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Audience Analysis
10 Symptoms of Legalism
I had a good conversation on Twitter the other day about legalism. I asked for definitions and got some great ones back, including:
Legalism says it is still I who live, for though the Son of God loved me and gave himself up for me I don’t really trust him. (@davebish)
Elevating obedience to the level of (or even above) grace in terms of its value for our lives (@epaga)
Appealing to, living according to and demanding others live according to works-righteouness for salvation and/or sanctification (@marcushoneysett)
A mechanistic approach to my relationship with God. Do this get that. (@BearwoodChapel)
Obeying to stay loved, instead of obeying because loved (@richpitt_)
Anyway, the twitter conversation stirred a list of symptoms of legalism. Perhaps you recognise some?
- Negative attitude toward pleasing God – it is duty rather than delight (I feel like a slave not a son)
- Competitive attitude toward others – they don’t live up to my standard (biting and devouring one another)
- Prideful attitude towards self – it may be self-despising at times when I fail, but it is a self-evaluation that registers somewhere on the pride scale.
- Distracted focus of the heart – me and law and others, more than Christ Himself.
- Corrupted view of love relationship – I must obey in order to be loved, rather than I lovingly obey because I am loved.
- Broken representation of the Trinity – I obey to merit love, so I shatter the beauty that I am called to represent, of a Son lovingly obeying His Father in a loving response to love.
- Selective distaste for sin – I will express my dislike of sins that bother me (i.e. those that are “worse” than mine, or that I never struggle with), but I seem to harbour and nourish other sins (private, secret, “sanctified” gossip, or talk that tears down, or pride, or self-righteousness, or whatever).
- Disproportionate conversation – I have much more to say about rules, standards, laws and evaluation of others than I have to say about the wonder of Christ. Get me going on issues of sin and I wax eloquent, but raise the beauty of Christ and I don’t have much to say.
- Embittered personality – I reflect an inner tension, sourness, anger or negativity, rather than an increasingly effortless manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit.
- Restricted vulnerability – I may offer some token statements of my own failure and weaknesses, but I am reticent to reveal too much of my inner self.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the twitter chat. They may not agree with everything in these posts, but I do appreciate their input (@StephenColin @JonathanWest @Jim_Thomas @WhyBAnneB @PastorSproul @S_Crosthwaite @petetheirishone @LukeCawley)
Legalism and Preaching – part 3
Legalism is not only possible for Christians, it is likely. The default leaning of our flesh is toward autonomy. That autonomy can manifest in overt rebellion (antinomianism) or in self-righteous religiosity (legalism), but both are manifestations of a separation of God’s Law from God Himself.
You probably see the label “antinomian” being used. It is a serious charge. It suggests that someone is anti-law and therefore, by implication, pro-sin. It tends to be used of those who don’t elevate the Law as much as they apparently should. Undoubtedly there are some antinomians who are genuinely pro-sin, but I haven’t met many. I have met a lot who might be labeled “antinomians” who do not see the Law as the solution to the profound reality of sin, and who, incidentally, live lives characterized by greater integrity and with more fruit of the Spirit evident than some who like to criticize them.
As preachers we need to wrestle with these issues. We stand and speak not only of how to be saved, but also about living the Christian life. For many those are two separate messages. We are saved by grace, they say, but we live the Christian life by determined obedience to the Law. Somehow this two-part message should feel very awkward for us.
We need to devour our Bibles and get a sense not only of the instructions in there, but also the source of those instructions. Jesus seemed to suggest that His way would mean a greater and a deeper holiness, one that would surpass that of the fastidious Pharisees. Yet we tend to think of the Old Testament folks as having a far more demanding legal code than we could cope with. Are we missing something? Should we demand more strongly that our listeners keep more laws? Or is there something implicit in the New Covenant that Jesus instituted that leads to a greater awareness of sin, and a greater victory over it?
