{"id":471,"date":"2006-04-07T23:21:19","date_gmt":"2006-04-07T23:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/04\/aint_it_called.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:46:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:46:46","slug":"aint_it_called","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/04\/aint_it_called.shtml","title":{"rendered":"Throw Out Your Rule Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Go read the latest<\/a> from Keith at Blog in My Own Eye<\/a>. He writes about our obsession with getting it right in Christiandom. And condemning those who don’t. He thinks weve got it all wrong and I think he’s right. There’s a lot of great quotes, but in hoping you go read it in it’s entirety I’ll give you this snippet:<\/p>\n

The point, to me, is that a lot of our self-devised rules are pretty arbitrary. They serve to separate, not to unite. They do so by creating castes of “I’m better than you” folks who can live by those rules and look down on those who don’t; who can preach them into hell for their infidelity. They create super-apostles versus lesser believers who can never feel confident of their faith. They foster an “I’m right and you’re wrong” attitude that is totally inconsistent with the truth – that we are all wrong, and only Jesus is right.
\nYou see, I’m not sure that Matthew 18 is entirely about the proper procedures for handling conflict between brothers.
\nI’m thinking it might also be good tongue-in-cheek advice for how not to impose your fifty-volume perfect-bound personal rule book encyclopedia on someone else: Just leave them alone. Let them struggle through their own challenges, not yours. Because if you love them, you can’t possibly excommunicate them forever, based on your imperfect knowledge and your imperfect judgment.
\nC’mon. Can you really picture Jesus saying, “… treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” without a hint of a smile playing at the side of His mouth? The One who came from heaven to redeem pagans and to call tax collectors to follow Him?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jesus came and he overturned more than jsut tables, he flipped the entire way of viewing God and his rules. But we quietly go back after Jesus and place the tables – and our understanding of God – right side up again. We need our rules and regulations, we need to have laws to obey and to be able to identify others who are ‘right’ as well. But that wasn’t Jesus. He assoiated with the wrong people and acted in the wrong ways. He ticked people off because he didn’t fit within their notion of what it was to be Godly. he just wouldn’t paly by the rules.
\nAre we too afraid to do the same?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go read the latest from Keith at Blog in My Own Eye. He writes about our obsession with getting it right in Christiandom. And condemning those who don’t. He thinksRead More Throw Out Your Rule Book<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThrow Out Your Rule Book - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/04\/aint_it_called.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Throw Out Your Rule Book - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Go read the latest from Keith at Blog in My Own Eye. 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John5:1-15 Do you have any questions or thoughts? J - Why wasn't he allowed to carry his mat? Remember the 10 commandments? J - Yes, but I don't remember exactly what they say. One of them is to honor the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Quiet Time Journal"","block_context":{"text":"Quiet Time Journal","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/quiet-time-journal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":429,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/01\/psalm_18.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":1},"title":"Psalm 18","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"January 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"For those of you who've noticed that it's been 6 1\/2 months since my last Quiet Time Journal entry and assumed that I've been reading regularly without posting, thank you for your faith in me. You'd be wrong, unfortunately, but thanks anyway. 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