What Was Religion Like in Christ’s Day?

Jesus knew the dangers of religion. He was hated by some of the most religious people in Jerusalem. While the sinners and outcasts of society were attracted to Him, the religionists of His day — the Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees, and priests — were with very few exceptions, His bitter enemies. Let me describe these 4 groups to you…
The Pharisees were a Jewish religious group that attempted to keep Israel free of Gentile contamination by vigorously adhering to the Scriptures and to a large body of oral tradition that applied the Law of God to the details of daily life.

The Scribes were experts in biblical law (also called lawyers) who were often found among the Pharisees. The Pharisees depended on the scribes for a right interpretation of Scripture.a

The Sadducees were an upper-class Jewish religious group that rejected the oral tradition of the Pharisees and insisted on a rigid interpretation and adherence to the Mosaic Law.

The Priests were descendants of Aaron who inherited the responsibility of attending to the ritual of the Temple in Jerusalem. They were often associated with the Sadducees.

Jesus did not flatter these religious leaders. He didn’t leave room for the notion that they were godly men who had just made a mistake about Him. He said that if they had known His Father, they would have known Him. To their face, He called them hypocrites and blind leaders of the blind.
This isn’t the storyline many of us might expect. We might expect Jesus’ enemies to surface among the atheists, secular thinkers, and criminal elements of society. But that wasn’t the case. Street people were attracted to Him. Sinners were among His friends. Even Pilate, the pagan Roman governor of Judea, was inclined to give Jesus more consideration and benefit of the doubt. The religious Sadducees and Pharisees of Jerusalem, however, were always trying to discredit Jesus. They had no use for Him, and they were convinced that the world would be a better place without Him.

A Closer Look at The Pharisees.
They were not all bad. Respected as some of the most godly and spiritually committed of the Jews, they were:
* Theists, who because of their belief in the God of Israel, advocated a God-                centered life.
* Separatists, who were determined to protect Israel from being compromised,                 swallowed, and absorbed into a Gentile world.
* Biblicists, who believed that Israel’s future depended on whether or not they                 honored and practiced the Law of God.
* Populists, many of whom were craftsmen and tradesmen, therefore identifying         with the common man.
* Pragmatists, who wrestled not only with what the Law said but how it looked                 and applied to the smallest details of life.
* Traditionalists, who carefully memorized, repeated, and entrenched                     themselves in the ways of their spiritual forefathers.

The Pharisees, however, took some wrong turns in their attempt to make the Law of God relevant and practical to Israel. As they made an effort to show what the Word of God “looked like” in daily life, their concrete applications became an end in and of themselves. Before long, they were lost in specifics and, according to Jesus, were “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9). They became focused of the details and lost the heart of the gospel.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at why Christ was a threat to religion.

What’s The Real Difference?

Religion and Christ are not mutually exclusive, but they are very distinct. James, the New Testament writer and brother of Jesus, wrote, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). Religion can be many good things, but it cannot be a substitute for Christ.

Religion Is Something to Believe and Do:
Attending religious services        * Enrolling children in religious schools
Showing acts of kindness        * Avoiding immorality
Believing in God                * Having religious affiliation
Being baptized                * Receiving communion
Studying doctrine            * Reading the Scriptures
Offering prayers                * Celebrating religious events
Teaching religious classes        * Giving aid to the poor
Singing in the choir            * Being known as a godly person

Christ Is Someone to Know and Trust:
* Someone who is very near         * Someone who has authority to help us
Someone who can forgive us         * Someone who can declare us righteous
Someone who can bring God to us     * Someone who can set us apart for God
Someone who can guide & teach us     * Someone who can include us in His will
Someone who can be our example     * Someone who never leaves us all alone
Someone who can be trusted         * Someone who can defend us
Someone who can enable us         * Someone who can intercede for us
Someone who can feel our pain     * Someone who can respond to emotions
Someone who can give us joy         * Someone who can give us peace
Someone who can give us hope     * Someone who can give us love
Someone who has died for us         * Someone who has proven His love for us
Someone who rose from the dead for us
Someone who can live His life through us
Someone who can take us all the way Home
Someone who can assure us of Heaven

Tomorrow, we’ll look at what religion was like in Jesus’ day.

