{"id":6486,"date":"2015-04-03T00:05:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T07:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6486"},"modified":"2015-04-02T12:47:55","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T19:47:55","slug":"rules-of-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/04\/03\/rules-of-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Rules of Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the way from Jerusalem, criticizing, \u201cWhy do your disciples play fast and loose with the rules?\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jesus put it right back on them. \u201cWhy do you use your rules to play fast and loose with God\u2019s commands? God clearly says, \u2018Respect your father and mother,\u2019 and, \u2018Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.\u2019 But you weasel around that by saying, \u2018Whoever wants to, can say to father and mother, What I owed to you I\u2019ve given to God.\u2019 That can hardly be called respecting a parent. You cancel God\u2019s command by your rules. Frauds! Isaiah\u2019s prophecy of you hit the bull\u2019s-eye:<\/p>\n

These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
\nbut their heart isn\u2019t in it.
\nThey act like they\u2019re worshiping me,
\nbut they don\u2019t mean it.
\nThey just use me as a cover
\nfor teaching whatever suits their fancy.\u201d (Matthew 15:1\u20139)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tFor the Pharisees, it was critical that all of the Jewish people obey every one of God\u2019s 613 commandments. So they spent their time discussing those laws and how to put them into practice. They were concerned with figuring out how they should then conduct their lives in every and any conceivable circumstance.<\/p>\n

\tTheir problem, however, came from the fact that they all too often ended up looking at the laws in isolation from one another and in isolation from the people for whom they were created. As they decided how they must act in one circumstance, they failed to recognize how their interpretation and choices led them to disobey and miss God\u2019s commands in other areas. In their concern for each tree, they lost sight of the forest. They had focused their attention on the rules instead of the people that God had made them for.<\/p>\n

\tJesus wants us to understand that to really honor God, there has to be an understanding of what the rules are really all about and what really matters in the larger scheme of things. All too often what we think of as God\u2019s rules wind up being merely \u201chuman rules\u201d\u2014and for those \u201chuman rules\u201d to get between us and God\u2019s will. Instead of worrying about the rules, God wants us to think about him and to concentrate on one another. If we love God and if we love the people around us, then we will automatically conduct our lives properly, because love does no harm to others.<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the way from Jerusalem, criticizing, \u201cWhy do your disciples play fast and loose with the rules?\u201d But Jesus put it right back on them. \u201cWhy do you use your rules to play … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6488,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6486\/revisions\/6488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}