(Hmmm, someone in our past must have made that argument up.)
9 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Then Jesus, with foreboding mien, Looked deep into my inmost soul. Said He, "You surely do not mean That it has been your chosen goal To stand opposed to saving men; The gospel preached to dying men; The hungry fed; the naked clothed. Say not such works as these you've loathed."
"N-no L-lord," said I, with stamm'ring tongue. "Please do not think my efforts long Have been opposed to works You name. I always ADVOCATE the same. It's just the methods that they use, Because Thy silence they abuse."
Thank you for your encouragement yesterday. In these difficult times it is easy to get distracted by the "disaster" in the world around us. The disaster we need to be most concerned with is as you state, Satan's attacks on all God's people (in and out of the church.) Money, insurance, stocks, all of that is insignificant in light of our calling and commision. Thank you for strengthening our faith and reminding us to run the race with one focus.
Would any of you have a problem if your church leaders decided to install an incense altar in the assembly or umm... nominate a pope?
Well, if you would have a problem with either of these things, then you indeed believe that the silence of scripture is in some way authoritative or prohibitive -you conservative rabble rousers.
Any coherent believer holds to at least some belief that silence is prohibitive; even the Catholics do on some microbial level. So those in the instrumental churches who are deeply rooted in God's word have also not thrown out the principle of silence, which they know would be incoherent and could not stand in a debate. They rather argue that instruments don't violate the silence principle because they are simply aiding the command to sing and not adding to it. Why then do you throw out the principle on paper when you actually carry out the principle in practice? Is it because the strummings of a banjo excite your sensual passions plain and simple? Or would you humbly change your position if you did come to find that silence is prohibitive?
Jesus actually did say something about worship forms not commanded by God (Mt 15) and it seems the OT (Deut. 4:2) has something to say as well. Otherwise, just about anything can be thrown into the mix, and neither you nor I buy into that one.
Matthew 15 seems to actually tell of the same principle as Deut. 4:2. In Deut. the reason the Jews weren't to add to or take away from God's word (neglect it or add lib where there is silence or already a command) was so that they wouldn't end up practicing the false types of worship that the surrounding nations had practiced. The next verse about pagan forms of deity worship (4:3) alerts us that the danger was as much about adding some other worship forms or ways to God (or a god or whatever) as it was about them simply forgetting to listen at all. A respect for silence is implicit in this command if not explicit.
The problem JEsus pointed out with the Pharisees and scribes was that all of the things they added into the worship of God (washing hands "according to the tradition of the elders" Mt. 15:2) were actually taking them further away from God, not closer. In the same way that Deut's warning that to add or take away would prevent them from keeping the intention of God's law, so their unbiblical worship traditions were preventing them from doing what God actually wanted in Jesus' day.
The law was silent about them washing before they ate (15:2), and it was silent about a law of corban (15:5). These breaks in silence either caused or were a result of -or both- their hearts being "far away from" God (15:8), and the law of corban actually got directly in the way of Israel fulfilling basic righteousness: feeding your parents when they're old! But what about washing hands as a non-biblical form of worship? Certainly this simple and mundane little add-in wouldn't get in the way of the Israelites fulfilling all of the other laws. Well, maybe not directly. But this outward washing practice was at the very least reflective of their misunderstanding of what God really intended for them as His people: clean hearts. Jesus returns to the subject of the hand washings in vs. 11. "It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." While God wanted them most fundamentally to have clean hearts, their religion had shifted to the washing of hands rather than hearts. Regardless of whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first, they were thinking that a practice was pleasing to God when it was vain worship -nothing more than a command of man. Now how can any person say some worship practice is what God wants without something saying so from God's word? Silence gives no command but man's command -the very thing that is condemned in the Scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus didn't leave us with some kind of smorgisborg where we can just add lib wherever we want to. I think He pointed out, and church history has proven for us, that the more we add our own little inventions into the simple faith that was handed to us, the farther we go from God, the more we put our inventions in place of God's will. And the more the church has made human tradition its specialty (something a healthy respect for silence would have kept it away from) the more impotent and useless a thing the church has become to change lives and to uphold the gospel in the world. Just look at which churches today are the utterly pitiful and dwindling wrecks of the past; they are the high church structures that hide the gospel under a mountain of human tradition -the Anglicans and the Catholics and the Orthodox churches are number 1 in this department. But if scripture and this passage say nothing to this trampling of silence, then you can't say much to those empty and worthless traditions; they're ok. Jesus pointed out the problems of religion that places tradition based worship where there is silence. Jesus here did not himself participate in that worship. I can't see why we should. Though the meaning and purpose of Jesus' intentions here in Mt. 15 may be deeper than we've cared to focus on in the past, the Bible does have something to say about silence or the disrespect therof, and I really think you believe this principle whether I wrangle on or not.
9 comments:
Then Jesus, with foreboding mien,
Looked deep into my inmost soul.
Said He, "You surely do not mean
That it has been your chosen goal
To stand opposed to saving men;
The gospel preached to dying men;
The hungry fed; the naked clothed.