The Danger of Being Religious

From they beginning, religion has been dangerous. Long before the Japanese nerve-gas cult Aum Shinrikyo, people of faith have been killing one another in the name of God. Long before Waco and Jonestown, spiritual fervor has created a battleground where some have been saved and others have been lost.

The danger of being religious can be seen as early as Adam and Eve’s fatal mistake which occurred in an attempt to be more like God. Their error was not that they stopped believing in God, but that they began believing in a way that had been forbidden. Our worst errors are always religious ones. Their first son, Cain, also tried to trust God on his own terms. God rejected his bloodless sacrifice but honored the sacrificial lamb offered up by his brother, Abel. Burning with anger, Cain became so jealous that he killed Abel and ruined his own life in the process.

The people of Israel also got in trouble for trying to serve and worship God on their own terms. On the threshold of the Promised Land, some Jewish men accepted an invitation from the local women to be guests at a pagan religious event. Within hours, thousands of Jewish people had died (Numbers 25). Danger follows those who trust God on their own terms.

Saul, the first king of Israel, was no different. He lost his kingdom by making religious mistakes. When Samuel the priest didn’t show up in time to offer a pre-battle sacrifice, Saul thought it was necessary to offer the sacrifice himself. He was wrong (1 Samuel 13:8-14; see also chapter 15).

Even David got in trouble for being religious. After being confirmed as King of Israel, he called for the sacred chest that contained the Ten Commandments of God. With enthusiasm, he led all Israel in a procession to bring the holy object to Jerusalem. Yet, when the oxen carrying the ark of the covenant stumbled, and when a priest named Uzzah put out his hand to make sure that the ark did not fall, God struck the priest dead. David reacted with fear and anger. How could he live with such a God? Only after re-reading the Law of god did David realize he had done the right thing in the wrong way (1 Chronicles 13; 15:12-15).

Why does God make an issue of what we believe and how we serve and worship Him? Because He is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24), not ritualistically and ignorantly. God wants to be worshiped from a heart that is responding to the truth about His love and grace.

It may sound complex, but it really isn’t. All God really wants is for us to know and love His Son. Good religion will follow (James 1:26-27).
We’ll talk about the real difference tomorrow.

Religion or Christ: What’s the Difference?
Is there a distinction worth making? Or is it only a matter of terms? Should we be encouraged that one opinion poll found that 85% of Americans consider themselves somewhat or very religious? Should we take a second look, in light of the fact that in Jesus’ day He was hated by conservative religious leaders?
These devotionals are written with the conviction that there is a fundamental difference between Christ and religion, and that a study of the Pharisees of Christ’s day can give us insight not only into this difference but also into ourselves.
We will start this journey tomorrow, but let me begin by defining some of the terms we will be using throughout these devotionals:

Christ: The 2nd person of the triune God who became a member of the human     race,             lived a sinless life, was crucified and rose from the dead to offer salvation to all             who put their trust in Him.

Communion: A symbolic ceremony of bread & wine to remind believers of Christ’s                 death for them.

Cross: The form of execution by which Christ suffered and died in our place to pay for             our sins.

Faith: Personal trust which, when placed in the person of Christ, forms the heart of             true religion.

Justification: To be “declared righteous.” In salvation, God extends to all who are in                 Christ the legal status of being right with Him.

Legalistic: Someone who trusts the Law to do for him what only Christ can do.

Religion: A system of thought & conduct expressing belief in God.

Religionist: Someone who trusts religion to do for him what only Christ can do.

Repentance: A change of mind evidenced by a change of behavior.

Resurrection: The act by which Christ rose bodily from death, showing the value of                 His sacrifice and His ability to live His life through all who trust Him.

Salvation: God’s loving offer to save from the past, present, and future effects of sin                 everyone who puts his faith in Christ.

Sin: Any violation of God’s moral laws; carries the penalty of death.

Water Baptism: A symbolic ceremony that is an outward declaration of personal belief                 in Christ.

