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
Â
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
