A few months ago, I watched a documentary which followed several young people who belonged to ultra-orthodox Jewish communities in Israel. The focus of the film was on the fast-paced courting-to-marriage process that was mandated by the communities.
The whole timeframe was incredibly short, in some cases allowing no more than 7 days and a few twenty-minute interactions between the potential partners before they were forced to make a decision. If they decided against, they had to move on to the next candidate and repeat the process.
Fascinating as it was, it was also difficult to watch. You could see the stress and pressure in the young nineteen-year-olds’ eyes, as they tried to keep a cool demeanor. This facade shown in front of the rabbis and parents, however, quickly dissolved when the soon-to-be-wed young adults were off with their friends. In the confidence of their peers, many voiced their fears and frustrations over the strict requirements. The common feeling was that it was unwise to make a decision without a better knowledge of who they were choosing. They wondered why the Rabbis couldn’t see what seemed to them like plain wisdom and common sense.
Aside from this unusual courting process, there was another striking difference in one of the groups’ culture. This difference pertained to what happened after marriage. For them, it was expected for the woman to immediately get a job and go to work after marrying. The reason was that the man was expected to commit himself to studying the Torah all day for the rest of his life.
To me, this arrangement was almost more surprising than the speed dating! Considering it was supposed to be centered around the Torah, it simply didn’t add up. Even in ancient Biblical days, those who worked in the Temple were paid for their work. Beyond that, the work was often grueling and physically demanding. Being a priest didn’t just mean writing sermons and reading the Bible all day. (Imagine swinging half a cow overhead day after day! I imagine that cattle swings and the overhead ram press made for some pretty buff priests!)
Despite giving it some thought, I couldn’t think of any historic Biblical precedent where the woman was made responsible to financially support the family, while the healthy husband stayed home. To the contrary, the able-bodied husband was expected to provide and work, and he is even instructed to do as much in the Torah.
What really puzzled me about this was how the compounded hours, years, and generations of such rigorous, daily devoted study ultimately lead a group to going against the very book that they’re studying. Even more curious, how did they become convinced that doing so was the proper way to follow it, even going so so far as to prescribe defying its mandates as the path to Holiness? Despite these discrepancies, the practice simply goes unquestioned. When asked about it, the women in the community just nod and say, “It’s just how it is.”
As I was reading through Proverbs, today, this strange story came back to mind, and God took me on something of a journey of discovery through the Word. I ultimately found that the Bible warns us about this phenomenon. What’s more, I realized that many of us who call ourselves Christians are doing the same, today, and we don’t even recognize it.
The Rabbi’s Mistake
As often happens when I’m reading the Bible, I came across a verse which stood out, and I wasn’t sure if I understood it fully.
I began the familiar process of looking to several translations and reading the commentary. My usual starting place is to look at the words in the original language — though I still need dictionaries for most words! I also look to see if scholars have any insight to share. In this case, I looked at some Christian commentary, but I did not find much, so I pulled out my Hebrew Mishlei book, which provides commentary from the angle of Jewish scholars.
I should pause for a moment for a quick disclaimer. There are often ideas put forth by Jewish scholars that I don’t believe accurately reflect the meaning in the text. In fairness, this is also sometimes true of Christian scholars, especially on certain topics. It seems to me that, whether Jewish or Christian, whenever the commentary veers off from the plain sense of its subject, it is generally because the commentator let learned traditions from past generations be trusted over the plain reading of the text. With that said, though, there are also very often incredible insights revealed in Jewish commentaries! Many times they have an understanding of the ancient language and its idioms (sayings) that can help to elucidate the intent. Sometimes there are even historical accounts which were passed down, that we in the Christian community have not heard. These are all interesting to consider, but they should always be considered with “a grain of salt”. As it is with any commentary or even modern-day teaching, it is important to discern everything carefully by the Word.
At any rate, the verse I was looking at, today, was Proverbs 13:2a, which says:
“A man shall eat good from the fruit of his mouth.”
Proverbs 13:2a
In this case, both the Christian and Jewish commentary didn’t have much additional insight to offer. The Jewish commentary, however, cited the 12th century scholar called “Rashi”, who explained that this verse means that there is blessing in the act of studying Torah. He even appears to prescribe a verbal blessing that must be recited every morning after studying the Torah in order to activate the blessing promised in this Proverb.
To be honest, I believe that this is a great example of where a scholar imposed his own meaning onto the text. Put bluntly, Rashi made a mistake, but it was not a new mistake. As we’ll see in Jesus’ time, it was alive long before, and as we can see by the ultra-orthodox community I mentioned, it still lives on, today.
