|
About Jesus Steve Sweetman My Journey Through The Ecclesiastical Maze Part 2 The
Holiness Movement I’m writing about the
conflict between tradition and truth, but I’ve got an inner conflict
as I write. This conflict is
between extending grace because of our humanity and challenging people
with Scripture. The
difficulty in the challenging process is that our failures are exposed
and the challenger is deemed to be judgmental and negative.
But that’s the nature of the process and that’s the fine line
I walk as I write, but before change can come that which needs to be
changed needs to be exposed. Every Sunday my mom would
take us “to church”, even though Christians can’t go to church
because we are the church. I’ve
been told that I make too big of a deal about the words “going to
church” because they’re just words, and we all know church is
people, not buildings. Well,
if this is so why don’t we speak the right words?
Jesus said that our lips speak what’s in our hearts. (Matthew
12:34) So words are
important because they reveal what’s in our heart’s and minds.
If we don’t say the right words, I’m not convinced we have
the right thoughts burned into our brains. Besides, our words have given
non-Christians the wrong impression.
They associate church with buildings and organizations.
This being said, in my
youth we’d get all dressed and go to the “House of God” every
Sunday. I don’t actually
recall this but I might well have wondered if God actually did live in
the house we built for Him. I
might have thought that maybe God lived across the street in a massive
stone church building with a steeple much taller than ours.
Maybe He used our little holiness church building as a cottage or
a guest house for His angels. If I were God, I’d prefer the stone
building across the street because it had more rooms. More rooms is what
I wanted so I wouldn’t have to share a bedroom with my brother.
Anyway, we were told that God couldn’t live in the church
building across the street because those people were
liberal.
It was obvious to
everyone that my dad wasn’t a Christian because he didn’t go to the
“House of God” . If
staying home Sunday mornings didn’t prove he wasn’t saved, surely
his smoking did. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing good about
smoking. I’m glad I never
got started, but the Bible says we go to the I still recall one Sunday
School teacher telling us that she couldn’t see how a smoker could be
a real Christian. Even at an
early age I questioned that one. By
using her logic one had to trust Jesus with his life and not smoke in
order to be saved. In my
young mind I thought that if this was true then Jesus’ death on the
cross wasn’t sufficient for our salvation.
We had to help Him out by adding our “no smoking rule”.
The gospel then became, “trust Jesus, don’t smoke, and
you’ll be saved”. Telling
Jesus that His death on the cross wasn’t
good enough didn’t sound very nice to me.
The house that my
mother’s friends built for God was a wooden structure.
It wasn’t stone or brick, but that’s the way they wanted it.
These were “holiness people”.
They were purposely unsophisticated, and to a degree that was to
their credit. Their
unsophistication was seen in
the fact that men didn’t wear ties because ties were worldly. Actually,
that’s a good rule. I’d
keep that one. The poor liberals across the street had to wear ties.
The only drawback to not wearing ties was that holiness men still
had to button up the top button of their white shirt as if they had a
tie around their neck.
Holiness people
couldn’t wear rings either which presented a slight problem for my
sister years later when she asked our holiness minister uncle to perform
her wedding ceremony. He had
to decline because she wanted to wear a wedding ring. So
her fiancé asked his Catholic priest to perform the ceremony but he had
to decline as well because my sister wasn’t Catholic.
Ironically a minister associated with the liberal church across
the street performed their wedding ceremony. I guess sometimes liberals
do come in handy.
Paul told women in 1
Timothy 2:9 not to wear fine jewelry, which probably was the basis for
the holiness teaching prohibiting women from wearing jewelry.
Without a little historical knowledge I can understand their
conclusion, but Paul didn’t want women to wear jewelry because it was
worldly, but because prostitutes wore lots of jewelry.
He just didn’t think it was a good idea that Christian women
should dress like prostitutes. That
sounds reasonable to me. The
same logic should apply today. 1
Timothy 2:9 has little to do with worldliness but rather an association
with sinfulness. Paul’s
point is, “don’t dress like a prostitute”.
It’s okay to wear ear-rings today because they aren’t
associated with prostitution.
A little good hermeneutics and a history lesson goes a long way
in helping us live out Biblical teaching, don’t you think? Also in 1 Timothy 2:9
Paul told women not to braid their hair for the same reasons. Although
holiness women didn’t wear jewelry, I often recall them with braided
hair wrapped around the top of their heads in something they called a
bun. They wanted long hair
because of Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 11: 3 - 16 .
But in fact their braids and buns nullified their attempt to
follow Paul’s admonition because they disguised their long hair by
making their hair look short. So the holiness women
tried to follow 1 Corinthians 11 by having long hair, but didn’t by
braiding their hair, and in the process didn’t follow 1Timothy 2:9
either because of their braided hair, although they followed 1 Timothy
2:9 by not wearing jewelry, albeit for the wrong reason. No wonder some
of us were confused back then, and maybe still are.
The House of God my
mother attended was simple. But
I tell you this, we had something the big stone church building across
the street didn’t have, and that was a sand-box for kids to play in.
Maybe church wasn’t so bad for a two year old after-all.
Stephen in Act 7:48 says
that God doesn’t dwell in buildings made by man.
This should have ended the “House of God” thinking way back
then, but it didn’t. If
the Spirit inspired-words of Stephen were burned into our hearts as they
should be I doubt if we’d call our meeting places the “House of God.
So that’s a quick
glance at the Holiness church where I started my journey through the
ecclesiastical maze. This particular denomination is called the “ |