The other week I unexpectedly found on my YouTube feed a video that had gone viral about a town in New Jersey that’s been “overwhelmed” by an influx of orthodox Jewish families.
The gist of it was, in part, that many young Jewish fathers
in the town were studying the Torah day to day rather than working jobs and
they were relying on government assistance for their burgeoning young families.
Once I watched part of that video, I was pretty much inundated
with a dozen or more YouTube videos about how orthodox Jewish males, both in Israel
and the United States, make it their formal day-to-day job to study the Torah
and Talmud in yeshivas.
I was even offered a movie I actually remember once watching
from 1982 (the same year I graduated from high school) called “The Chosen,” starring
Robby Benson, who was a “heartthrob” in the teen magazines back then.
Here’s an outtake from this evening's Bible study at my church,
given by Alex Kurz:
When you go through Paul’s epistles he doesn’t say kind
things about the law. It’s fascinating. Paul does not say flattering things
about the law. He’s the apostle of grace and he used to be a Pharisee. He was
the “Pharisee of the Pharisees, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, the tribe of
Benjamin.”
I mean, what did Paul say about touching the law? “I am
blameless.” Here’s a man who was brought up in the strictest sect. He excelled
among his peers and you remember back in Acts 7 when they were stoning Stephen.
Why is it that they laid their coats at the feet of Saul of Tarsus? There’s something
significant about that incident.
Why did these religious leaders get Saul’s permission before
they started stoning Stephen? That obviously indicates that Saul of Tarsus,
whom we now know as Paul, possessed a very prestigious position within the
ranks of Judaism.
Paul knows the law forward and backward and inside out, up
and down and left and right, and when you read (you don’t even need to study
deeply, you just casually read Romans through Philemon) he’s the one who
declares that the law works wrath; the law pronounces guilt, provokes sin, defeats
us, exposes lack, kills, fades in glory, strengthens sin, pronounces curses, enslaves,
satisfies the flesh.
Paul says the law was made for sinners. Paul never says the
law was intended for the saints or for the sanctified. Paul says the law was
made for sinners. The law says “do, work,” over and over again.
You read Paul’s epistles and he does not say kind things
about the law, except perhaps in Romans 7:
But what’s the problem? It’s weak in the flesh. The law didn’t
help Israel; the law will not help a Believer in this current dispensation of
grace.
Now conversely, if Paul says such negative things about the
law and the law system and the law principle, he’s the hyper-grace Apostle. He’s
the one who uses language about the abounding grace of Almighty God.
Paul’s the one who uses these superlatives. He describes the
riches of God’s grace; the Apostle Paul he couldn’t get ENOUGH of the grace of
God. The liberty that’s found in the grace of God and over and over and over
Paul does not extoll his abilities via the law. He adores the Savior who has
done all on our behalf because of his grace.
Our position in Christ is unconditional. It’s based on love.
Christ is our peace, He’s our victor, our completeness, our life, our glory,
our righteousness, our strength, our perfection. We have all of our blessings
in Him. Christ is our sanctification, He seals our pardon, we go on and on and
on. We’re accepted in the Beloved.
So, the first sign of an abusive church is one who seeks to
enslave the Believer by imposing the Mosaic law program or a system of
legalism, where unfortunately they’re going to add to it and they’re going to have
their list of requirements and expectations if you’re going to be a member of
the quote unquote “assembly.”
Conversely, the first characteristic of a healthy church
ministry today is one who recognizes and relishes the liberty that we have in
Christ Jesus.