While it is true that studying the Bible is both good and can ultimately lead to blessing, this teaching suggests that Holiness and blessing is obtained simply by study and ritual, alone. Oddly, whenever this teaching takes root, it always seems to lead to rules which go against the plain teaching of what they’re studying. The central idea comes down not to doing the Word, which is achieved by accepting it as instructions to be followed; instead, it is rather the practice of studying, discussing, and reciting the Word, or in performing rituals around it.
Ultimately, when the focus revolves around the subject rather than the subject-matter, suddenly the actual practice of the practical teaching is replaced by the extraneous chatter of those studying it. After awhile, you’ve written so many volumes of commentary books (or YouTube sermon series, for a modern day equivalent) that the original teaching gets swallowed up by new interpretations. At a certain point, it no longer even makes sense to read the original text. Why bother reading old, obscure texts, when we can hear the meaning, directly? Better still, when we have a wide variety of interpretations to go on, we can simply pick the ones we like best!
Now, to be clear, this is not me picking on the Jewish community. The reality is, I believe that there are very few communities who follow the practice of having the man staying home to study, and few Jews, today, are even very religious. With that said, it’s not just a 12th century Rabbi or even present day Rabbis who make this mistake. Sadly, the Christian church at large is doing this in greater and greater numbers, yet most of us don’t recognize it happening. What’s more, the Bible actually warns us of this phenomenon, and it even gives those who practice it a name.
If you’ll hold with me a minute longer, I will show you the Word to prove that claim, and we’ll look at how we can avoid falling into this destructive trap.
The Trap
In the Book of John, Jesus makes a rather astonishing statement.
While speaking to an ultra-religious sect in his day, He said, “You examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is those very Scriptures that testify about Me.” (John 5:39)
He goes on to say, “but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.” (John 5:42)
What an incredible statement. Here were men who devoted themselves to studying the Word. These no doubt assumed, like Rashi taught, that blessing and Salvation would come to them by rituals, activities, and the acts of reading and reciting the Word. And yet, instead of the blessing promised by the Rabbis, Jesus told them that they’d missed it.
In relation to the Proverb which Rashi interpreted, you could say that Jesus revealed the truth to them by pointing them back to the plain text. Namely — the verse states that it is the fruit of the words that brings blessing, and not simply the words themselves.
James gives us a name for this sort of person, when he tells us this:
“But be doers of the Word, and not hearers-only, deceiving yourselves.”
James 1:22
James also says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26)
Another way you might say that is, “To say you believe in God is one thing, but the evidence of true belief is in those who obey Him.”
As Jesus also said, “The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me” (John 14:21a)
Are there professing Christians, today, who are hearers-only and not doers? Far more than you might think. But before we talk about them, we must first acknowledge their antithesis (or their arch-nemeses, if you prefer).
The Two Sided Coin
Sadly, there are many who wear the “Christian” label, today, who neither hear nor do the Word.
These people often go to “woke” or new-age churches, who teach about everything but the actual contextual precepts and commands laid out in the Bible. These churches will teach and otherwise approve of doing the things which the Bible commands against. As their excuse for practicing such things, the members often cite Grace or say things like, “We must interpret the Bible through the lens of modern culture.”
If one of these members has a sin that they enjoy, but the Bible speaks against it, it’s not a problem — they know they can simply find a “Bible teacher”, who can explain it away and get rid of that command for them. All it takes is a quick half hour on YouTube, and any professing Christian can be guilt-free for anything they’d like!
This is just one side of the coin, however. Unfortunately, it is largely because of the great prevalence of this crowd in today’s age, that the other side of the coin has gained such popularity. And, although I talk a lot of about this side often in my writings, today, we’re going to talk a little more about the other side of the coin.
The other side are the hearers–only crowd.
These people examine the Scriptures, day after day, looking for verses that they can use to build themselves up and tear others down. They do this because it helps them feel sure of their own standing in Holiness. For this, they carefully curate their collection (or arsenal, if you will) of Scriptures, to arm themselves. The mission — proclaim my group’s righteousness and point out every one else’s sin. This side reveres knowledge above all else.
Like their counterparts in Jesus’ day, they love honour, respect, and praise. They hold conferences and sit on high stages in chairs arranged in semi-circles, praising one another’s credentials and accolades, all before making a sport of mocking and scoffing at others. In addition to this, however, they also hold to their traditions, above what the Scripture itself says, going so far as to decry any form of worship in which a person may be led to tears or experience joy. Is there someone weeping at the altar, filled with joy after having been set free from a lifetime of drug addiction? Unacceptable. Circumstance doesn’t matter. Any emotion during worship is demonic and evidence of brainwashing, which makes the former addict fair game for mockery.
