We often reduce the Christian life to a list of rules. Do’s and don’ts. But in Galatians 5, Paul calls upon Christians to walk and live by the Spirit and talks of the fruits of that Spiritual life. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are not commands here. They’re the byproduct of a Spirit-filled walk.
Category: Gospel
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Ariel and Jesus: The Gospel in the Little Mermaid
My favorite Disney movie is the Little Mermaid, and part of why I love the movie so much is because of tall of the gospel themes.
THE LONGING OF THE HUMAN SOUL
Ariel has it all. She’s a princess, she lives in a palace. she’s beautiful, she has an amazing singing voice, great friends, she’s adored. Yet what she really wants is a world that’s above (literally).
While her hope and aspiration is to be part of our world, her understanding of it is imperfect. She finds various items and turns to her seagull friend Scuttle to explain the things of the world to her. He’s well-intentioned but often ill informed as he tells her a fork is used for hair and a tobacco pipe is a musical instrument. We also see her imperfect knowledge of the world in the song “Part of Your World” where she keeps repeating “what do you call ’em?” “what’s that word?”
None of that changes Ariel’s desire to know our world. A world where they walk, where they run, where they stay all day in the sun. Sun is noteworthy in her association with the world as light is a nearly universal religious symbol of truth and righteousness. She desires the illumination of the world above over the dark world of the seas.
A SINFUL HEART
Ariel has a loving father, the king, but she is also disobedient to him. She goes up to shore in spite of being forbidden. She complains about her father’s rules in “Part of Your World” when she sings: “Bet’cha on land they understand, bet they don’t reprimand their daughters.”
A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL
In order to make it to land, Ariel makes a deal with Ursula, the Sea Witch, who’s a demonic figure. Many had come before Ariel and made various deals with Ursula, only to lose and be turned into polyps.
Ariel is betting on herself. But it’s a bet she will lose. She cannot ultimately prevail in becoming part of the world.A SAVIOR
Ariel was always a pawn in Ursula’s game. Ursula wants to rule the world of the seas. When Ariel loses her deal, her father Triton intervenes. There’s only one thing that can save Ariel. Triton exchanges himself for her and is turned into a polyp. He sets aside his crown so that Ariel can live.
VICTORY
Ursula is powerful. But she’s not all-powerful. In the end, she is defeated. There’s a resurrection of the people who’s lives she had taken. Triton gives Ariel what she could not give herself. He gives her entrance into the human world. The movie ends like the Bible ends, with a wedding celebration and a choir (only time in this movie) singing: Now we can walk, now we can run, now we can stay all day in the sun. Just you and me and I can be part of your world.
THE GOSPEL
There are great themes in this movie. But it also is just a shadow of the real story. That we are sinful and need grace. Jesus is the one who took the penalty of our sin for us so that we could be forgiven and have our true home in another world.
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Originally published November 22, 2019
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The hardest commandment: love your neighbor
Throughout the Bible, there are lots of commands to love people. Why?
Obviously because it’s important. But it’s also interesting that the command keeps coming up.
The fact that it has to be told to us over and over again points to the fact that it’s actually hard for us to do. The Bible doesn’t call us to do things are super simple and which come naturally to us.
There’s no command to love chocolate in the Bible.
Loving people is hard. And part of why it’s hard is because we don’t think it’s hard.
It goes back to how we use the language of the things we love. If we will throw around the word “love” for things we don’t actually even love, then we believe in an idea of love that’s pretty easy.
The Greek language actually had four words for four different types of love. I’m not going to get into all of those this morning, but even to know that fact is interesting. That there are different ideas of love, different types of love.
And we probably all understand that but we only have one word for love. We don’t think it’s hard to love people because we think love is easy.
Real love is hard.
Sometimes when we say “love,” what we really mean is tolerance. Let and let live is not love. That’s easy. Anyone can do that.
We do love our families. That’s usually pretty easy, at least for most of them. They’re our family. But we’re called to love everyone.
Now, that’s easy to do in that aggregate. It’s easy to love humanity as a human race and want what’s best for it. And that’s fine. But that’s also pretty easy because that’s so big and broad that we can also still get away without having that really needing to impact how we live.
But what about loving the people who are hard to love.
Jesus and love
We see that from Jesus throughout his ministry.
We see him associating with those his society most despised. We see him visit lepers, people who were viewed as inherently unclean and who were outcasts in their society. We see him show grace to a woman who was a prostitute.
One of his disciples was a tax collector. Tax collectors were hated in their society. For the Jewish people, they were looked at as being traitors to their people. Taking money from Israelites to give to Rome. We see Jesus show grace to those who hated him, personally. Pharisees who plotted against him, guards who beat him, officials who crucified him.
Jesus loved the groups who were hard to love.
Every society has its groups it looks down upon. We see how Jesus showed love. Who are the groups with whom our society struggles?
Criminals. People who struggle with addiction.
People who have hurt us. And that can be hard. There’s incredible damage people can inflict. Forgiveness can be hard. Let alone saying that we love that person.
People who have different political views than us. The division right now in this country is incredible. Some of us can really struggle with not being judgemental on those who have some different political views.
