Breaking Down Legalism: A Journey Toward Grace and Compassion in Faith

Episode 48,.

Legalism. Hey everybody, this is Deborah and Wendy. Hello, you are listening to Grace in Real Life, the podcast for Christian women who desire to live out their faith in real life. This week we are talking about how to recognize legalism in today's world. After watching the Shining Happy People documentary, we think it's important to discuss legalism in today's world. Why? Because, well, quite honestly, that documentary is rife with legalism and hyperlegalism in areas and, honestly, it hurts Much of the IBLP information which is centered around. Legalism causes harm In churches. Today we can see that same harm if we're not careful. Yes, so legalism I'm going to read this definition here, just so you guys are aware of what it means. Legalism is any action added to the gospel in order to please God, and that's definition is from Felicia Meisenheimer in Stop Calling Me Beautiful, and it's the perfect definition, because we are told not to add anything to the Bible. We're also told not to take anything away, and we are also should not be so caught up in the rule of law that we miss the essence of the law, and I, as a young child, got told this all the time. So you guys probably, if you have kids, probably have thought this same statement, if you haven't said it for sure, where you know that your children are walking on the line and they're following technically what is legally right. You know you're. You did say not to stick the fork in the plug, and yet they've got a toy in the plug and they say something very cutesy like well, you said not to stick the fork in the plug, but you didn't say anything about sticking the toy in the plug. And you're like it wasn't about the fork, it was about the essence of the law, which was don't stick anything in the plug. You just happen to have or I should say, outlet. I've said plug three times, but it's an outlet. You should have corrected me Don't stick stuff in the outlet, but that's the essence of it, right? You happen to have the fork in your hand at the time. You're going to put it in the outlet. But you shouldn't be putting anything in the outlet except for the plug, not from the vacuum cleaner goes in there, clearly, and this is how legalism kind of sneaks its way into church. We get fixated on not putting the fork in the outlet, not maybe focusing on what someone's clothing looks like, maybe focusing on how someone sinks, maybe focusing on how someone prays, and then we lose sight of the entire reason the church exists.

One of the other ways this happens, and I believe Felicia Meisenheimer mentions this in one of her recent episodes of her podcast which is called Verity, and the podcast episode is called Reconstructing After Legalism. So that's her episode dealing with the shiny happy people documentary, and I think it's in this episode where she says that this legalism also happens when somebody takes a personal conviction and applies it to the church as a whole. So you may be personally convicted not to drink alcohol because this is a problem for you, but then when you turn around and say no one should drink alcohol or no one should watch or read our movie or no one should read a particular type of book, then it crosses the line into legalism as opposed to just remaining a personal conviction.

Yes, 100%. That could go for wearing no pants, wearing skirts, only wearing head coverings, not wearing head coverings, like it doesn't matter really what it is. It matters whether you're personally convicted and then attempt to make others share your personal conviction. I actually have a great story about this and I'm going to share it. I have a friend of mine who came to me and was like Deb, I feel like I need to cover my hair. She's like I just wanted you to know that, because I'm not asking you to do it, I just want you to know that this is why I'm doing it. And I was like awesome, how do I support you? And she was like just make sure I keep my head covered. And I was like awesome, I will support you in that I did not have a conviction to cover my hair. She did. But as a fellow believer, I am definitely obligated to help support her conviction. And that support doesn't look like me doing the same thing. It looks like me helping her, as she has asked to stay in her conviction. And that's wildly different than if she had come to me and said Deb, I feel like my head should be covered, cool. And then she looks at me and she goes. You have to too, or you're not holy. That is legalism. So one has support, one has a demand. I always say one has support and one has a demand because it's not really support. You're not asking for support, You're just demanding that everybody looks like you, which is not what the church, the body is supposed to look like. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we've talked about the body itself. You've got a hand, a foot and a head and a heart, all the parts of the body. We're all different, we're all unique. We all do things different. We bring things different to the table. It doesn't mean we should all look alike so we all look alike.

