"Without Leaving the Others Undone"

     It's not the first time I've been accused of legalism or of being similar to the Pharisees. I don't really take offense anymore, especially once I realized that if the 19-year-old me could see the 22-year-old me, she would call me a legalist and a Pharisee as well (that is, once she got over the shock of seeing her future self in a prayer veil). But this particular accusation, in the form of a comment on "What Drives Our Search and a List of Topics" kind of struck a chord and made me realize that I needed to write what I'm about to articulate.



What is the Greatest Command?

     Jesus says that we are to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength," and then to "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30-31). In fact, He says that all the Law and the prophets can be summed up in those two principles. The New Testament is filled with similar exhortations directing us to love God and others. 1 Peter 1:22 says to "love one another fervently." In fact, (1st) John tells is in chapter 3 and verse 14 that we can tell whether we are saved our not by how much we love one another: "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death."



     But what does it mean to love God with all my being? What does it mean to love my neighbor as I love myself, if not more? Our culture is deluded into believing that love is a feeling only. But is this all that the Greatest Command is referring to—a feeling only? Are we just supposed to feel love towards God and others, but leave our lives unchanged as a result of this love? Of course not.



Loving God

     Jesus says that if we love Him, we will keep His commands (John 14:15). "Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, 'If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'" He says in John 8:31-2. As if to make His point further, He says in Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." 1 John 2:3-4 says,

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

 John continues this thought in verse 29, saying, "If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him."



     Much of the book of James directly addresses this issue. Let's look at chapter 1, verses 22-25:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For 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. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

James continues this in chapter 2, beginning in verse 14: "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?" James answers his own question in verses 18-19:

But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!

 He sums it up by writing that "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also" (verse 26).



     Also, Paul writes in Romans 2:13 that "for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified...."



     These verses and many others establish that if we love our God and Savior, we will do what He commands. These commands are found throughout the New Testament: every book and every chapter and every verse contains commands, examples and principles that are meant to be applied to our lives. On our own, we could never gravitate towards righteousness; it is only by the grace of God that we even desire to live holy lives, much less that we are able to move towards holiness.



     Keeping these commands will not save me, for I could never keep all of them perfectly every moment of the rest of my life. But because I love the Lord, I desire to keep His commands, and pray daily that the Spirit will bring me ever closer to living my life like Christ. Because I love the Lord, keeping these commands is not tiresome or tedious. Because I love the Lord, I desire to keep His commands even when they're counter-cultural, even when they garner me strange looks from passers-by, even when my desire to "continue in His word" puts me at odds with my loved ones—not to mention with the world at large.



     But being at odds with the world is okay, even a cause for rejoicing, for we read in 1 John 2:15-16 that we should

...not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.

 In James 4:4, we read a rebuke towards those who claim to be Christians yet who are still swayed by the world's priorities and concerns: "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." Paul writes to the Christians in Rome that we should not "...be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (12:2). Jesus himself said that we should "be in the world, not of the world" (John 17:11-16, paraphrase). So it is scriptural to say that Christians should be set apart from the world, and that we should not act, speak, look, or think like the world around us. It is scriptural to say that we should not be concerned with the priorities of the world, and neither should we be swayed by its sinking morals.



     This is why I follow God's commands even when they are counter-cultural. It's not too cool to wear a head-covering, but God commanded me to do so in 1 Corinthians 11. It's not popular to say that we should only worship the Lord with our voices, especially in our praise-band obsessed worship scene, but that is the example we find in the New Testament. It's frowned upon to assert that baptism is part of salvation and that it should be done by immersion (whether that means a big bathtub or a river), but that is the command and example we have in Scripture. It's down-right weird that I want to stay home and raise my children myself without sending them off to surrogate parents in day-care and the public school system, but God tells me I am to be a keeper at home in Titus 2 and that my husband and I are to be the primary and constant influences in our children's lives. I love the Lord, and I will follow His commands because of this love.



Loving Others

     This brings me to loving others. The primary way to love others is obvious: to give of ourselves to those who do not have. We are told to physically help those in need. James says that "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" (1:27). Christ tells us that when we visit those who are sick or in prison, when we show hospitality to strangers, or clothe those who are naked and give food and water to those who have need of them, we are indeed doing it for Him (Matthew 25:31-46). We see that the early church took care of the needy when they appointed deacons to care for the widows in the church in Acts 6. We should follow these commands and examples today in Christ's name, or else our faith "is dead," according to James.



     Another way to love others is not to sin against them. Paul says in Romans 13:10 that “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” He had just listed many of the Old Testament commandments such as not committing adultery, murdering, or stealing. Obviously, we should not do evil to anyone.



     Few Christians would argue with these aspects of loving others. (Though, unfortunately, all too few Christians practice what they preach in these matters—but that’s another post!) However, many Christians would take issue with loving others in day-to-day ways like not dressing in a way that will cause a brother to lust. They would scoff at the idea of not imbibing the world's media for the sake of those new or weak Christians that we might be influencing (not to mention the influence said media might have on ourselves). There are many other such examples, yet in the name of "Christian liberty," concern for our brothers and sisters and the example we are setting for the world is forsaken. Christ warns us that

...It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. (Luke 17:1-2)

In Conclusion

     Some may argue that by being nitpicky about “little” commandments like wearing a head-covering and being a keeper at home causes me to miss the bigger picture of Christianity. It is true that it is all too easy to get concerned with looking through a microscope at our faith that we forget to look up at the heavens. But it is also true that it is all too easy to forget to check those “little” areas of our lives in favor of just feeling love towards God and others.



     My friend Mrs. Paranuk over at Pursuing Titus 2 was right to point her readers towards Matthew 23:23-4, where Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees for tithing even their spices yet missing the point of the Law, which points towards loving God and loving others. Christ says,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! (Emphasis mine)

 Is Jesus saying that the Pharisees were wrong in trying to observe God’s commands so closely, and that they should stop? No! He affirmed their action—“without leaving the others (i.e., the little things) undone”—while rebuking their motive. They were too busy looking through that microscope and forgetting that the point of the law was to help the Jews love the Lord and love each other.



     This applies to us today as well. It is not wrong to be concerned with obeying even “insignificant” commands like wearing a head-covering as long as we don’t forget why we are doing it: because we love the Lord. It is not wrong to be concerned with appearance as far as modesty is concerned as long as we don’t forget why we are worried about it in the first place: because we love our brothers, and we don’t want them to stumble.

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)