The Seven

GLUTTONY

A glutton is a person who voraciously stuffs themselves with food, well past the point of being full. And while overeating can be frivolous or humorous (like the time my son ate 11 plates of food at Golden Corral), whenever gluttony becomes a pattern of life, it’s no laughing matter. Proverbs uses hyperbole to jolt us with how seriously we should take this temptation: “Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony” (Proverbs 23:2) NIV.

At the root, though, the Bible tells us that gluttony is not really a matter of calories but of forgetfulness — a forgetfulness that can lead to rebellion and ruin. In the Garden of Eden, that first gluttonous bite happened when Eve and Adam forgot that God had given them everything they could possibly need and that nothing outside of their life with God would satisfy them. Similarly, when God led Israel out of Egypt and through the desert, the people forgot after only a few weeks, what life had been like under Pharaoh and how astounding God’s rescue was. Still, God continued to lavish food on His people, spreading honey-wafers (manna’s) on the ground and dropping quail for meat out of the sky. God did this so the people would remember — and never forget — their God. “At twilight, you will eat meat,” God said, “and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 16:12).

But of course, Israel forgot. We all forget. The people had been told to only grab enough food for each day, and that God would provide what they needed every morning. However, predictably, many didn’t trust God. They thought they needed to stockpile more. So some grabbed and hoarded. Later, others decided that the manna’s and the quail was not enough and began to “crave other foods” — translated literally, the text says they “craved a craving” (Numbers 11:4). Their cravings ran away with them. They became gluttons.

We suffer the same temptations. We stuff ourselves with a glut of food, of the media, of experiences and opportunities. We pursue an image of another person’s acceptance or some achievement. Stuffing and hoarding, we no longer believe that God is who we most crave.

What we all need most — far more than food or reputation or any other experience or person — is God. Our temptation to stuff ourselves signals to us a profound truth, a truth we should honor: we are indeed hungry; hungry to experience God and life in His kingdom. So, we do not despise our hunger; rather we move deeper into it, into the deepest longings it points to. And as we go deeper, we discover good, good news: our kind and generous God longs to give us all we need. If we insist on gorging ourselves, we’ll never come with open hands ready to receive.

Question:     Where are you tempted to replace God’s place in your life by stuffing yourself with distractions? What do you think this runaway craving tells you about your heart?

Practice:     Fasting.     Fasting is a rest from food or other pleasures. It’s the opportunity to quiet the demands for “more” so that we can connect to our deepest, God-given desires. You can fast from food (a meal, a particular kind of food) or from some other activity (social media, television). If you do any fast, follow nutritional advice particular to your situation.

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Forward Into The Light

It can be disorienting and painful to see our sinfulness, the sickness inside us. However, there’s nothing to fear. There is no shame here. We simply need to see the lies in our lives so that we can throw them off and come out into the bright sunshine. God’s generous arms are spread wide-open to embrace us. God’s love is far more powerful than our delusions, our addictions, our destructive patterns. Whether it’s pride, envy, sloth, greed, anger, lust, or gluttony — God’s light chases those pretenders away.

If we are tempted to despair or to oppressive guilt or self-ridicule, remember God’s tenderness and gentleness. Remember that God calls us His beloved even when we’re stuck in foolishness and sin. God invites us to come out of hiding, to step into the radiant light of love. God calls us to life that is whole, life that is free!

The Seven

LUST

When our kids were young, they loved candy; lots and lots of candy. Every year at Halloween they would come home with pillow cases full of stuff that would make dentists cringe. For weeks after, we would try to regulate their sugar intake. But one year, we had an idea. We told the kids that they could eat as much candy as they wanted (no restrictions) for 24 hours, but at the end of 24 hours we would throw whatever was left in the trash. They were overjoyed! For an entire day, they were free to stuff their mouths with every gummy worm, every Reece’s, every Whopper and Skittle and Kit Kat — and we would not stop them. They ate themselves sick, literally. When we dumped their remaining candy in the trash the next day, there wasn’t a single protest. In fact, it was weeks before they could even think of candy without turning green. It was fantastic.