We would not be a body and on the site BibleReasonscom and there are an article about legalism. It lists the following examples you must work inside the church and if you don't, you're not saved. You must go to church every week in order to keep your salvation. You must listen to only this type of music. If you don't evangelize, you're not saved. You must look like this, whatever that is, in order to be saved. You must stop eating that thing over there and you must follow this man-made tradition.

And actually I'm going to. May I list a few more? Absolutely, I have some more that are a little what I would consider a little sneakier. The church starts to have an us versus them mentality those who believe are good, those who don't are bad, and they are making the distinction of who is good and bad based on external behavior. There's talk about the church extending too much grace when it comes to less than desirable people.

Oh, oh, I have a story about that. Go for it, share it. So one of the books, one of the last books we're reading from my church internship, which is sadly ending soon, is called it, by Craig Rochelle. Now, if you pick up this book, he's never going to tell you what it is, but it is something that is crucial to successful churches and ministries. Just know that. And so in a recent chapter that we read, he talked about sharing it and being kingdom-minded and welcoming people, and he was talking about how, this time he was invited to speak at a church and the secretary was like well, you better make it good, because we have a visitor coming, as though this is not a normal occurrence. They don't normally have visitors. Okay, so he's standing outside on Sunday morning with one of the church elders greeting people, and it was obvious now, as he's looking at this lady approach the church, that she's the visitor, based on the fact that she was dressed so differently than everyone else who was coming into the church. And so, before he even got to say hi to her, the church elder that was standing next to him steps in front of her, blocks her path and says in this church, we only wear our best for Jesus and she turns, she starts crying, she turns around and she she leaves. And I was like what the what? How dare you block someone from trying to experience God because they don't look like you? Like last Sunday, because it was the Sunday before the 4th of July, there was a lady who showed up at our 11 AM service with this bright red wig and she had this American flag kind of shawl that she was wearing. And it was just so awesome because she was just praising and worshiping and was just into the whole thing, like who cares if she was wearing a red wig, like she was just being all kinds of patriotic, but she was there to praise and serve the Lord. And if we had tried to turn her away because of the color of her hair, my gosh, that would have been so wrong and so legalistic.

Well, and you see things like that in the scheme of tattoos, you see it in the scheme of any type of clothing that's deemed different. You know, at this church we only wear skirts. At this church we only do this. Actually, one of the best sermons that I think I've ever heard was from a pastor who said that church culture can prevent others from coming to Christ Absolutely. And I well, I think that might give people pause, because initially it gave me pause. I'm gonna be honest, it gave me pause. I had just spent six years living in a foreign country and, as we all know, when in Rome, act like the Romans great quote. When in when, for my case, I was in Japan, when in Japan, learn the language, act like the Japanese, try your best, right. And churches have culture. Because churches we sing songs, we have communion, we shake hands, we pass the plate for, you know, tithing, we do all kinds of things. We have a culture in the church of certain activities. And in my naive and I'm gonna throw myself under the bus here in my naive mind, I had this idea that, like, people needed to understand that some church culture exists. But that's okay and I will fast forward to, probably about four months later, when I attended a church and their culture was to not have children anywhere, like anywhere. They were to not be seen, they were to not be heard, they were to not anything and I was asked to leave the church from the pulpit and I did. I think they wanted me to sit in one of those little like nursing box things, like the little glass room where I got to be a second class citizen. And you know I could be and not bother other people, but I just left entirely. I took my whole family and we left and I remember feeling like going home and being really angry and then it really hitting me that my own humorists at church culture can't possibly prevent others from coming to Christ Because you know you should just join in. Clearly was not true and I clearly didn't actually believe that because in this moment I was told I was less than and I needed to leave and that culture that's certainly harmful. It's certainly harmful and I really struggled for a little bit afterwards, even thinking about wanting to come back. First off, we just spent all this time in a foreign country. I was already uncomfortable. It was a really difficult move. Everything about even getting to church that morning was a challenge and I was just like I just wanted to give up. I didn't want to go back and I didn't go back for probably a couple months because I didn't want to have. I didn't want to get hurt again. So this is where legalism can really cause damage. We have this idea that whatever culture we've created, it is perfect, is and there's no room for messy. And clearly there's room for messy and our attitudes can be harmful, and that is that was a very sharp lesson for me, because I definitely had that kind of attitude. I know your gut was. Your gut reaction was yes, it can. And my gut reaction was not that. My gut reaction was no, not really. Like culture is culture. And then the Lord was like let me show you this amazing lesson. And you know. But I'll be honest, like legalism, and the church clearly was steeped in legalism of what they deemed was appropriate and not appropriate. I mean, and they I won't go down the whole rendition of everything that happened up until that moment, but it's I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt they had a legalistic view about where children and adults and families fit into their congregation and they were really not welcome. And so that, right there, right Like very legalistic attitude, like if even Jesus says let the little children come into them under him and was not extended there, but let's talk about a couple of other ones here, so less than desirable. You may also notice that there seem to be many people who never believe they're doing enough for God.