The New Testament is clear that this life will be a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit, so perfection is unrealistic. But is there something in the New Covenant that means we can keep in step with the Spirit, that we can delight to please our God, that we can live lives of greater moral integrity out of a heart-stirred delight rather than through external pressure?
Let’s beware of an inadequate understanding of sin and a wholly inadequate approach to living lives that please God – for that is what legalism is: weak on the problem and a flimsy solution to it.
Perhaps it would do us preachers good to take a book like Galatians and read it through again and again. If we bring with us the question of what does it look like to live the Christian life, what is sin and what is the solution for the believer?, then these questions might gradually open up Paul’s teaching there and bring new life to our ministry. It cannot hurt. Twenty, thirty, fifty times through Galatians would help us all. Shall we?
Legalism and Preaching – part 2
I remember the look on his face. An elder in a church genuinely believed what he said, “we may have problems here, but legalism is not one of them. We certainly don’t have legalism here.” I couldn’t believe it. You could smell the legalism before you entered the door.
Why do we feel immune? I suspect it is because we excessively overlap our legalism definition with the idea of works-salvation. It is not just about seeking salvation through obedience. Legalism is also about seeking God’s ongoing favour through obedience. It is about trying to perform in order to stay loved, as well as to get loved.
But why do Christians slide into legalism? In Paul’s writings he sets out the fight between our flesh and the Spirit. As Christians we have the Spirit of God united with our spirit, and so we long to please Him. At the same time we are still in the flesh with all its pre-programmed rebellion against God’s good rule in our lives. So we feel a tension within. But to avoid legalism we have to make sure we understand what it means to live in the flesh.
Too easily we can view “fleshly living” as the pursuit of licentious decadence, the kind of wild and lust-charged living we see in certain places and on certain TV shows. But if we think the flesh is just about wild living, then we are set up for the trap of legalism. Why? Because we feel safe if we don’t live like “those people,” if we can resist the urge to let loose and do crazy things, then we are obviously living in accordance with the Spirit. Or are we?
The flesh is defined primarily not by a certain lifestyle, but by an orientation. The flesh is all about me. It is about autonomy. It is about living my way in my strength. And that is where we can be sucked into a very fleshly lifestyle that looks very holy. In my strength, in my own autonomy, I can be a “good” person. I can attend church, avoid unacceptable sins, dress well and look holy. Instead of living a wild and extravagant overt rebellion, I can live a hidden and self-sufficient religious rebellion. I can be entirely fleshly, and look very very Christian.
Once we recognize that the core issue in the flesh is not licentiousness, but autonomy, we can start to avoid the legalism trap. Galatians 2:20-3:3 can start to make sense to us.
Sinclair Ferguson makes the helpful point that both legalism and licentiousness are related in this way: they separate God’s Law from God Himself. Thus they both reveal the human tendency to prefer autonomy. Rather than dealing with God Himself, we can keep God at arm’s length and live in essential separation from Him, precisely by looking to a disconnected Law and give it our self-concerned obedience.
Legalism is not only possible for Christians, it is the default of our flesh in one form or another. Let’s pray for God to sensitize us to the subtle slide to legalism that stirs within all of us. It’s a slide away from Him and back towards self.
Legalism and Preaching
Legalism is an easy word to throw around, but a challenging term to define. For many of us, legalism seems to refer to whatever restrictions others might feel that I personally do not feel. But defining legalism carefully is vitally important.
It is important for each follower of Christ. It is a serious business to discount a restriction as legalism when it actually is displeasing to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. Equally it can be stifling to the life He has given us to overlay unnecessary restrictions and thereby misrepresent Him to ourselves and others.
The issue of representing Christ to others means that defining legalism accurately should be a concern for every preacher. People look to us for guidance, both in clarification of the Gospel and in instruction for living. Every preacher treads a minefield in every sermon – preach legalism, or preach license, and damage will be done.
