And He said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! Mark 7:9
The Pharisees were known for their righteous rule keeping. In fact, they had made more rules than God. They had decided what righteousness looks like and it was different than what God had said.
I wonder where I do that? Where is my idea of what I should do (or maybe my idea of what YOU should do) different than how He has said to follow Him.
Now, to be fair, most of those pharisaic laws started with good intentions. If God set a boundary they would set their own boundary around that to keep from crossing God’s line. In essence, they built a fence, or guardrail around the law. With passing time and generations new fences would be built around the prior ones so that we are held back further and further away from the act that God had forbidden.
But what happens when the fence starts keeping us away from what God DOES want us to do? Maybe my fence was to keep me from being influenced by scoffers – but it also kept me from sharing God’s love with those who scoff. Maybe my fence was to avoid sexual temptation or the appearance of it – but in so doing I lost mutual influence with men and so miss half the body of Christ.
Traditions and guardrails in our life can be a good thing. There are wise fences each of us might erect, depending on our own experiences and temptations. But I want to look carefully – and hold loosely – when it is my fence and not God’s. May my own attempts at sanctity (which are never sufficient) never keep me from following His true path of righteousness.
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:14
