“Woe to you experts in the law! For you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” Luke 11:52
In this passage Saint Luke was relating the discourse between Jesus and one of the Pharisees, a man who was a part of a very powerful religious cult within the Jewish tradition. The Pharisee had interrupted Jesus during his preaching to the people and requested Jesus to dine with him immediately. This rebuke of the Pharisee by our Lord resulted form the Pharisee taking note that Jesus failed to perform the ceremonial washing before the meal.
As the Apostle Paul made clear through his incontrovertible arguments, Jesus was with God when the laws—God’s Holy word—was given to the Patriarchs and the Prophets who in turn gave them to the Jewish people. What is interesting here is that the Pharisees expanded upon these laws creating—according to some researchers—as many as 613 laws which are listed in the Talmud.
An entry in Wikipedia makes this observation:
While the total number of commandments is 613, no individual can perform all of them. Many can only be observed at the Temple in Jerusalem, which no longer stands.
By the medieval era these laws had grown so complex that some rules only applied to certain categories of Jews, some are only observed by kohanim (Levitical priests) and some only by men or women.
Since Jesus was with God when these laws were given to humanity, he knew what was a part of the Father’s wishes and what was not, and as we read in the Gospels, Jesus called the pharisees out every-time he could. And rightfully so because the laws that they created as a means to serve them, prevented others from entering into the kingdom of God. In effect Jesus was saying that they chose not to obey God and tried to place every means possible in the path of those wishing to worship God.
Sadly, we see this same attitude—as that of the Pharisees—displayed by far too many well meaning Christians today. People who try as hard as possible to deny others entry to the Kingdom of Heaven.
If you read the various publications on the Internet maintained by various denominations of Christianity, especially those more closely resembling Evangelical sensitivities, you have no doubt heard many of writers and ministers calling out those who are preaching concepts that are inconsistent with God’s Holy Word. These men and women are teaching people that God’s Holy Word does not condemn sins of the flesh that are all to popular today, are labeled false prophets and rightfully so. The false Prophets refuse to condemn what the Bible plainly states are sinful acts and they encourage others to ignore traditional teachings as well.
“You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
On the other end of the spectrum, we have living “saints” by that I mean people who have memorized every word of the Bible, can quote it backward and frontward, and are not afraid to tell you that you are apostate if you believe differently than their own very narrow understanding of the Bible.
In 1 Corinthians Saint Paul used the analogy of people being as infants in the spirit, he wrote:
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?
( 1 Corinthians 3:1-3)
This rebuke appears to be in response to arguments in the church at Corinth where a faction revered Apollos over Paul. In verse 6 and 7 Paul points out:
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”
If the various sects of Christianity share the core doctrines and teachings of the church that are in keeping with the Holy Word of God, how can one be completely right and the other completely wrong?
As many of you know, I post the Daily Office on most of the blogs I maintain as well as the groups on Facebook that I either moderate or belong to. Typically I copy and paste the daily office from lectionarypage.net into a word document, add a title and benediction, then post this entire document on my blogs. Then I post the link to the blog post on every social media platform I can find.
On many of the social media platforms, the system will display the link along with any picture you might have in the blog post. On most of my blogs I use a picture of a Bible and a Rosary.
Now, I have been posting the daily office in all these various places and people are now choosing to “like” the post, leave an Amen in the comments, and follow so that each time I post one of these they get a notification of a new post. The number of people choosing to do this is increasing, I point out this not in the spirit of prideful sin, but simply as an acknowledgment that my work is having some degree of effect.
But with an increase of those who appreciate the work, there are those who—at least seem to be—like those we mentioned above that are self appointed guardians of the faith and are quick to call out anyone who dares to promote something contrary to their sensibilities. With one blog post, I managed to flush three of these people our of the virtual reality Internet bushes.
The Daily Readings for Saturday April 1, 2023, included three things which were offensive, well, at least to these three people. The first claimed that the Rosary in the picture was, and I quote; “a demon magnet” she wrote
…the rosary is an idol and demon magnet – when praying we should only pray to God (Father, Spirit, Son).
Note the order of the Holy God Head that she listed, I must be wrong because I always thought Jesus came before the Spirit.
Presumably she thought that the Rosary was idolatrous—and I’m being presumptuous here myself—as it would seem she believes that Catholics pray to the Rosary or Pray to the Mother Mary.
Personally I do not believe that I have ever met a Catholic who does pray TO THE ROSARY or to Mary the Mother of Christ. A good explanation of this can be found here, https://dowym.com/voices/catholics-pray-mary/
Moving on to door number two….
The other two gentlemen took offense to the prayer, the collect of the day. Which was:
O Lord, in your goodness you bestow abundant graces on your elect: Look with favor, we entreat you, upon those who in these Lenten days are being prepared for Holy Baptism, and grant them the help of your protection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
One asked simply enough, where was it in the Bible that Lent is mandated.