Say not such works as these you've loathed."
"N-no L-lord," said I, with stamm'ring tongue.
"Please do not think my efforts long
Have been opposed to works You name.
I always ADVOCATE the same.
It's just the methods that they use,
Because Thy silence they abuse."
http://dramaoftheage.com/a_dream.html
Thank you, Terry!
I heard Rick Atchley say at Pepperdine one year, "Where the Bible speaks, we speak; and where the Bible is silent, we have even more to say!"
BWAHAHAHA! Well said.
Thank you for your encouragement yesterday. In these difficult times it is easy to get distracted by the "disaster" in the world around us. The disaster we need to be most concerned with is as you state, Satan's attacks on all God's people (in and out of the church.) Money, insurance, stocks, all of that is insignificant in light of our calling and commision. Thank you for strengthening our faith and reminding us to run the race with one focus.
Good one, thanks Friend.
Would any of you have a problem if your church leaders decided to install an incense altar in the assembly or umm... nominate a pope?
Well, if you would have a problem with either of these things, then you indeed believe that the silence of scripture is in some way authoritative or prohibitive -you conservative rabble rousers.
Any coherent believer holds to at least some belief that silence is prohibitive; even the Catholics do on some microbial level. So those in the instrumental churches who are deeply rooted in God's word have also not thrown out the principle of silence, which they know would be incoherent and could not stand in a debate. They rather argue that instruments don't violate the silence principle because they are simply aiding the command to sing and not adding to it. Why then do you throw out the principle on paper when you actually carry out the principle in practice? Is it because the strummings of a banjo excite your sensual passions plain and simple? Or would you humbly change your position if you did come to find that silence is prohibitive?
Jesus actually did say something about worship forms not commanded by God (Mt 15) and it seems the OT (Deut. 4:2) has something to say as well. Otherwise, just about anything can be thrown into the mix, and neither you nor I buy into that one.
Zack,
I understand your argument. So, referencing only my point in this blog, what did Jesus teach about authority of silence?
I want to hear it. I made the claim it isn't in the Word. I stick by it. What did Jesus say about the authority of silence?
Hi Terry,
Matthew 15 seems to actually tell of the same principle as Deut. 4:2. In Deut. the reason the Jews weren't to add to or take away from God's word (neglect it or add lib where there is silence or already a command) was so that they wouldn't end up practicing the false types of worship that the surrounding nations had practiced. The next verse about pagan forms of deity worship (4:3) alerts us that the danger was as much about adding some other worship forms or ways to God (or a god or whatever) as it was about them simply forgetting to listen at all. A respect for silence is implicit in this command if not explicit.
The problem JEsus pointed out with the Pharisees and scribes was that all of the things they added into the worship of God (washing hands "according to the tradition of the elders" Mt. 15:2) were actually taking them further away from God, not closer. In the same way that Deut's warning that to add or take away would prevent them from keeping the intention of God's law, so their unbiblical worship traditions were preventing them from doing what God actually wanted in Jesus' day.
The law was silent about them washing before they ate (15:2), and it was silent about a law of corban (15:5). These breaks in silence either caused or were a result of -or both- their hearts being "far away from" God (15:8), and the law of corban actually got directly in the way of Israel fulfilling basic righteousness: feeding your parents when they're old! But what about washing hands as a non-biblical form of worship? Certainly this simple and mundane little add-in wouldn't get in the way of the Israelites fulfilling all of the other laws. Well, maybe not directly. But this outward washing practice was at the very least reflective of their misunderstanding of what God really intended for them as His people: clean hearts. Jesus returns to the subject of the hand washings in vs. 11. "It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." While God wanted them most fundamentally to have clean hearts, their religion had shifted to the washing of hands rather than hearts. Regardless of whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first, they were thinking that a practice was pleasing to God when it was vain worship -nothing more than a command of man. Now how can any person say some worship practice is what God wants without something saying so from God's word? Silence gives no command but man's command -the very thing that is condemned in the Scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus didn't leave us with some kind of smorgisborg where we can just add lib wherever we want to. I think He pointed out, and church history has proven for us, that the more we add our own little inventions into the simple faith that was handed to us, the farther we go from God, the more we put our inventions in place of God's will. And the more the church has made human tradition its specialty (something a healthy respect for silence would have kept it away from) the more impotent and useless a thing the church has become to change lives and to uphold the gospel in the world. Just look at which churches today are the utterly pitiful and dwindling wrecks of the past; they are the high church structures that hide the gospel under a mountain of human tradition -the Anglicans and the Catholics and the Orthodox churches are number 1 in this department. But if scripture and this passage say nothing to this trampling of silence, then you can't say much to those empty and worthless traditions; they're ok. Jesus pointed out the problems of religion that places tradition based worship where there is silence. Jesus here did not himself participate in that worship. I can't see why we should. Though the meaning and purpose of Jesus' intentions here in Mt. 15 may be deeper than we've cared to focus on in the past, the Bible does have something to say about silence or the disrespect therof, and I really think you believe this principle whether I wrangle on or not.
Good gifts,
Zack
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