These same men will speak for hours on the cessation of Spiritual gifts, citing no more than a few sentences from the Bible as justification. The context of these few verses, however, make the meaning they’re reading into it more shaky than even Rashi’s Proverbs rendering. In the same way, had anyone simply read the verses without hearing the imposed interpretation first, no reasonable person would infer the same meaning from them. However, much, I imagine, like the young men and women in the ultra-orthodox community, their acolytes simply nod and affirm this as core doctrine. After all, “That’s just how it is.”
Worse yet, these spiritual fathers of the faith — actual leaders of denominations — use these conferences to play “mocking games”, making a sport out of pointing the finger at false teachers.
You may think I’m exaggerating or being harsh, but consider this — these are considered not only to be men of God, but they are regarded as pinnacles and paragons in their denominations. So how do these premiere spiritual leaders handle the issue of false teaching? Do they weep over its hold on the youth? Do they call the world to prayer? Do they call for fasts or correct doctrine in humility, pleading with the people with reasoning and tears?
Sadly, this is not how they handle it. Instead, they revel in it, making it into a game for the crowd to enjoy. If you have difficulty accepting this, simply imagine Paul and Jesus sitting on that stage, saying “Let’s play a game!”
“Give me two words for this heretic!” one says to the other, before naming a teacher. The crowd erupts in delight and laughter, anticipating what snarky descriptor might be conjured up by his spiritual role model. What fun it all is!
Instead of mourning over false teachers or correcting with humility, fear, and trembling, this whole crowd, both on stage and off, are celebrating.
What is it they are celebrating? The answer – their own moral superiority.
And why shouldn’t they? They understand the Scriptures better than you. They study them all day, and they know more than the uneducated plebeians. They write study Bibles, or at the very least read the right one.
Many in the crowd will tell you that they don’t read your pathetic translation. They read the King James! We all know that God waited 1600 years to give the only Authorized Version that there will ever be. Ask some of them — many will tell you that even the originals got it wrong. You might be wondering, what if you don’t speak English and you read a Spanish translation? Bad news. You’re hell-bound. The same goes for the blind, the cognitively slow, and anyone who has difficulty understanding Elizabethan English. How do I know this? I’ve asked them. If you’ve spent any time on Facebook, you probably already know what I’m talking about.
Or, what about the “sacred-name” group, who says that you must pronounce the name of God exactly right, or you’re cooked. The only problem is, none can agree on the pronunciation. (Oh well. What can you do? Roll the dice, pick a name, and pray you got it right!) You might wonder, though, what happens to the mute person? Or what about the deaf person. What if they can never actually pronounce the name right enough? Is this really the God we serve?
At this point, if you have a tender heart (which is good), you might be struggling to stay with me. Please stick with me. I am done with the difficult part, and I’m not trying to be mean, myself. I ask you to let me share one real world story with you that will help you to understand why I’ve treated this with such directness and force. Please remember, also, that at times Jesus, Paul, Elijah, and others in the Bible have done the same, especially when eternal souls are on the line because of a lie. Never, however, did they make it a game.
The Common Core
When you ask questions like these to these groups, what’s astonishing is that most remain unflinching, with the same, quick answer — “Nope. Rejected!” It has often seemed like they have ice in their veins.
Consider the following story:
I once saw a post by a Pastor who said, “If you come to my church with a device instead of a Bible in your hand, I’ll turn you away at the door.”
He proceeded to go on a rant about his hatred for technology.
I asked the man, “What if a young woman was abused her whole life and was on her way to commit suicide, but she passed by your church and went up to it to see if there was a God who loved her. Would you turn her away, and how would God deal with you if you did?” (That is based on several true stories that I’ve heard, by the way)
His response utterly shocked me, and it sends chills through my body to this day.
“I would turn her away, and God would judge me. But, I don’t care.”
I must reiterate this for effect. This man has the word Pastor before his name and he leads a church.
So, for the tender hearted who may have think I’ve been too harsh, please understand. It is imperative that we differentiate ourselves, as representatives of Christ, from those who lack the Love of Christ. By calling these men our brothers and continuing to show them honour in the church, we make Christ out to be arrogant and callous like them. As a result, many are lost, never knowing who He is.
