Just
wondering....
This is for the Universalist
crowd. IYO is Judge Greer's Pastor a legalist, or do you see
him as a true under Shepherd with a right heart attitude trying
to recover an errant
sheep? judyt
Do you mind if a non-universalist addresses this?
No, not at all
I agree with much of Farah's critique. I
disagree, however, with what he seems to prescribe as a "fix." What the church
needs is not more laws -- Judge Greer had surely heard the commandment: "Thou
shalt not kill"; nor does it need a more rigid enforcement of the laws it
has -- Greer was asked to leave, wasn't he?
Greer was apparently a nominal Christian
at best with no fear of God at all in his heart. I heard someone
say the pastor asked him to leave
because he wanted only one god in his Church.
What the church needs is a clearer
articulation of what it means to love God with hearts, minds, and souls,
and to love neighbors as oneself. I had a professor who put it something like
this: When a church has a sin problem, it is not time to preach law more
forcibly, while easing up on the grace stuff (as if our problems were caused
by being overly gracious); no, when the church has a sin problem, it is
time to preach grace more clearly.
The problem I have with the above is
that it turns God's wisdom on it's ear. The law was given to Moses
so that sin might be exposed and the need for Christ revealed. IMO which
may not count for much here there is not enough preaching and teaching from
the law. People have no concept of God's holiness or of the filthiness of sin.
I was
raised in a dysfunctional family singing
Jesus loves me this I know as far back as I can remember.
Think about it and I think you'll agree.
The law has never made people righteous -- it did
not make the Jews righteous, it will not make Christians righteous, and it
cannot make the world righteous. Do you agree with me? Why then do Christians
sometimes act as though a stricter adherence to and enforcement of God's law
will in some way begin to address the sin problems the church encounters?
Most Church ppl are mainly walking in sin
so their hearts are condemning them all the time. They try to work
harder because of ignorance. They don't know what to do about it because they
have not received instruction in God's Word.
The Law even in its glory was never anything more
than a slave. Yes, a slave. Paul calls it a "pedagogue,"
No we are the slaves Bill.
By the Law comes the knowledge of sin
(Romans 3:20)
The Law is Holy and the Commandment just
and good (Romans 7:12)
The Law is spiritual - we are carnal sold
under sin (Romans 7:14)
The Law is good (1 Timothy
1:8)
given to lead the Jews to Christ (Gal
3.24).
And also to lead us to Christ - If one is
not sure what sin is, then why would they want to stop doing it?
In the Greek world a pedagogue was a slave
whose sole purpose was to guard the children as he brought them to the one who
would teach them. Hence the law "was our (pedagogue) to bring us to
Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a (slave)'"
(vs.24-25).
And how does faith come Bill? Faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (His Law, Commandments, and
Statutes).
Therefore, it is not the law which was the
"schoolmaster" or the "tutor" to teach us the ways of righteousness -- as our
English translations lead us to believe; no, Christ is our teacher, our
schoolmaster, our tutor; and "righteousness" comes only by way of faith,
as we grow in relationship with him.
The Law is righteous Bill and we Gentiles
are not children of any covenant until we come to Christ (by the hearing of
God's Word)
"For I through the law died to the law that I
might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I
who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me"
(Gal 2.19-20). And so, this gets to the
heart of our discussion on legalism.
Christ does not live in you except you be
"born again" born of the Spirit who accompanies the Word, unless you can climb
up some other way.
The Christian who believes he still needs laws to
govern him, is a man who has not come to terms with the fact that the one who
has fulfilled the law (who is no longer confined under the
guardianship of a slave no less) has been graciously placed within his
inner being.
Jesus is at the RH of the Father in Heaven
Bill. The Holy Spirit is the one who is placed in our inner being when
we are "born again" or "born of the
Spirit" and this is just the beginning of a walk of grace in which we
will learn to overcome as He overcame by His power working in and through
us.
In other words, we ought not think of the "law
written upon our hearts" as a legal transfer -- a taking of that which was
once an external code of conduct and perceiving it now in terms of
internal restrictions; instead we should approach it in terms of a gracious
gift bestowed deep within us of him who is greater than the law -- of him who
can actually make us righteous -- for as Paul says, "if there had been a law
given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the
law" (Gal 3.21).
The Levitical Law is what has passed away
Bill and noone on TT is advocating going back to that. However, Gods
Commandments and Statutes are still the standard ie: "For the Law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"
"This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the
flesh" (Galatians 5:14,16) and "Love fulfills the Law" (1 Corinthians
13:10)
Friends, it is the royal law which is written
upon our hearts by Christ Jesus as we grow in relationship with him;
for as we, the church, learn to love him with all our hearts, minds, and
souls, we will begin to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Bill
You will find it impossible to love
Him in anarchy because He says "If you love Me you will do what I
say" judyt
In a message dated 4/2/2005
3:05:09 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
Just wondering....