We saw that in the shiny happy people documentary.

Yeah, they say things like I should pray more often or my faith wasn't strong enough, and instead of like this one here actually like I think the website I got it off of says I should pray more, like rather than I love to pray. But I think what we hear more in that juxtaposition is really like I'm not good enough. And in that little bit here we're also saying that salvation is conditional. Our relationship with the Lord is conditional, as they're always in this conditional location. And then we have people who are deeply hurting and not willing to share their sins with others because they'll be humiliated or embarrassed, because there's no room for mistake and I would argue that many, many, many, many churches actually sit right here in this one there's no room for people making mistake because we don't have a path forward for restitution. Now, if your church has a path forward for restitution, please by all means share. And I don't mean also the flip side of that, which is everyone's a center. Therefore, every sin they do is acceptable, because we can also say that we've seen that where we all fall short. So the sky's the limit, we're not looking for those. That's the same coin, just the other side of it. We should have a means in the church to make mistakes, to be able to share that we made mistakes, to be loved through our restitution of mistakes and to move forward from that mistake in grow. I actually, like you said, I don't see that very often.

So here's another two-sided issue. So the church that does that relatively well when people take advantage of it is the Catholic church, with their sacrament of reconciliation. However, the flip side of that and I say this having been Catholic and having taught Catholic religious education is that traditional Catholicism is very much steeped in this idea that there's justification by works, that it's not justification by faith, that if you're not doing the works then that's a mark that you have not been saved. And the Catholics aren't the only ones who think that, but they are certainly the largest group of people who tend to fall into that category. So when you have a sacrament of reconciliation, which is colloquially called confession, the purpose of it is to reconcile not just yourself to God, but to reconcile yourself to your community and the people you've wronged through your sin. That is the purpose of the sacrament. And so in the Protestant church we're so busy saying we don't need to confess our sins to a priest that we don't even confess our sins.

Well, and biblical restitution requires that we confess our sins to others, and that's not to walk up to somebody and be like I'm confessing to you because you're my confessor. It's because I've had this relationship with the Lord and part of my restitution in restoring my relationship with the Lord, as I've been had a sin revealed, is making sure that we do the things that God has asked us to do. They're part and part of the same whole. Not that they want to. Not just by confessing fixes everything individually.

Right, and we know this is a biblical principle, because if you've ever been to a 12 to that program or are familiar with the 12 steps of a recovery program, one of the steps is self-examination to figure out your wrongs, and the following step is to make amends with people where it is safe to do so. So it's a biblical principle carried over into the secular world. But we have to reconcile with people, because God reconciled us to Himself. This is what we're meant to do, because, again, we're meant to do life and faith in community, not all on our own.

