The same people whom Paul says would once have given their eyes to him now treated his message with disdain. The one who was their father in the faith was now their enemy. The Galatians had been courted by the Judaizers. The works-righteousness legalists showered them with affection, made much of them, and won them over. Some cults today use this technique and call it “love bombing.” They find the doubters and the disenfranchised and do whatever it takes to convince them, telling them you have never seen community like you will have it with our group. Then they slowly box them into their way of life. Listen, dear reader, we are never more in danger than when we are being praised by people who have ulterior motives. Or when people, including preachers and teachers, are telling us what we want to hear, tickling our ears, pandering to us in order to get us on board, to win our loyalty. The endgame? Paul told them, “They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.” Literally, they want to lock you up so that your primary commitment is to their group of “super-spiritual” legalists. The only way you can understand Paul becoming their enemy is that they have now decided that Paul did not have what they have and was just not as spiritual as they were. “This Paul talks a lot about freedom in Christ,” they may have thought, “but we know the best way to really know God.”
Let me ask you something. Aren’t there churches today that make that claim? “Hey, we know how to really worship God and keep His commandments. Come join us, the real church.” These churches mostly attract people who are looking for lists and rules and regulations that they can practice in order to, they believe, get more spiritual and closer to God. And though that church or home group or house church may name the name of Jesus, it is the group itself that is being exalted. They make much of you so that ultimately you will make much of them. Are they zealous? Oh yes! But zeal in the service of a lie is a dangerous thing.
We all know the pitfalls. And we know that we can easily veer into works-righteousness in different ways and at different times. And sometimes it is hard to tell where it is true legalism (our salvation depends on doing these works), or where it is drawing a line in the sand on preferences not principles. Then we start drawing lines on preferences for others! We start to think we know the best way to live and therefore everyone should live this way. Our preferences could be educational choices, how and where our children will be taught. Or entertainment choices we permit or don’t permit in our homes. They could be medical choices and whether we will immunize or not, or whether we go to a primary care doctor or a functional med doctor. Or to no doctor at all. It could be dietary decisions that we make. And the list is endless.
These are all liberty issues, not directives that come from the Word to every family. That’s why Paul wrote in Romans 14, “Let not the one who eats (anything) despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains (eats only vegetables) pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.” Then he asks the key question: “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” Wait! Do you mean people who eat differently than I do can just do that and I don’t need to correct them? What about people who have a different opinion about how to care for their children? I mean, I owe it to them to tell them (and maybe everybody) what I know. Right?
Wrong. They are servants of God. We are servants of God. So, issues of health, child-rearing, education, politics and more, fall into the nonessential category most of the time. They are liberty issues, where we can disagree and still love one another and walk together.
Let’s choose to not answer questions that people are not asking us about liberty issues, unless we have a close relationship of trust.
J. Mark Fox 