However, many of us never really think about the definition of legalism. I think part of the reason for this is that we have been lulled into a false sense of security by an inadequate definition.
Many definitions are essentially similar to this:
“Legalism is about trying to merit salvation by obedience.”
But there is a significant problem with this definition. Too easily we will hear this to be referring to the heresy of salvation by works. That is, the idea that we have to behave in order to be saved. And the problem with that understanding of legalism is that once we are saved (by grace, not works), then we are effectively immune from any charge of legalism. After all, doesn’t every born again believer in Jesus know that salvation is based on grace, not works?
Surely a definition of legalism that rules out any Christian from being a legalist must be flawed. It concerns me because I am sure I have met a few legalists. I have probably been one too.
So perhaps it would be better to define legalism as “trying to merit God’s favour by obedience.” After all, God’s favour is not just about getting into the family in the first place, we also value God’s favour in our ongoing relationship with Him.
Next time I would like to wrestle with this idea more and identify one big reason why believers can fall into legalism so easily.
Ministry In The Tough Times
Ministry is usually challenging. Sometimes it can be brutal. What do we need for ministry in the tough times?
I have found help from an unlikely source – the book of Ruth. Nestled after the book of Judges, Ruth is a four chapter gem that is intensely relevant for our lives today. Why? First, because Ruth is not a story of kings, warriors and prophets – it is a story of very normal people, just like us. Second, because Ruth is set in a time where the culture around was marked by a growing ungodliness, just like ours. Third, because in Ruth we don’t see God working in spectacular and sensational miracles, and there are times in our lives when we don’t see God being as obvious as we’d like Him to be. Ruth is a story of God quietly at work in the lives of ordinary people during very challenging times, and therefore it is a story for us.
The book of Ruth is really the story of Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law. Naomi suffers extreme devastation in the first verses. Her family moved away from the Promised Land to Moab, and there her husband died, followed by her two sons. She was left devastated and somehow responsible for her two Moabite daughters-in-law.
The darkness for Naomi was overwhelming. She faced two great problems. One was immediate, the other long-term. The immediate problem was that without a husband or sons to protect and provide, how would she eat? The longer-term problem was that of life purpose. In that culture her role was to bear sons and continue the family line. She had borne sons, but now they were dead. An overwhelming sense of shame, failure and hopelessness must have nagged at her.
Naomi’s journey is really the journey of humanity. In the darkness of life’s circumstances, we live under the cloud resulting from the Fall of Genesis. We have been born into a world that believes the lie that God is not good and He cannot be trusted. Even as Christian leaders, when life hits us hard we can get to where Naomi was, struggling to trust in the goodness of God. Her journey is the journey of history, and it is a journey many of us will have to make – a journey of rediscovery of the goodness of God.
In chapter 1 Naomi is so devastated that all she can muster, by way of explanation of her situation, is that the LORD, the Almighty, has brought her back empty, He has dealt bitterly with her. She cannot say that God is good, all she can muster is that God is . . . God. Maybe you are there right now. Maybe you will be one day.
Praise God that He does not discard us when we struggle to trust in His goodness. Instead He works, typically quietly and behind the scenes, to tune our hearts to recognize His ongoing steadfast and loyal love for us. In chapter 1 we see the stunning speech of Ruth. Sometimes our radar for God’s kindness will be helped by those around us whose commitment to God is a testimony to us in our own struggle.
The rest of the book demonstrates God’s persistent love for Naomi and Ruth in response to the two great needs that overwhelmed Naomi in chapter 1. The immediate need for food is addressed in chapter 2. At the start of the day Ruth speaks of the possibility of finding favour (receiving grace) from someone that day. Naomi sat at home with that ringing in her ears until evening. Then she discovered that God had showered Ruth with grace through Boaz. Ruth staggered home with a huge amount of barley, and leftovers from her own lunch. And it all began with Ruth “luckily” landing in the field of Boaz. God was at work, and Naomi started to trust again.
