Standards are inescapable. It isn’t a question of whether your church will have them – your church has standards. Every church has standards. The question is, who will set the standard, and what will be the basis of that standard.

Every church has a dress code. It doesn’t matter if the church uses fog and theater lighting like a nightclub or uses robes and collars like a cathedral. Every church has a dress code. Somebody sets the expectations for those who attend church regularly. Everyone who attends knows what that expectation is and what the boundaries and limits are. Your wife or daughters can probably tell you who sets it. And those who attend the church regularly will, for the most part, conform to the expectation.

Of course, there are exceptions. I am setting forth general observations here, not hard and fast rules. I am pointing out the way things are in churches. But I intend to argue something from these generalizations. Since dress codes and standards are inescapable and there will be a standard wherever you go, the church’s leadership should set the standards intentionally.

I don’t intend to say what that standard should be in this article. I think my view of these things is pretty well-known. I have written on them in the past. My point here is to say that there is a standard, and since there is, the church’s leadership should set out to establish a Biblical standard (as they see it) from Scripture.

This article is the fourth and final installment for this go-around on legalism. In the previous three articles (here, here, and here), we have highlighted a few things about legalism. First, it is not a Scriptural category – the Bible never speaks directly about legalism, and in fact, many of our notions about legalism do not fit with anything we see in Scripture. For example, God doesn’t forbid law-keeping or treat it as if it were contrary to New Testament Christianity. Jesus taught His disciples that their righteousness should exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and that they should do what they said – but not what they did. Second, legalism is, to some degree, inescapable. We all have rules that we are very rigid about and would impose on everyone around us if given the opportunity. Those rules can be all across the spectrum – from “live and let live” casual to super-uptight suit-and-tie fundamentalism. Legalism isn’t found in any particular rule. Legalism is a kind of spiritual pride that attaches to whatever standard one might hold, believing that I am spiritually superior to others because I have high, low, or even no standards.

I want to extend this idea a little further. It isn’t legalistic to establish a standard in your church that will be preached and taught and honored. It is, in fact, necessary to the unity of the church and part of what it means for a pastor to shepherd the people. So here are a few points for consideration.

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Inside every one of us lurks a little legalist, clamoring to get out. So we keep him in chains and prison until someone breaks one of our rules or in some way violates “the code.” Then, our fire-breathing legalist comes charging out, finger-wagging, pontificating.

Let’s face it, we all love rules. Especially rules for thee (though not necessarily for me).

So far, we have pointed out the struggle of defining legalism from the Bible since no equivalent term is found anywhere in Scripture. Legalism isn’t a Scriptural category, though I deny that there is such a thing. I have argued that we throw the term about too casually and that it poisons any discussion of standards. Our fear of the charge of legalism has a way of preventing a Biblical consideration of standards.

We pointed out that, though legalism is almost always associated with the Pharisees, legalism is not the sin Jesus rebuked in the Pharisees. Jesus didn’t charge the Pharisees with being too scrupulous about the law. He criticized them for not being strict enough. He condemned them for disregarding the law in favor of their traditions. He rebuked them for a blatant double standard. And He urged His disciples to be more righteous than the Pharisees.

We also examined the legalism Paul spoke against in Galatians (which I think is closer to the idea of legalism that Christians should try to avoid – an attempt to increase personal holiness by embracing external standards and law-keeping). Whether or not Paul’s arguments against extreme self-denial in Colossians should be applied to legalism or not is a good question. Paul shows that being subject to ordinances (touch not; taste not; handle not) is a vain attempt at sanctification. But Paul allows strictness in diet and so forth. He tells the Colossians, “Let no man therefore judge you;” “Let no man beguile (disqualify) you” (Colossians 2:16, 18).

This brings us to the next important point:

To some extent, “legalism” is inescapable.

Though some legalism is more overt than others. But the question is not whether you have rules or standards you live by and are perhaps a little uptight about. We all do. This is not a matter of whether we are sometimes wound a little tight about rules, but which rules we are wound a little tight about.

If “legalism” amounts to law-keeping, if “legalism” is a commitment to or loyalty to a standard, everyone is a legalist. Because every Christian holds to a set of standards which they also believe to be faithful to the requirements of Scripture. And unless we carefully guard our hearts, adherence to a standard will produce a sense of superiority about the standards we hold. We tend to view those who share our standards as allies while resisting and repudiating those who differ, whether stricter or laxer. Call it human nature; our fallenness lived out loud. But it is often the case. Furthermore, we tend to call everyone to the left of our standard “licentious” and everyone to the right “legalistic.”

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The Village Smithy

Tag: Standards

Legalism and Scripture 4: Pastor, Preach Standards

Legalism and Scripture 3: We’re All Legalists

To some extent, “legalism” is inescapable.