After I read this pastor’s response, I had nothing more to say to the man. Correction was useless. He was honest enough to blatantly say it. God wasn’t the righteous judge, he was.
Now, not all are as honest as that pastor. Many of those like this who are in the limelight or on the stage are intellectuals who make use of creative, hyperbolic language, which helps them to work their way out of tough questions, much like a politician does. They will generally only reveal their callousness on an issue, when their crowd makes them feel confident enough in doing so. Fortunately, however, Jesus shows us how to identify the hearer-only by telling us the common factor at the core of each of them.
Remember what Jesus said in His rebuke of the studious Pharisees in John 5. Although they studied the Scriptures all day long and imagined they would find salvation in their study, they lacked one critical thing.
Jesus said, “You do not have the love of God in yourselves.”
These men, today, believe that because of their knowledge, they are saved. But, like those Pharisees, I am not afraid to tell you that those who lack love are white washed tombs. Why? Because despite their abundance of study and pursuit of knowledge, they’ve abandoned love for pride and have become fools. Though they study, they refuse to see themselves in their own filthy condition, as is common to all men.
As we’ll see, James and Paul explain this self inspection as an act of looking in a mirror. Fascinatingly, they also detail for us the difference of how hearers-only and doers handle this mirror, and they tell us of the incredible, transformational journey that those who keep coming back to it are taken on.
The Third Choice
In the passage I quoted earlier, in which James admonishes us to be doers and not hearers-only, he goes on to say,
“If anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”
James 1:23-24
Before we look into what this verse means and what the mirror does for the doer, we should clear the air on the two-sided coin we talked about.
Dear friends, I will say it until people are tired of hearing it — there are not simply two sides!
One side says, “We must denounce and warn against false teachers!”
The other says, “We must love!”
The truth is, those who do not hold on firmly to both of these ideals are dividing the Word of God from itself, which is like trying to split an atom. You can split an atom, but if you do, it sets off a reaction of exponential destruction, and no matter which half of the atom you end up with, it’s effectively turned to poison due to radioactivity.
In the the documentary I mentioned, I saw a lot of stressed, yet intelligent, young men and women. These were not angry zealots. They were simply following the traditions of the elders who helped guide and shape their lives. They did this even when — like in the case of deciding on a marriage partner after only a few days — some of those traditions are ultimately unwise.
Near the end of the documentary, one very devout young man began to question the wisdom of the traditions. His path had been laid out for him. He was tasked to find a wife who would work, while he spent the rest of his life studying Torah. However, during the credits at the end, it was revealed that he ended up leaving his community behind, a decision which no doubt meant forever leaving behind all of his family, friends, and the teachers who’d been there with him his entire life. This strikes me as a very real picture of the cost of following Christ as opposed to picking a side in today’s false dichotomy of two bad options.
Consider this: even in Christ’s day, the Pharisees and Sadducees provided two opposing factions, each with their own traditions. Despite being in opposition, each faction still contradicted the Word, albeit in different ways.
The Pharisees taught that the law was changeable and that each generation of Rabbis could add or remove restrictions. To them, the “oral torah”, superseded the Torah. The Sadducees, however, refuted this idea, saying that the written law was all that mattered. Despite this, the Sadducees also held that there was no afterlife, ultimately claiming that what you get here is all there is. If you were alive in Jesus’ day, these would be your two, mainstream choices. And yet, instead of picking a side, Jesus rebuked them both.
The choice you face today is much like the choice in those days. The great deception of the enemy is in making you think that you need to pick a side, when the real choice isn’t about groups. Rather, it is a choice between what man says and what God says.
This is the third choice. And, like it did for the young man who walked away from his traditions, it will cost you friends, popularity, and often even family.
That said, we can be encouraged by the Words of Jesus on this subject:
Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.
Mark 10:29-30
The Mirror
If the men from the ultra-orthodox communities who valued tradition over the Word would truly study the source material, they would see that a man’s duty is not merely to study and perform religious rituals all day. Rather, it is to provide, lead his home, and to do what is far more difficult than reading, writing, and reciting words. Namely, it is to put those words into practice and to follow them.
In so doing, they would discover that this was the most difficult thing they would ever attempt, because to do so is to look in the mirror and not walk away, as James said the hearers-only do.
This is the journey of a Doer.
Hearers take a glance in the mirror and never look again. Doers continually examine themselves, circumspectly, under the Light of the Word. In this light, the reality of their spiritual poverty causes humility and a desperate cry to God for help.
