Exodus
Our Sunday School lessons have supposedly been about Exodus, but there have been and will be "interruptions" so I'm not able to teach it like I'd like. Oh, well. But we came to Chapter 14, where the Israelites are trapped. And we see ourselves. When we feel trapped (and by much less frightening circumstances than an approaching army, we do the same three things:
1. lose perspective
2. engage in misplaced nostalgia, yearning for good old days that were not
3. see the immediate and not the long term
4. wanting the familiar rather than the risks of freedom. I will expand on this later. It is the core of legalism. People think legalism is rules. Rules are not the problem. Legalism is about a wrong view of God and how we should live. Legalism allows us to be comfortable in rules, even when they are not comfortable rules. True freedom in Christ means we have to think, consider, weigh, examine research, and choose--not just do what we are told.
But it's easy to sit in judgment on the Israelites. We would all have panicked, too, New Testament and Holy Spirit notwithstanding. We like to pick on Old Testament characters but if that's where our Bible study takes us, we need to turn around.
1. lose perspective
2. engage in misplaced nostalgia, yearning for good old days that were not
3. see the immediate and not the long term
4. wanting the familiar rather than the risks of freedom. I will expand on this later. It is the core of legalism. People think legalism is rules. Rules are not the problem. Legalism is about a wrong view of God and how we should live. Legalism allows us to be comfortable in rules, even when they are not comfortable rules. True freedom in Christ means we have to think, consider, weigh, examine research, and choose--not just do what we are told.
But it's easy to sit in judgment on the Israelites. We would all have panicked, too, New Testament and Holy Spirit notwithstanding. We like to pick on Old Testament characters but if that's where our Bible study takes us, we need to turn around.
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