Legalism

An excerpt from Phillip Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?":

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Author Tony Campolo, who makes a regular circuit as a chapel speaker on Christian college campuses, for a time used this provocation to make a point. "The United Nations reports that over ten thousand people starve to death each day, and most of you don't give a shit. However, what is even more tragic is that most of you are more concerned about the fact that I just said a bad word than you are about the fact that ten thousand people are going to die today." The responses proved his point: in nearly every case Tony got a letter from the chaplain or president of the college protesting his foul language. The letters never mentioned world hunger.
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How blind we can be. It is so easy to get caught up in rule keeping and checklist managing while we lose focus on the grace of God.

May our churches always remain focused on being the incarnate body of Christ.

May we read the Bible and glean the wisdom from the instructions given to those people so long ago.

May we decide to pattern ourselves after the first century church's hunger for God and their openness to the Spirit's guidance, rather than their rituals and customs.