Pleasing Man Means Not Serving Jesus
Many Christians have a contradictory relationship with authority. They talk at great length about freedom in Christ and will doggedly resist when someone from the “other side” tries to tell them what to do. Yet, when an oppressive message comes from their “side”, their pastor, leader, or respected figure, they not only surrender, but they view doing so as obedience to God. Believers will stand bravely for their faith against governmental tyranny, for example, but eagerly accept the chains and burdens that come with spiritual tyranny. They lose track of their discernment and allow leaders to fill the role equivalent to a Protestant version of the Pope. This happens when any spiritual authority figure goes beyond the role for a leader laid out in the Bible or seeks to regulate Christians in areas where Jesus does not and claims power to dictate to you. It often includes demands to your allegiance and your obedience to their ways, their rules, and their organization. Worst of all, it tends to tie following them in their power grab with gaining or keeping Jesus’ approval.
While on the surface, this sort of Petty Protestant Popery, one figure who claims to be the absolute spiritual authority on all things in your life, has a veneer of righteousness and entices us with an offer of an easy path to spiritual maturity, the reality is it is incredibly harmful to you, individually, and the church as a whole. It takes your focus from following Jesus and sows nothing but pride, division, and a big helping of self righteousness. You most likely have seen Petty Protestant Popery in action, but may have had trouble putting a name to it given how attractive it can be when it is “our people” doing it.
For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. Galatians 1:10
Reclaim Rest by Accepting All of the Gospel
The Dogmatic Divisive Dramatics of Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic was a difficult time for most Christians. The church as a whole faced a multitude of unprecedented challenges and complex questions for which there was no prepared answers. For the first time in most Christian’s lives, they faced enormous issues like when and how exactly to do church and determining what amounted to reasonable precautions against disease. It was obviously extremely important that Christians follow God in their responses, but unfortunately, there are no verses that explicitly say, for example, “Thou shall or shall not wear a mask in church”. As a result, Christians naturally looked to their their pastors, elders, and other prominent Christians for direction. These leaders mainly sought the Lord and humbly led their church through the lockdown and other issues employing a wide variety of approaches. Since the Bible did not specifically direct, the Lord gave the church great freedom in executing His will to love God, love the world, and make disciples.
Yet, in addition to the chorus of churches praising Jesus through the Pandemic in communion and liberty, other discordant voices also gained prominence during this time. They seem to have taken the lack of direct pronouncements by Jesus not as an invitation to discussion, godly diversity, and freedom in the church, but as God calling them to set down the rules He intended to put in the Bible, but neglected to do so. These leaders claimed authority that God did not grant them and proudly declared that they had God’s only answer to the complex problems faced by believers around the world. These often self appointed spiritual authorities also subtly attempted to add rules, regulations, and regulations to the Bible in order to make their opinion the equal to God’s Word.
Thus, they claimed that you MUST meet or not meet as a church in a certain way within or outside of a deadline they made up in their own mind. Lastly, they linked your agreement and compliance with their opinion to God’s approval of you and your standing with God. It was an ugly time of Petty Protestant Popery at its worst and I have never heard so much scorn, judgment, and mockery for other Christians from so many people who claim to be leading as Jesus did. I remember watching in astonishment as different pastors called anyone who disagreed with their decisions pansies, hateful, and perhaps most perplexingly, sheep, as if that could be an insult to a Christian. They were dogmatic, expressing mere opinions as if they were incontrovertibly true, where God did not legislate and were divisive as a result.
33 Chilling Bible Verses on False Teachers
Mini Mock Moses’
I am not attempting to reargue any of these issue or dredge up painful times by looking backward. However, these more egregious examples can highlight the temptation that has plagued man’s attempt to corporately worship God from the beginning. It may still be hindering your walk with Jesus. The truth is it very easy to fall for the false promises of security, righteousness, and holiness offered by centralized absolute spiritual authority rather than battle for the unregulated, sometimes messy simple path to mature Christianity that comes with boldly following Jesus individually. The charismatic, bold, definitive, all knowing men and women who try to rule over your life like a modern day Moses speaking from Mt. Sinai claim to have all the answers for you but only lead you away from Jesus and into bondage.
