(Matthew 23:24 NKJV) "Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!"

There came a time when Jesus stopped talking to the hardened Scribes and Pharisees, and began to warn others to not be like them. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." The opponents of Jesus were abandoned just like Pharaoh when his chariot wheels fell off in the middle of the Red Sea. It was a bit of "let the dead bury the dead." Don't follow them where they are going. It's gonna be hot.

I grew up in the Bible Belt of the South, with people that love God but are steeped in religious tradition like sweet tea. When I began to study the Bible for myself, I was amazed at what was not in it - and sometimes at what actually was. This message may offend some good old religious people, but so did Jesus.

In my own life, it has taken years to weed through religious baggage, and I still find pieces that do not belong. For some reason it is easy to believe the lie that God is mean, or that He is mad at us. It is much harder to believe that He truly loves us, that we are forgiven, that we can now come boldly before Him. That He cares. But that is exactly what scripture teaches.

Many things passed down as Bible truth are merely personal preferences. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" is not found anywhere in scripture, but someone decided it should be there and started passing it down through the generations. Now many people believe it came straight from God. I think it is a good idea, but it is not from Scripture.

This is not a new problem. It is as old as mankind.

God gave Adam one commandment. One. Do not eat from that one tree in the middle of the garden. That is it. But by the time the serpent got around to asking Eve about it, she told him they could not eat it nor touch it. Nobody told her that. She added "do not touch" to the one rule God had given, and we have been adding to His word ever since.

Centuries later, when the Israelites were dying from snake bites in the wilderness, God had Moses make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Anyone bitten could look at it and live. Simple. Powerful. It worked. Then, seven hundred years passed, and by the time Hezekiah became king, the Israelites had named the thing and were burning incense to it. What started as an act of God became an idol with a name. Hezekiah had to smash it to pieces.

That is what religious tradition does. It takes something God touched and turns it into something God has to destroy. A movement becomes a monument.

The Pharisees had built an entire system around this tendency. Alongside the written law of Moses, they passed down an oral law called the Talmud. It covered everything: dietary rules, Sabbath observance, how to wash your hands, how to wash your cups, how to wash your couches. When Jesus came along and His disciples ate bread with unwashed hands, the Pharisees came after Him about it.

(Mark 7:6-7 NKJV) He answered and said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"

In vain. All that effort. All that straining. And God called it worthless.

Here is where it gets close to home.

God said do not be drunk with wine, yet in the South, we turned that into prohibition and do not drink at all. Then we tried to make the Bible support the tradition we created, but it falls apart the moment you poke it, because Jesus drank wine and His first miracle was turning water into more of it. When that gets uncomfortable, someone always suggests it was unfermented grape juice. Yet, grapes ripen in September and Passover is in April. So the cup at the Last Supper held juice that was at least seven months old. As a winemaker, I can tell you they had no preservatives, and fresh grape juice begins to ferment on its own within thirty days. If you do not believe me, open a bottle of Welch's 100% grape juice, set it on the counter, check it in a month and you will have new wine.

Sylvia and I were vegans for a while until we started breaking out in boils from zinc and iron deficiencies, both of which come from meat. When we started eating meat again, we found that some of our friends had turned a diet into a religion. But Paul was clear about this:

(1 Corinthians 10:25-27 NKJV) "Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience' sake... If any of those who do not believe invites you to dinner, and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience' sake."

Christians are free to eat what is sold in the marketplace, including bacon and catfish. Eat what you like and let others eat what they like. Share your convictions when looking up to God instead of down on your neighbor. 

The same goes for what day you worship. Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday - Paul said let each person be fully convinced in his own mind and stop judging one another over it. The Jerusalem Council met specifically to settle what was required of new Gentile believers, and their verdict was short: abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. That was the whole list. Four things. Everything else the Jewish believers had been trying to load onto the Gentiles - circumcision, dietary laws, the full weight of the Talmud - the apostles said no. We gave no such commandment. Here is what they actually wrote:

(Acts 15:28-29 NKJV)  For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.

Jesus Christ is the bridge between the two testaments, and everything passes through His resurrection. Some commandments came through untouched. Some changed. Some were abolished. The cross of Christ is the filter, not a denomination's handbook.

So why does any of this matter?

When I was in my twenties, I attended a Free-will Baptist church with a fire-and-brimstone preacher. Most people sat a few rows back because when he got rolling, he would be red-faced, shouting and pacing the stage and might spit on the front row. He had been running a revival all week and bringing solid messages every night: salvation, mercy, heaven, hell, the works. He had a big altar call at the end of the service and a great conversion rate.

I had been sharing my faith for weeks with a musician friend from work. I was a bass player, and he was a rock and roll drummer with a long spiral perm down his back and a few tattoos, but he was a good-hearted man who would give you the shirt off his back if he could help you. He had never been to church. He finally agreed to come.

I wanted him to hear the message without distraction, so I got us seats on the front row and settled in.

When the preacher walked out on stage and saw my friend sitting there, it was like I had brought a pile of moist dung and placed it on the seat next to me, steaming. The message changed. His countenance changed. Gone was the sermon about Jesus seeking and saving the lost. In its place came a red-faced lecture on how shameful it is for a man to have long hair, which my friend had an abundance of,  and the message was delivered at full volume while staring directly at us. I sank lower and lower in my seat, and my excitement turned to disgust. It became clear that they only wanted to share the good news among themselves. I had brought a sinner into their temple, and they treated it like I had carried something foul through the front door.

We crawled out of that building in shame.

I was sick to my stomach and I never went back. I do not know if my friend ever went to another church. He stopped talking to me, and eventually we lost touch.

That preacher strained out a gnat, but could swallow a man whole.

(John 3:17 NKJV) "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

God's door is open. But once people get inside, they start trying to help Him close it; to turn it into a private club with a dress code and a list of approved music styles and the right political opinions. God is not the one doing that. We are. God loves the world, all colors, all races. Jesus Christ wasn't a good ol' white boy. He was Jewish. Olive skinned. We are grafted into His vine. 

(Matthew 23:13 NKJV) Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in."

The Hebrew root word for praise, halal, is where we get hallelujah. It means to shine, to boast, to rave, to be clamorously foolish - to make God look good. That is what we are supposed to do. Instead, we pile up petty traditions and turn the God of Heaven into a Sky Bully. The world watches and laughs. People who are desperate for Him will not walk through the door because of what they have seen us do in His name.

"Don't let Jesus catch you in the movie theatre." -- Where did you read that one?

Jesus said, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35 NKJV).

Not by your music style. Not by your hem length. Not by your voting record. It's Love.

It is perfectly fine to not drink wine, skip the movies, or keep a strict diet. Do what you believe before God. But do not tell someone else that Jesus will be angry at them for their personal choices, because that is your preference, not His commandment. You are straining out gnats, while a camel slides down your throat.

Love God. Love people. And stop making Him into something He is not.

Prayer

Prayer: Heavenly Father, forgive us for the times we have added our own rules to Your word and called it Your voice. Forgive us for the doors we have shut in people's faces while claiming to represent You. Open our eyes to the difference between Your commandments and our preferences. Give us love that is strong enough to welcome the long-haired drummer on the front row. Let us make You look good, not small. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen!