Between Legalism and Worldliness, Part 1
About two months after I began at Starbucks, I was working in the drive-through when a customer pulled up to my window with an open Budweiser can in his lap. Maybe that’s kosher in your neck of the woods, but drinking and driving is frowned upon in Washington State.
“What’s that?” I asked sharply.
“Uhh…” the driver responded, looking guilty.
“Is that beer?” I asked again.
“It’s from yesterday.”
“I don’t care if it’s from last week. You can’t have an open can of beer in your car.”
“Really, it’s fine.”
“Really, it’s not. I’m not letting you drive away with that.” He just stared at me and hung on to his beer, so I snapped into daddy mode. “Gimmie the beer,” I commanded. He blinked in disbelief. I repeated myself slowly. “Give me the beer, or I’ll call the cops.” Looking a little dazed, he slowly handed me the half-empty can.
As he drove off and I emptied the beer down the sink, my manager was laughing so hard he struggled to talk to me. “Did you really just confiscate someone’s beer?” he finally asked.
“Yeah. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You were scary. I would have given you my beer.”
That incident earned me a place in my local Starbucks’s lore, but not everyone was amused. One partner accused me of sticking my nose into other people’s business, of being legalistic, judgmental, and the like. That stung. I’ve worked hard to avoid legalism, and I hate to be accused of it.
Other people think I work too hard to avoid legalism. I once had an idealistic young man accuse me of pastoring a worldly church and saying we didn’t really care about holiness. I wanted to dismiss him as an obsessive Christian (which may or may not have been true), but I had to ask myself if his words held any truth. In my attempt to avoid legalism, was I skirting the edge of worldliness and leading my church to do the same?
Legalism and worldliness are other ways to describe the two cliffs I described in chapter 2, the cliffs of self-righteousness and destructive sin. Many in my generation are so haunted by the legalism of past generations that they plow unthinkingly into the opposite extreme. But I’m convinced that the life God desires and that brings the greatest joy can be found only by avoiding both cliffs. In the next two chapters, we’ll take a look at how to avoid the extremes of legalism and worldliness.
The Danger of Safety
Wholeheartedly pursing obedience isn’t legalism—it’s happy holiness. We fall off the cliff of legalism when we think our status with God depends on how well we obey. We can also fall off when we live our lives by a list of rules that exceed those in the Bible and expect others to do the same. This second kind of legalism is what Jesus was talking about when he rebuked the Pharisees.
The Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it’s written:
“ ‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
“You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions” (Mark 7:5-8).
By Jesus’s day, Jewish leaders had expanded the commands of God and added traditions designed to prevent even the slightest chance of breaking any given command. For instance, the Torah says, “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19). The ancient rabbis expanded the rule to prohibit eating any meat with any dairy products. This was meant to create a fence around the Law and prevent any possibility of an infraction. Some Jews expand this even further by not using the same utensils for both. A Christian friend of mine worked on an Israeli kibbutz (a farming collective), and she caused a huge fiasco when she accidently washed the dishes used for meat in the sink used for milk. A rabbi from Jerusalem had to oversee the cleansing of the dishes and sink. (I wonder if that got her out of kitchen duty.)
The human traditions that Jews have added to God’s commands don’t concern me as much as the traditions that Christians continue to add today. Obsessive Christianity likes to create all sorts of extrabiblical rules to keep us extra-safe.
• The Bible tells us to save sex for marriage, so couples shouldn’t kiss until their wedding day.
• Drunkenness is forbidden, so Christians shouldn’t drink any alcohol.
• The Bible commands modesty, so Christians should never wear a two-piece bathing suit.
• The Bible says to guard our hearts, so Christians shouldn’t watch R-rated movies.
• The Bible says our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, so Christians shouldn’t smoke (though eating fast food is fine).