They had become overcome by lust — an insatiable desire for candy. But after that lust had consumed  and harmed them, they were sickened by the very thing that seemed so desirable. Again, it’s worth emphasizing that it’s not a problem to have desire. To desire is to be human, to be alive. If we aren’t in touch with our desires, that reveals an entirely different problem. However, desire becomes a sickness when it owns us, when it become the thing we believe we must have if we are to be fulfilled. Lust is the distortion (and ultimately the squashing) of the good desires God wants us to enjoy.

Scripture tells us there is a system at work in the world constantly scheming and conniving to replace God. This false system worms its way into our hearts through a variety of seductions. “For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world” (1 John 2:16) NLT. The lust of the flesh tempts us through runaway cravings for food, sex, and every sort of physical pleasure. The lust of the eyes tempts us through our unhinged desires to gorge all we can on the pursuit for prestige, power, and reputation. With either, however, lust only destroys.

The great tragedy of indulging in lust is the way it hinders us from enjoying real pleasure, from actually receiving God’s true joys. Lust blocks us from receiving true pleasure, because it turns us away from the God who provides it. Further, lust can cut us off from even the capacity to experience these pleasures God longs to give us. Lust, in its selfish quest to conquer others and grab more for ourselves, makes it impossible to be present to the actual moment we’re in, to what’s actually happening in our soul, to the real person in our life, to the goodness surrounding us. Lust severs the sacrificial, loving responsibilities we have toward one another. Lust cannot fuel love; it destroys love.
Like a cancer, lust eats away at good sensual pleasures — healthy pleasures like enjoying fine food and the soul intimacy of sex. Lust feeds off the lie that we must have that experience, that person, that relationship, that sensation — and we must have it now, or we will forever be unfulfilled. But with that grasping, everything we touch gets devoured and ruined.

When we are in lust’s fever, we’re like a lost wanderer crawling across the scorched desert: all we can think about is getting to water. But the “water” lust promises is always a mirage. Lust stokes the lie that God is not really the source of true pleasure. Lust promises that whatever we crave will fulfill us, but it never does. Only God has that power.

Question: How, in your experience, does lust squelch true pleasure rather than fulfill it?

Practice:     Friendship.     Whether we are attempting to selfishly use others for physical pleasure or to build our power or reputation, the self-giving act of friendship counters this impulse. This week, focus on connecting deeply with a friend, without asking what you might get in return.

The Seven

ANGER

Often, destructive anger is how our pain and fears manifest. When we’re afraid that someone else will step ahead of us or take the limelight away from us, we get angry. When we experience deep wounds or disappointments, we get angry. Anger often reveals that we’re operating out of a wounded ego, that we believe someone has wronged us or failed us in a way that seems to threaten our sense of identity. And so, rather than looking into our own darkness, or extending mercy, or turning to faithful friends, or turning to God, we get angry and lash out in fury.

Still, as destructive as anger can be in our lives, when we consider how Scripture portrays anger, we see a portrait that is more complex than anger being merely a vice. While Scripture repeatedly views anger as a destructive force, a power that overwhelms us and distorts clear thinking and harms everything and everyone it touches (see James 1:19-20), there is also in Scripture a counter theme: sometimes anger is just. Paul suggests in Ephesians 4:26, that there is a kind of anger that actually helps our efforts to resist sin. In fact, Jesus at times grew angry. Whenever religious powers oppressed the weak or used God as a pretext for their greed or power plays, Jesus’ anger burned (see Matthew 21:12-17 and Mark 3:1-6). If sin and injustice are really destructive, then it’s right to feel a fire in our bones whenever evil expands its reach. In his book The Enigma of Anger, Garret Keizer said, “I am unable to commit to any Messiah who does not knock over some tables.” Thankfully, Jesus knows when to knock over some tables.

Remembering that each of these 7 vices distorts something good, we can learn to discern the difference between a righteous anger defending the vulnerable or seeking justice and a caustic anger that can obliterate everything and everyone it touches. A righteous anger fights to protect others and to safeguard love. An unrighteousness anger leaves a trail of wounded relationships without considering the casualties.