In the next chapters we see Naomi starting to plan for a future legacy via Boaz and Ruth. God had better plans than hers. Boaz turned out to be incredibly godly and he made sure that he followed through with appropriate wedding plans. As the book ends we see a kinsman sitting on the lap of Naomi, provided by God. The kinsman was Obed, the grandfather of David.
Ruth is the story of Naomi’s journey from ‘God is God,’ to ‘how good is God!?’ It is the story of God persistently and quietly working behind the scenes to help Naomi see His character again. He provided protection and food, and He provided honour in the place of shame, a legacy that would go down through the generations to the great king David . . . and to David’s greater son, Jesus.
Maybe you are facing overwhelming darkness in ministry right now. Maybe all you can muster is a declaration that God is God. He’s in charge, but He has dealt bitterly with you. If that is not the case today, it very well may be one day. How will we come through such times?
The book of Ruth teaches us that in such times God is still at work, even when we don’t see it. It teaches us that there will be times when it will be the faith of a Ruth, or the godliness of a Boaz, that will preach hope into our hearts. It teaches us that God will work quietly, but persistently, to not only provide for us, but also to bring about His greater plans of which we are a part.
When the darkness descends we can easily feel like our life and ministry amounts to nothing. If we are part of God’s great plan at all, then our ministry is just a couple of black threads in a tapestry we cannot see. But God still has His big picture, and our lives are still part of it. Naomi could never have guessed that God’s plan in her suffering was really about bringing Ruth from Moab to Bethlehem so she could be in the line of the Messiah. So we don’t know the bigger picture.
The book of Ruth lifts our hearts to believe that one day, when God reveals the great tapestry of human history, we will see how it all fit. We will see how our few threads, even the darkest ones, were part of a glorious picture that only God’s goodness could have achieved.
Pray for God to stir your heart to trust His goodness. Maybe through the faith and godliness of others. Maybe through the “lucky” circumstances of life. Maybe through suffering that doesn’t make sense. One day it will. And for now prayerfully look to see where God is quietly at work in your life, in your family, in your ministry. God does not have to be sensational and spectacular to convince us of His goodness, but He is persistently good!
Handling Old Testament Quotes in Preaching – Part 3
So far we have thought about the need to read the Old Testament and to go back to study the source of a quotation. We looked at a specific example (Psalm 82:6 in John 10:34). What do we do when we have limited time in the sermon?
1. Do the study yourself, even if you don’t plan to preach about it. Taking the time to study an OT quote, reference, allusion or whatever will always benefit you. You need to be studying the Bible at a deeper level than you are communicating it to others. Too many preachers try to sound more informed than they are – that is dangerously thin ice to skate on. Study deeper than you preach.
2. Evaluate how significant a full explanation of the quote will be in communicating the main idea of your preaching passage. Perhaps you have a passage that is built on a single Old Testament quote and it would be worth taking the listeners back to the quote (you could project it so they don’t get lost flipping pages). It may be worth taking them through a simplified process of pondering the context, the meaning back there, how that carries over and informs the NT passage, etc. It may be appropriate to be interactive in this process, inviting them to think out loud with you. There are lots of possibilities, however, this will not be possible or helpful with every OT quote you preach.
3. Recognize that there are multiple levels of explanation. Sometimes it is possible and helpful to go back and look at the quote in its context. Sometimes that would take too much time, or it would take away too much focus from the passage you are preaching. It is possible to explain an Old Testament quote verbally in 10 seconds, or 30 seconds, or two minutes, etc. It is possible to give the bottom line of your study, such as, “if we were to take the time to go back and look at that quote, we would see that the whole section in Ezekiel is a rebuke of Israel’s failed leadership . . . which is what Jesus is critiquing here as he points to himself as the Good Shepherd, etc.” (This is thinking more of early John 10 and the Ezekiel 34 background.) You have lots of options, from not even noticing it is a quote or allusion, to doing the full process with your listeners. Choose appropriately.