This same cry is reflected in the Apostle Paul’s words, in Romans 7. Despite penning most of the New Testament and being responsible for some of the greatest works of Faith recorded in the Bible, Paul wrote this of himself:
Oh wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:24-25
This is the cry of a man who is looking in the mirror.
But look what that same man says about the result of the journey that comes from looking in the mirror.
But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18
Although it is painful, the process of repeatedly looking in the mirror and seeing our filthy reflection contrasted against the Holiness and Glory of God is the journey through the mirror, which prompts us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to change what we see looking back at us.
It is on this journey that, little by little and day by day, we grow and begin to more completely reflect the Light of the Son of God, Who Himself, reflects the Glory of the Father, in whose image we are all created.
For this reason, we continue to study and receive instruction from the Word, knowing that it is our roadmap to the next point (or glory) in our journey, as we die to self and follow the in the footsteps of the Son. And it is that journey through the mirror — which is the hearing and doing of the Word — that is the fruit of the Word, from which we receive our blessing, both in this life and the next.
Closing Encouragements
I encourage you to make the decision to become a doer!
Do not let the Word become suffocated by traditions which extend beyond the Bible. Whether those traditions teach “grace perverted into lawlessness” or moral superiority by way of adherence to doctrines and commands which go beyond the plain understanding of the Word, remember that they are two sides of the same coin.
Like the supposed opposites of the Sadducees and Pharisees, both are pathways leading to the same end — death and destruction.
Likewise, Love and Truth are one. Never follow anyone who attempts to divide them or to downplay the importance of either side.
And please remember, there are some doctrines and beliefs on which the Word does not have a perfectly clear stance. These largely include the interpretation of Prophecy, such as the Rapture and its timing, the exact manifestation of the Mark of the Beast, etc.
I want to be firm and clear on this. If you encounter anyone who boldly pronounces or teaches damnation to hell for not believing the right thing (on issues which do not pertain to salvation) or of not pronouncing a Hebrew word properly or keeping certain festival days, etc. you should avoid these people. Do not even consider them brothers.
Paul, often had to deal with similar issues of people adding ritualistic requirements for Salvation (such as circumcision and keeping feast days). In his letter to the Galatians, regarding such an issue, he had this to say:
I am amazed how quickly you are deserting the One who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is not even a gospel. Evidently some people are troubling you and trying to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a curse!
Galatians 1:6-8
There are some, however, who use this verse and others to tell you that you do not need to obey moral commandments for salvation, but this is clearly refuted by many, including Jude (half brother of Jesus) who said:
I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:4 (NLT)
More directly, Peter addressed this very same controversy seen today, in his second epistle. As we see, some were contorting Paul’s writing to say that Grace meant not needing to obey moral commandments. See how clear he is:
“Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness. …
Therefore, beloved, as you anticipate these things, make every effort to be found at peace—spotless and blameless in His sight. …
Some parts of [Paul’s] letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Therefore, beloved, since you already know these things, be on your guard so that you will not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure standing.”
2 Peter 3:11,14,16-17
So what can we conclude? Doers know that rituals do not save us, but Christ does. They also remember that He has said that those who Love Him and who are His followers keep His commands. His commands are clear, and they can be found in His Words in the New Testament and in those of the Apostles who wrote our Scripture, by the Holy Spirit.
Finally, in all things, I encourage you to be wise and patient with those young ones (spiritually immature) who struggle with believing false teachers. Many are swayed for a moment by the boastful or seductive words of a teacher, whether they be angry, liberal, or sensuous teachings. However, we do not immediately cut off the young one from ourselves as a heretic. Though some may sway, if their root remains in Christ, they will not break or be carried away with the winds of false teaching, because the life of Christ is their anchor.
Fight for these ones diligently by speaking to them wisely, calmly, and truthfully, in Love, so that they can hear. For some, it may be necessary to “refute so as to convict” in order to “snatch them from the fire”. Again, let the Spirit lead. Correction is like wielding a blade. Its purpose is to excise the tumor, but the unskilled or the reckless may kill the patient. Be sure of your own skill, and if you are unsure, simply pray for the person! Prayer is the most powerful of any of the believer’s weapons, and is often more effective than confrontation.
And finally, you can be encouraged in this — if you do share the truth in Love and are rejected, it is possible that the young one may not hear you for the moment because of their admiration for the teacher. Nevertheless, True Words spoken in Love plant themselves into the soil of their heart, which travel with them. If the soil is good, you never know at what time those seeds may spring to life, pushing aside the weeds sown by the deceiver. Do your part and let the Lord do His.
Thank you for spending your time to hear me, and may God bless you for reading this to the end!