These are not necessarily bad rules, but they’re not in the Bible. Rather, these rules are our fences—human traditions added to the commands of God in order to keep us from getting too near the edge of the cliff. Sometimes they’re legitimatized with the exhortation to avoid even the appearance of evil.1 So what’s the problem with these fences? Even if they are just human traditions, aren’t they there to keep us safe? Better safe than sorry!
The problem is that fences provide only the illusion of safety.
First, fences aren’t nearly as strong as they look. The couple that uses “no kissing until marriage” to keep them from premarital sex may discover they can skip first base and head straight for home pretty easily.
Second, fences tend to focus on external, observable behavior without examining internal attitudes and motives. In many churches, a Sunday school teacher could get away with being self-righteous, arrogant, and quarrelsome as long as the kids never see her using chew. In the words of a classic song of my youth, “Hide the Beer, the Pastor’s Here”…
And the hate in your heart you’re hiding well
But the booze on your breath is easy to smell
Finally, fences only provide an illusion of safety because there are two cliffs, not one. Fences can help protect you from getting too close to the cliff of destructive sins, but in the process they push you closer to the cliff of legalism. If you choose to be really strict about dress, entertainment, or beverage choices, you may be safer from falling into destructive sins. The teetotaler is in no danger of drunk driving. But at the same time you increase your risk of legalism, self-righteousness, self-reliance, pride, and joylessness.
Does that mean fences are bad? Not necessarily. I was closing one night at Starbucks with the shift manager and an unmarried female barista. As we were getting ready to leave, the barista said, “Josh, do you mind giving me a ride tonight?” The request put me in an awkward position because I have a personal policy of avoiding being alone with any woman I’m not related to, even for a short car ride.
Unfortunately, she had more or less planned on me giving her a ride, and I was not about to let her walk home in the dark. I called my wife and let her know I was making an exception to the rule, and then I tactfully explained to my friend that this was a one-time occurrence. I also made a point of talking to my wife on my phone for most of the ride. I could tell my coworker was completely baffled (and annoyed) by this policy of mine, but I didn’t care. I put this fence in place because I’ve watched a lot of pastors fall into sexual immorality and seen the devastation it’s wreaked on their families and congregations.
The problem isn’t with fences themselves. Even the apostle Paul permitted their use. “I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean” (Romans 14:14).
The problem comes when we try to build fences for other people. Believing that all Christians should obey God’s commands isn’t legalism, but believing they should observe the extra rules you’ve added for yourself is. Fences can be invaluable tools. The trick is using them to protect yourself from one cliff without being pushed toward the other. Here are two principles that have helped me do that.
First, understand that your fences are for you. They’re based on your own situation, weaknesses, and personal history. The recovering alcoholic probably should not go into a bar. The guy who struggles with lust may not even be able to watch a PG movie. Each of us is strong in some areas and weak in others, which is why we should usually stick to building our own fences.2
Second, don’t be proud of your fences or lack of them. One of the great dangers of fences is thinking they make you a better Christian. In Romans 14–15, Paul was basically dealing with an issue of fences regarding what Christians were allowed to eat.
The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand (Romans 14:3-4).
In essence, Paul says that the person without fences must not look down on or feel superior to the Christian with fences. I’ve known many Christians who have felt patronized by other Christians for their avoidance of movies, alcohol, or other such things. On the other hand, Christians with certain fences must not judge the liberties of Christians who don’t need them. I’ve also heard Christians with more fences say (in essence), “If you really cared about holiness, you’d have this fence as well.”
Romans 14 provides the best antidote to legalism—keep your eyes on Jesus. “To their own master, servants stand or fall.” Stop comparing yourself to other Christians and start focusing on your relationship with him. It’s all about leaning into Jesus, being empowered by his Spirit, and accepting his forgiveness when you fail. In a word, it’s all about grace.
On the other side of legalism is the danger of worldliness. Do you get nervous whenever you hear a sermon on hating the world? I know I do. I’m always afraid that it will end with a demand that we burn all of our secular music and throw away our TVs. Yet worldliness is a real problem, and the Bible calls us to hate the world. What does that actually mean?