4. Remember that your listeners need encouragement to enjoy the Bible for themselves. While you may not have the time to go back and look, it doesn’t hurt to suggest that people do that themselves. Too often listeners feel the Bible is out of their reach and only the preacher can dispense the goods. Too often listeners feel there is some kind of subjectivity and magic worked when preachers explain passages. Encourage your listeners to go digging. Encouragement combined with some good examples may motivate them to go back into the Old Testament for themselves!
4 Reasons to Handle the Bible Well
Any Christian leader will have opportunity to communicate biblical truth to others. It may be a sermon, or it may be in conversation; it may be to a group of Christians, or it may be an evangelistic setting, but we will all communicate the Bible to others. Let’s be sure to handle the Bible well.
What do I mean by that? I mean good basic biblical interpretation. Understand meaning in its immediate context, as the author intended, following the grammar of the text, making sure we see what it actually says, recognizing something of the historical and cultural setting, etc. I mean not imposing fanciful interpretations that make you appear either extra clever, or excessively creative or even downright oblivious to the plain meaning of the text itself. I am not saying we all have to have high level degrees in biblical exegesis before we can speak to others. I am saying we can all do our best to handle the Bible well.
So why is it important to pay attention to how we handle the Bible, whether in preaching or conversation? Here are four reasons:
1. Because of God. A basic assumption that would help all of us is to trust that God is a good communicator. That means that if God chose to inspire a collection of documents, then He would do a very good job. He did. So a personal commitment to handling the Bible as well as possible is an expression of my trust in God’s ability to communicate well. He did not inspire a poor Bible that needs our cleverness, our fanciful ideas, or our creative shortcuts. When we try to improve God’s communication by our own sophistication we insult our God. When we handle the Bible carelessly we demonstrate a lack of value for our God’s communicative nature. Let’s handle the Bible well because of God.
2. Because of the unsaved. Another important point to remember is that people who do not yet know Christ will come to know Christ because of the Spirit drawing them to Him, not because of our brilliant presentations. However, they are evaluating our presentations. If we claim that the Bible was given by inspiration of God, but then proceed to read it carelessly, or elevate our own “codebreaking genius” above a text we claim was given to us by God, then we should not be surprised if some do not take the gospel seriously and view us as being duped by an unthinking religion. When the Bible plays a secondary role to our communicative sophistication (or our sloppiness), those who are trying to evaluate the claims of Christ may be led to feel that it can’t be worth much if we appear to not take God’s revelation seriously. Let’s handle the Bible well because those who don’t know Christ are watching us.
3. Because of believers. Periodically I get to go to the doctor’s office and see the medical expert in action. I might get seven minutes, and I cannot see the screen they spend so much time looking at. I don’t learn much. Periodically I take my car to the mechanic and I might stick around and watch an expert in action. I might get to spend a little time, but I typically won’t see much. I don’t learn much. But every week I sit in a church and watch a Bible expert in action. I might get half an hour, or even more. Sadly, in many cases I would not learn much that would help me handle the Bible well. When we handle the Bible before people, they are looking to our example as well as our message. How we handle the Bible will make a mark on them. Are we setting a good example of observing the passage closely, interpreting accurately, and applying appropriately? Are we demonstrating an attitude to the Bible, and an approach to handling the Bible, that we are happy for our listeners to copy all week long? Let’s handle the Bible well because those who think we know what we are doing are watching us.
4. Because of me. I want to handle the Bible well for my own sake too. I want you to handle the Bible well for your own sake. How silly we must seem when we treat the Bible as if it has limited value, but believe that our clever communication is what people need. The truth is, when we short circuit the process and offer personal proof texts and hobby horses, we steal from ourselves the riches that come from having our nose in the text and our hearts open to the God who wants to meet us there. Maybe my message to others will be limited in value for some reason, but my own time in the Bible seeking to understand it and respond to God will be invaluable for me. Let’s handle the Bible well because even if our communication were to fail, our own time with God in His Word is eternally priceless.
