mask in public; what they say and do publicly is a sham because that's not what they're really like; they live a lie; rotten hearts but shiny faces; white-anted on the inside but with a veneer of respectability. The trouble is there's a bit of that in all of us.
So maybe understanding and compassion is needed rather than just writing them off.
If their problem was hypocrisy, not legalism, it could help us look at fundamentalists in a different light (who are often maligned by the more liberal as being the "weaker brother"). As long as they are sincere in their legalism there is no problem.
Or does legalism always lead to hypocrisy?
I think you might be onto something there. I think legalism probably does lead almost inevitably to hypocracy. Because legalism is just going through the motions without the heart. And without the right heart, it's too easy to do one thing in public and to do the opposite in private where we think no-one else will know.
In Psalm 40:6,8 (part of readings for 17,18 Aug)David gets the whole Law/Love thing right. "You do not delight in sacrifice and offering... I delight to do Your will, my God; Your instruction resides within me."
Interestingly, the issue of hypocrites comes up in today's reading (Monday 20 Aug, Lk 6:42). Jesus says that someone concerned about the speck in another's eye while failing to realise they have a log in their own is a hypocrite. This is general teaching to the crowds and not directly aimed at the Pharisees. So maybe having double standards needs to be part of the defenition or description of a hypocrite as well.
Also interesting is that the issue came up today in current affairs. Is Kevin Rudd a hypocrite?
I loved Gordon's introduction to this Psalm when he preached at the morning service on 19 August. He played "Help" by the Beatles. The parallels with this Psalm were very powerful.
"Help, I need somebody. Help, not just anybody. Help, you know I need someone, help...
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down. And I do appreciate you being round. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won't you please, please help me?"
I don't think the Beatles addressed their song to God (unfortunately), like David did. And David's song goes far beyond just a call for help to be an expression of trust.
P.S. Thought the rest of the sermon was great too.
Gordon has also been thinking about this topic of hypocracy and has some worthwhile comments. See posting on Sunday 19 Aug (with readings for Sun 19 & Mon 20 Aug).
Callum and Ps John,
God has always required perfect obedience to His law, it is precisely why we need a Savior, Jesus,because we have all broken the law.
1Jn 3:4 Whoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
It is true the ordinances of sacrifices and feast days have all been nailed to the cross, but we will be judged in the light of the ten commandments. The ones we have broken, hopefully, we have gone to Jesus and confessed and repented of those sins.
The process of conversion should change our attitude, and we should no longer be rebels breaking the law of God(2nd Cor. 5:17).
There is no contradiction of Deut 6:24,25 and Psalm 40:6-8.
The difficulty of understanding may be here:
Psa 40:6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; my ears have you opened: burnt offering and sin offering have you not required.
God means here that to obey is better than sacrifice. That sin offerings and burnt offerings are not required apart from breaking the law.
This verse may help the understanding:
1Sa 15:22 And Samuel said, Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.
God's continual emphasis on obeying the law was made out of His great love for His children, including us. to put it rather bluntly; obedience is life, disobedience is death, eternal death.
The Pharisees only pretended to keep the law, their hearts were far from God. They had hundreds of years to pervert the law of God, because of the own selfishness adding to their eventual destruction.
Mat 23:23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Mat 23:24 You blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Mat 23:25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Mat 23:26 You blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
The Lord here is very clear in how the Pharisees has twisted god's law.
God Bless!
@ Callum,
Jesus rightly called the Pharisees extreme legalists. They twisted and added to the law of God with endless trivialities that bound tremendous burdens upon the chosen of God. We should believe the Bible and not form our own opinions apart from Holy Writ;
Mat 23:23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Mat 23:24 You blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Mat 23:25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Mat 23:26 You blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
Mat 23:27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like to white washed sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
Mat 23:28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Please notice here Jesus says they were full of sin
Mat 23:29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,
Mat 23:30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Mat 23:31 Why you be witnesses to yourselves, that you are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Mat 23:32 Fill you up then the measure of your fathers.
Mat 23:33 You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?
Mat 23:34 Why, behold, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall you whip in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
Mat 23:35 That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.
I believe the Word of God says it all, does it not?
Callum,
The Pharisees chose to be led of Satan. They had the Old Testament; there were some however, such as Nicodemus who was true to God and His law and the plan of salvation.
They should have known from the prophecies that Jesus was in fact the promised Messiah; Daniel 9:25 and onwards gives the exact time of His beginning ministry, and the words "cut off" refers to His crucifixion.
Dan 9:25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
Dan 9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
A week here is 7 years. (see Numbers 14:34, and Eze. 4:6) The beginning date is 457 BC. (see Ezra 7) This prophecy is a part of the 2300 day/year prophecy that we find in Daniel 8:14, which ended at Oct. 22, 1844, when Jesus entered the Most Holy compartment in heaven to begin the Investigative Judgment and to continued as our only Mediator.
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