This is for the Universalist
crowd. IYO is Judge Greer's Pastor a legalist, or do you
see
him as a true under Shepherd with a right heart attitude
trying to recover an errant
sheep? judyt
Meet Judge
Greer's pastor
Posted: March 29, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Joseph Farah
 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
I am convinced God uses
trials like the Terri Schiavo case to test men.
Pinellas County Circuit
Court Judge George Greer was tested â and found
wanting. He had seven
years to consider this case and got it wrong every
time.
I don't know
Greer personally, but I know many people like him. They go
to church on
Sunday and then between Monday and Friday lead lives with no
seeming
connection to what they hear preached in the pulpit, what they
read in
the Bible, what they claim to believe of the Christian faith.
This may be
the biggest single problem we have in America today â this
disconnect
between the spiritual lives of Christians and how they
practice their
faith in the world.
Greer, until recently, was a member of the Calvary
Baptist Church in
Clearwater, Fla. He left at the urging of Pastor
William Rice, who
counseled him wisely: "You must know that in all
likelihood it is this
case which will define your career and this case
that you will remember
in the waning days of life. I hope you can find a
way to side with the
angels and become an answer to the prayers of
thousands."
Rice has my highest regard for that decision. Too many
pastors in this
country don't require obedience to God as a prerequisite
for church
membership. They seem to believe in a kind of "cheap" grace
that comes
with regular attendance or tithing rather than a Christian
walk. They
seem to have no minimal standards for fellowship and communion
with the
saints.
There are few heroes in the Terri Schiavo scandal.
Her parents and
siblings qualify. Terri herself qualifies. Those who
braved arrest to
bring her cups of water qualify. And, in my book, so
does Rev. William
Rice.
Do you want to know why the church doesn't
have influence and impact in
our increasingly secular world today?
Because there are too many
so-called Christians like Judge George Greer
and not enough like Pastor
William Rice.
Greer's friends have
attacked the church and defended the judge, saying
he was interpreting
the law to the best of his ability. However, if that
is true, then Greer,
as a Christian, had a duty to obey God's laws rather
than man's laws.
That would require him to leave the bench if he truly
saw a conflict.
Instead, Greer opted to leave his church â and,
presumably, his weak
faith.
"Like evangelicals across the world, we are horrified at the
thought that
a handicapped woman could be, in effect, starved to death
before a
watching world," Rice wrote. Admitting he was not a legal or
medical
expert, Rice asserted: "I know right from wrong. I know what God
thinks
about human life. I know there is only one way to describe the
prospect
of starving a woman to death because she cannot feed herself. It
is
wrong."
Rice continued: "Morality and truth must serve as our
guide. Terri
Schiavo is not on life support. She is not dying. Good
evidence exists to
suggest that she is responsive. All she receives is
food and water, the
same as you and me. Are we to conclude that she is
less than human
because she cannot feed herself? Can a month-old child
feed himself? Is
an elderly patient stricken with some debilitating
disease and unable to
feed herself suddenly less human? Do we now use an
IQ test to determine
if someone possesses the right to live? Isn't that
God's choice? Only God
can give life, and only He should take it away."
"Tread carefully if you think this is simply about a dying woman
being
allowed to die peacefully," Rice wrote. "Remember when we were told
that
Roe v. Wade was simply about helping women who had been raped or
whose
lives were imminently threatened? Today, few abortions fall into
that
category, but millions of human lives have been sacrificed upon the
altar
of selfishness. And the slide down the slippery slope continues."
In case Greer was still confused, his pastor gave him more to
think
about.
"This case seems complex, but it is as simple as four
words: 'Thou shalt
not kill.' If you need a compass for this complex
case, you'll find it
there," he wrote. "As we all know, the Sixth
Commandment means it is
wrong to murder â to take the life of an innocent
person without just
cause. If I were the nurse in that hospice center and
the directive were
given to me to discontinue feeding a living human
being and watch as he
or she starved to death, I couldn't do it. I'd
rather get fired, resign
or do something else."
Christians can go on
blaming others for the problems we face in this
country. Or we can go
into the churches and start cleaning up the messes
we have in our own
houses of worship. It's time to take back the
churches. It's time to
renew the idea of standards. It's time to make
church membership mean
something again.
Judge George Greer did the wrong thing. Pastor William
Rice did the right
thing. If we had more pastors like Rice, we'd have
fewer judges like
Greer.
:Legalist, plain and
simple -- at least in this decision. But you knew I
was going to say that.
JD