You still have to love them.
How do we love people? It begins not with the people, but with the God we serve. Loving others is, and especially loving those who are hard to love is a reflection of our love for God.
We are to love others because we have a savior who loves us when we were unlovable.
Knowing the love God has for us. Knowing the need others have for grace and the gospel. Knowing that every person we meet is created in the image of God and is worthy of value and dignity.
How do we love people?
By praying for a person, by sharing the good news of Jesus with someone, by showing kindness to someone, by serving someone. By stepping into a person’s life.
Jesus stepped into our world to show love for our world.
Jesus went out and found the people who were hard to love. We actually can have pretty good control of our surroundings to avoid people we don’t want to be around. And I’m not saying that we all need to make a checklist of every difficult group. But let me ask you this: when is the last time you’ve had to regularly interact with someone who challenged you? When was the last time you’ve been around someone where you’ve had to turn to God and ask you for strength to love that person?
For some of us, maybe it’s been recent.
And I’m not even saying that you need to go out today and go out of your way to find the most difficult person you possibly can. But I think we do need to have some humility that love is actually hard. The love that God calls us to is hard. But Jesus didn’t shy away from us, he didn’t walk away from our world, he entered into it. He loved us when we were unlovable.
We can’t do it perfectly. But we have a savior who loves us perfectly.
And the more we understand God’s grace, and the more we grow in our love for God, the more that is meant to impact our love for those around us.
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Love and the law – Galatians 5:1-15
Many in our world can be hard to love, but the Bible repeatedly commands us to love our neighbor. Jesus sought out those who were looked down upon in his society. For most of us, it’s easy to be selective about those with whom we interact. Because of that, it’s easy to think that we excel at loving our neighbor. But in a fallen world, it’s often a bigger challenge than we want to admit.
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Warning signs of abusive churches
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, the church had been infiltrated by people who had corrupted the gospel message and were seeking to add law onto grace.
In Galatians 5:1, Paul said for freedom, Christ has set us free.
Sadly, many churches fall into similar problems today with authority that is not Biblical and which brings its own form of slavery rather than the freedom Jesus died to give.
Here are six warning signs, in a list which is by no means exhaustive.
- The leadership is authoritarian
If you have a pastor – or leaders in general – who are not accessible or accountable, it’s creating the conditions for problems. Other signs of authoritarian leaders: a leader who never admits that he or she is wrong, lacks compassion and empathy for others, and is strong-willed to get his or her way.
If all of the power in the church is effectively given to one person, that’s also a sign of authoritarian leadership. The biggest problem with that leadership style is that it’s not Biblical.
There have been some high profile instances of megachurch pastors being forced out because of abusive leadership. But those are just the examples we hear about. It can happen in a church of any size.
An abusive pastor can do tremendous damage. They can hinder rather than help someone’s walk with Christ. They can sour a person on the church.
But the issue isn’t ultimately THE CHURCH. It always comes back to people, and sin, and adding to the gospel, which brings slavery.
2. Secrecy
A church shouldn’t have levels of access. Some churches, people have no idea how that stuff is working. And when churches do that, it can be a symptom of a bigger issue with authority.Because there’s no reason why that stuff needs to be secret.
Again, I’m not saying it’s always because a church is deliberately doing something inappropriate. But it allows for those conditions.
3. Every issue is a gospel issue
Some issues are gospel issues. That’s what we see in Galatians. In Galatians, the gospel itself was being undermined. The way in which we can be forgiven by Christ was being undermined. That was a non-negotiable.
Third warning sign of a church that is bringing slavery over freedom. If every issue becomes a gospel issue, it becomes its own form of intellectual tyranny.
But if you make everything non-negotiable, you basically crush independent thought, you crush honest conversations, and questions. It’s seeking blind compliance.
4. If the church makes the members prisoners
If the church calls your salvation into question if you leave it for another church, that’s a warning sign. Because it’s elevating their church to have influence over your salvation. We’re saved by faith in Christ.
If you’re a follower of Christ, it is important to be part of a church. The New Testament is clear on that. And I’ve before made the commentary that our culture is way too quick to leave good churches for reasons which are not rooted in theology, but which are rooted in personal preferences.
But sometimes there can be legitimate grounds to leave.
5. If they have a culture of shame around doubts and honest questions
Fifth, if you can’t ask honest questions or if you’re afraid to express doubts. Sometimes we go through a spiritual crisis where we’re really struggling. A church needs to be a place where a person can have the comfort to be open and honest about that. Without fear. A church needs to be a place where you can talk about your struggles.
The Bible does tell us to bear one another’s burdens. Not to be forced into hiding.
6. Adding to the gospel
The sixth warning sign, if a church makes you feel guilty and like you’re never doing enough, or they’re adding things to the gospel and tying them to salvation.
If people are led to believe that anyone besides Jesus is their savior, and anything besides the gospel is the means by which they are saved, then it’s a church that has added law onto the gospel.
That’s not to say that pointing out what the Bible calls Christians to do is legalism or slavery. But when we act like doing certain things in addition to the gospel is contributing to our salvation, we have added works to grace.
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