Even the real Moses could only lead people to the edge of the Promise Land, it took Joshua, a picture of Jesus, to lead them in.
For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
Matthew 23:4
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Matthew 23:15
They should be avoided at all costs, as a result.
The Biblical Bad Guys of Galatia
The allure of man centered righteousness was familiar to the Christians of the early church. The strong language contained in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, for example, is directly addressed to believers being enticed away from Jesus by people who claimed they were religious authorities. False teachers came into the churches in Galatia and declared that they had a better way of following Jesus than that laid out by the Apostles. It is vital to note that these early Protestant Popes did not claim that the Galatian Christians were not followers of Jesus. They accepted that the Galatians were Christians, sure, but argued that they were somehow lesser disciples than the teachers because of their conduct. The Galatians were not super Christians like the false teachers, but they could become better, these opponents argued, if they followed what the teachers said and did. This was the only way to gain God’s full approval.
Paul’s response includes some of his strongest language in the Bible:
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:6-9
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
Galatians 3:1
What Grace Really Means: Freedom
If you are honest, it is understandable that the Galatians felt tempted by these false teachers. They were new to Christianity and were eagerly seeking to learn how to follow the Lord the best that they could. No one likes feeling like a second class citizen or failing at something they value greatly. The teachers exploited these normal human emotions and desires to get the Galatians to enter into a terrible bargain. They would surrender their freedom bought for them by Christ and exchange their peace in Jesus for a program “musts” and “shoulds” implemented by mini-popes. The sad part is the Galatians were ready to be swept away by this argument and they were not alone. Paul details how this toxic mixture of works righteousness, pride, stolen authority and fake security even carried away great disciples like Peter and Barnabas:
Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
Galatians 2 11-13
Peter willingly gave up his communion with the entirety of God’s people in the church at Antioch and his privilege of loving the Gentiles like Jesus out of fear of losing the approval of men. Their definitive declarations activated Peter’s weakness, racial prejudice, life time of religious training, doubts, and temptations and turned him away from God’s way and toward his own. God again responds through Paul forcefully. He does not back down from this battle, even for a moment, even with Peter and Barnabas because:
I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
Galatians 2:21
The cost of allowing men to make mandatory where Jesus did not, prohibit where Jesus allowed, or bind where Jesus freed and to rule over the lives of Christians in Antioch, Galatia,…and in your church and community is way to high to stay silent.
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Galatians 5:1
Your Invitation to Dangerous Discipleship
To borrow from an old U2 song, this post is not a rebel post. I am not advocating rebellion against God or the pastors and elders of your church. I heartily support the authority structures in the church and home as laid out in the Bible. Following good leaders as they follow Jesus (1 Cor 11:1) lies at core of the discipleship for every Christian. Yet, Jesus in that same Bible goes to great lengths to turn your expectation of what a leader should look like on its head.
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:25-28
So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
John 13:12-17
The particular application of this leadership will obviously differ among denominations and traditions. There is a great diversity of styles and personalities in God’s church. Yet, since Jesus sets out His picture of and call to godly leadership and He is the only head of the church then it makes sense that you should hold those who claim to be His leaders to His standards. It also follows that since you and I are His servants alone, we belong to no man, no church, or organization, we are not only free to, but obligated to reject any interferences with our relationship with our Lord. Put simply, when we live to please any man, no matter, the title, when we give in to Petty Protestant Popery, we are not living to please Jesus.
We can only serve one master and He is not a Petty Protestant Pope.
Really good piece and timely, too.Thank you.
Thanks and God bless you!
Great Stuff and it is an indictment on much of this day where we place a man on a pedestal rather than pointing people the man who DESERVES that pedestal, Jesus Christ!