In 2017, the KKK and a number of other white nationalist groups descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, to promote their evil, racist ideology. In response, thousands of people showed up to counteract that hateful message, carrying with them, for the most part, an appropriate level of righteous resistance. It was right to be angry at oppression and to be on the side of African American brothers and sisters forced to endure the onslaught of these violent philosophies. But at one point, we also saw on display the destructive anger Scripture warns against when a number of those counter-protesters just reversed the hatred, spewing ugly and vile, dehumanizing words back at the white supremacists. Anger and rage, unhinged from the transformative love of Jesus, always does harm, no matter how noble the intent might seem.

In contrast to this, James insists that, “you must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires” (James 1:19-20) NLT. On its own, James tells us, our anger never yields the good life. Our anger never heals. Our anger never turns enemies into friends. Our anger never opens up new possibilities. Our anger only destroys. James’s words pierce us because of how easy it is for us to justify our anger: perhaps we really have been wronged, perhaps someone else truly does need us to come to their defense. However, our brand of anger, isolated from its rightful foundation in God’s love, simply cannot enact goodness. It’s like trying to put out a fire with a blowtorch; we only fuel the destruction.

Question:     Where do you see both righteous and unrighteous anger manifesting in your heart? Where are the places you struggle with anger, and what or who triggers it?

Practice:     Gentleness.    The next time you are in the presence of someone who incites your anger, look that person in the eye. Be present to them, truly see them. Drop your shoulders, drop your guard and your defensiveness. Step toward them with gentleness, remembering you have nothing to protect or prove. Ask them some gentle question that emerges from a quiet place in your heart.

The Seven

GREED

Once, while Jesus was speaking to a crowd gathered around Him, a young man spoke up, attempting to get Jesus to take his side in an ongoing feud with his brother over their inheritance. Whether or not the man’s grievance was justified, this young man’s heart was focused on the wrong things. Recognizing this, Jesus turned to the crowd. “Watch out!” He warned. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15).

Today, just as much as in the first century (perhaps even more so), greed’s seductive allure requires our diligent resistance. Greed assaults us constantly. Advertisements bombard us with messages reminding us of all we don’t have. Our economic system pounds into our head that making piles of money and buying lots of trinkets & stuff secures happiness. Even the label we’re given (“consumers”) prods us to grab more, use more, want more. More. More. More.

Just like each of these 7 vices, greed distorts reality and degrades humanity, encouraging us to follow our insatiable appetites without ever thinking critically about what is good, what is true, what is healthy and beautiful (see Philippians 4:8). Worse, greed distorts our vision of God, fueling the deluded notion that our cravings can be satisfied apart from the One who created us, the One who knows our deepest longings even better than we do. Left to our own devices, greed robs us of joy and a trusting reliance on the God who owns the world and everything in it (Psalm 24:1).

While greed may be most easily spotted as we clamor for more money and more stuff, greed can take on a thousand shapes. Jesus said to be on guard against “all kinds of greed.” We can be greedy for power and prominence, greedy for security or comfort, greedy for relationships, greedy for knowledge, greedy to have others see us as the expert, greedy for our personal space or for intimacy. With each manifestation of greed, we’re tempted to believe that we must have more of something or someone in order for our life to be whole. So, as Eugene Peterson paraphrased Jesus’ words in The Message, it’s urgent to “protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot” (Luke 12:15).

But again, despite how serious greed’s effects are, it’s important to keep in mind that greed is merely the twisting of a good thing. God has created us to desire, to want. The words of the psalmist suggest that delight and desire is woven into our life with God and an essential part of an awakened heart (Psalm 37:4). Jesus does not tell us to  squelch desire, but to pay attention to truer desires. The problem with greed is not that it reveals our wants, but that it tempts us to settle for things that are immature, flimsy, and ultimately destructive. God wants so much more for us than this.

Question:     Here are several questions that help to reveal our greed: Do you feel animosity toward those who have more than you do? Is it hard to share what you have? Do you find that you don’t really savor and enjoy much of anything God has given you?

Practice:     Generosity.     For the next month, practice faithful, reckless generosity. Set aside a portion of your income and give it away. Give to your church. Give to those facing hardship. Give to those under the weight of poverty. Watch for what happens in your heart during this adventure.