Prayerfully ask God to search you and try you in this area. How are you handling the Bible when you preach? What about in conversation? Attention given in this area will never be wasted effort for those that love God!
Big Idea or Big Story? Lessons Both Ways
I studied preaching in the “Big Idea” school of preaching. We were required to read books from the “Christocentric” school of preaching. In my experience, many preachers in both groups need to learn from one another.
The big idea folks tend to emphasize the particular passage open before them. They never dismiss the big story of the Bible, but their primary concern is to communicate the message of this particular passage.
The big story folks tend to emphasize the big story of redemption, irrespective of which specific text they may be preaching. They don’t dismiss the importance of a particular passage, but their primary concern is to preach the big picture gospel at every opportunity.
Both approaches can be highly effective. And both approaches can be done very poorly. One way both will fall short is where the Bible is mishandled.
Big idea folks focus on the specific passage, but this cannot guarantee accurate exegesis, nor effective presentation of the relevance of that passage to listeners. If the preacher harvests the imperatives in a passage and preaches a pressurized message inviting the listener to self-initiate some kind of moral transformation, then the text has been abused and the message of the Bible corrupted. If the preacher fails to effectively engage the bigger story of Scripture, then the particular passage could be mishandled in light of its whole Bible context.
Big story folks focus on the full history of God’s redemptive plan, but this cannot guarantee immunity from moralistic preaching, nor does it always generate accurate handling of the text. If the preacher imposes fanciful shortcuts to get to the goal of the rest of the redemption story, then it may seem like the text before the listeners may be turned into a secret code that only the preacher can unravel. When big story preaching does not handle each text carefully, it can have the effect of flattening the Bible so that every passage is essentially a vague reflection of the one big story that will get imposed on it by the preacher. And even when the redemption plan is laid out, how easily moralism can creep in via pressure to choose belief as our great work.
Both schools of thought have a lot to offer and I would thoroughly recommend you read the best books in both groups. But whichever camp you choose to set up your homiletical tent in, be sure to benefit from what is good about the other group too.
Challenge Perspective
Preaching should involve a confrontation between God’s perspective and ours. That is not to say that our preaching should feel confrontational as a default. But there is always something deeper going on than we tend to think.
We think that we see our world the way it is. We think that we see ourselves the way we are. We think that the way we think is well motivated and accurate. But the Bible challenges that.
Too easily we will justify ourselves and excuse ourselves, but it is not just how we see self that is an issue. We assume that the world as we see it is the reality as it actually is. But actually the Fall of creation into sin mars and skews everything.
When God speaks through His Word He does not simply reinforce our perspective. We might think that we understand our place in the world, and that we know what life is all about. And with this great insight, we tend to think that the Bible needs to offer us some tips for engaging life better so that we can be more successful in our various endeavours. But what if God is not excited about your self-help project? What if He is doing something altogether deeper, bigger and infinitely more wonderful?
As preachers we must not simply harvest the imperatives in a passage and serve our listeners by creating a to-do list for them. We are called to so much more. We need to help them encounter God’s thoughts, God’s heart, God’s values, God’s greater and richer reality that is entirely right-side up in our upside-down world.
This means that as we preach, we have to be thinking bigger than just the immediate words in the text we preach. We have to be thinking bigger than the experience of our listeners in the lives they lead. We must have a more God-given canonical, global and eternal perspective so that the reality we preach stretches and challenges and confronts the small, local, me-focused world of our listeners (and ourselves . . . hence preparation should always feel profoundly and spiritually challenging).
This is not easy, but dialogue with God and with friends in the preparation process can be key to avoiding offering small morsels to satisfy small perspectives. How is the next text you plan to preach rocking your world and stretching your life perspective?
Biblical Preaching 