Before I could respond, a reader who has liked and followed my work made this comment:
I’m not the best one to answer questions about the workings of the church but my guess, in answer to your question, it would be in the same place we find Christmas and Easter.
Even though many Christians cherish the Lenten season, the specific observation of Lent is not mentioned in the Bible. Nor is Christmas and Easter as the man who defended me pointed out.
The one comment that really stumped me, was the guy that demanded I tell him where it was mandated in the Bible that you wait several weeks to perform the sacrament of baptism, after an individual has accepted Christ.
Are you confused yet? I was.
I was dumbfounded, I asked myself where did I ever say that there was a waiting period for this preparation? I even went to the Archdiocese web page and read through our statements, again, to make sure there wasn’t anything there that mentioned this. Of course I found nothing.
I asked the guy to explain himself, he refused to explain himself and continued with only more allegations.
Finally he made a comment I could understand. He wrote:
…you spoke of a delay in water baptism, I presume that you practice waiting for weeks to water baptize a new believer. Where is such a thing in the Bible?
From a simple prayer that included the phrase; “Look with favor, we entreat you, upon those who in these Lenten days are being prepared for Holy Baptism” he jumped to the conclusion that I/we; “…practice waiting for weeks…”
I again responded and told him that we do not so this, and that I simply quoted a prayer found in the lectionary page maintained by the Anglicans. His response was to attack the Anglicans.
I explained that years ago when I was first baptized in the Baptist church I had to be interviewed by the lead Pastor to see if I was ready and then a week later I was baptized. He claimed that the Baptists were apostate as well.
After all the back and forth his response was that he had hit a sore spot with me and that I could not even answer a simple question. An action typical of the false argument of attacking the messenger and not the message.
He wanted me—apparently—to admit that I was wrong in saying there was a several week preparation period before Baptism. Again I ask how does posting a prayer that is asking God to protect those waiting to be Baptized, a declaration of a several week period before the sacrament?
I gave up and quietly walked away from that argument. Which I advise you to consider if you find yourself in a similar situation.
My friends, there are extremists in any religion or even in any denomination of Christianity, who insist that theirs is the only path to the Kingdom of God. There are Protestants and Catholics who are adamant in respect to this position. They are like—in my opinion—the Pharisees in the time of our Lord Jesus Christ’s ministry.
“You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
I’m not passing judgment on this man who commented on my post, just making an observation based on my own opinion, your opinion may vary.
The 19th-century poet John Godfrey Saxe, wrote a poem we remember today as a means to recognize the futility of those that argue amongst themselves—much like those Paul rebuked in Corinth—about who is right and who is wrong regarding points of theology.
The basis of Saxe’s work was a story told by the Hindu people about six blind men who encountered an elephant, a great beast none of them has ever seen. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, “This being is like a thick snake”. For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, “is a wall”. Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear. In comparing their various experiences they all were adamant that the conclusion each reached from the experience was the true nature of an elephant
Obviously, the question arises, how can an elephant be all these different things to all these different men when it is just an elephant.
Saxe concluded his poem thus:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen.
Can you see a certain comparison between the fictional men in this poem by John Saxe and the subjects of Paul’s scorn in the church at Corinth? When people argue about whose branch of Christendom or whose interpretation of Scripture is correct, are they not like the Corinthians?
In my opinon, there are many paths of Christianity that follow the word of God, paths whose only difference is a nuance that is not made crystal clear in the scriptures. Its like the difference—in many cases—with the Roman technique of making the sign of the cross versus the Eastern Orthodox technique. Both accomplish the same thing, the difference is whether you touch the left shoulder first or the right; or, whether you should even make the sign of the cross at all as protestants are prone to believe. Crossing your self is not mandated by the Bible, but if doing so contributes to your spirituality, then please do so. In the same respect, if you choose not to observe Lent, please do not attack those that do, because just as there are no provisions in the Bible to mandate Lent, there are none that ban the practice either.
Why be like the Pharisees who created laws and tell others that their acts of the spirit are wrong when there are not biblical provisions for or against when the question really boils down to personal opinion and preference?
Why be like the blind men in Saxe’s poem arguing about different aspects of the same thing?
Why be like the men at Corinth who Paul insinuated were being childish, one faction claiming Paul was more important and the other Apollos when—as Paul correctly point out—the question of whether Apollos or Paul is immaterial, it is God who we should be concern ourselves with.
Why be like the Pharisee Christ personally rebuked who demanded our Lord abide by the rules they, the Pharisees, had themselves created?
In this age when the church is being attacked from all sides, would it not be better to quit arguing over points that are not made clear in the Bible and stand together as one, united in our love for Christ?
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