Yes, and to add into that particular one about not doing the reconciliation. Well, you can also notice that churches tend to avoid people who have different worldviews or struggled outwardly with their sin, with a visible sin, because, let's be honest, we all sin. Some sins are just more visible than other. Sins, right. And so this is kind of an area in which, again, we have to figure out how to have some mercy and walk with that mercy and understand there's a difference between accepting a behavior, placing a boundary around a behavior, and still helping someone. They're not the same Like you can have a boundary and help someone and you can accept, and those are not the same thing, like we can be educating, encouraging, supporting someone as they're trying to make changes. And I don't think that happens in churches very much either, because I think people duck and cover with outwardly visible sin. I will give a nice example about that. I attended a church for a little while. My husband was deployed because we were an active duty military family. We are not anymore and during that time period I started to hunt for churches by myself because my husband, despite us having just moved to our new duty station, he was immediately deployed and so I was trying to build a community and I wanted to go to church and I wanted my children to attend church, and I started looking for churches. And what I found? In every single church I sat there and no one said hi, no one said anything. So finally I picked a place that had good biblical foundation and I decided okay, this is where we're going to go. And for weeks, nothing, nothing. My husband showed up and everyone talked to us that right, there is legalism and I love the sweetest lady. She was an older woman and if I could be a fraction of the most amazingness that she is, I would be heaven sent. She came up to me after the service because she had been the only one that was kind. She called me and thanked me for coming to church and said she'd like to see me again, which is part of why I stayed. She was the only one out of all the churches I visited and I'd given my number to plenty of people, and she came up to me after my husband came home and said we thought you were divorced and all I could think in that moment was well, first, thank you for talking to me, since you thought I was a sinner and you were willing to talk to me. So kudos to you and second ew for the rest of everyone. Because they did not talk to me at all, because they thought I was outwardly sinning because I didn't have a man with me and I had three children. Clearly I've been married. Clearly I was married. Then I liked to joke that my husband's my first husband, he's my only one, and so we've been married for 23 years now, or 22 years, I can't remember, the math is funky 22. 22 years. I just did the math right. But that was definitely avoided because of what was considered an outwardly visible sin. So people were definitely practicing some legalism in that aspect. And then you guys I will deal with the questions later as to why I still attended in light of that situation. That's a whole other conversation and we will let that lie, but if you're curious, we'll talk about it later. Then we have this other one. Here is the general attitude among church members that being right is more important than being kind. And this one is interesting because my brain initially said well, there are absolute truths and there are people can be wrong, so is being. Is it being kind to someone to let them be wrong? So this is. I'm going to be honest, I kind of wrestled with this particular one, but I left it in for this reason, because it's not about having a conversation about what is right and what is wrong and understanding and telling someone that, no, you know, there are absolute truths. The Bible is clear. But this is you being right, meaning my point of view is right. I don't care how you feel about it. I don't care that I'm hurting your feelings, I don't care that. I've gone out of my way intentionally to make you feel less, and that's what this is really saying, and there are people that do that. They I call that using your Bible, versus as a sword, which it is the sort of truth but I'm talking about maybe as more of a sledgehammer You're beating people with with the information. You're not actually having a conversation, you're just whacking at him.

Right and you know Jesus. When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, he didn't let. Your neighbor is all your love, your neighbor with or love the Lord with all your heart. Well, I would your God with all your heart, mind, body and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.

There we go Right.

So she didn't say beat your neighbor over the head with the law because they're doing it wrong, you know. He didn't say go out there and tell everybody and cast the first stone, like he. He said love God, then love your neighbor, because you can't love your neighbor if you don't love God. And we find that later on in the New Testament as well. First John, 4, 7 and 8 talks about how, if we, everyone who knows God, loves God. And if you don't love God, if you don't love you, don't love God. And if you say you love God and you hate your brother, then you are a liar and you do not know God.

Sorry. Yeah, that's great. I know it's perfect, because it's exactly why I left this in here, because sometimes, especially in today's in age, we have a lot of sort of fluidity in absolutes right now and I didn't want this to be received as loving someone. Just allowing something to be fluid, even when you know it's wrong, is not real love, because when you speak to someone, that's in truth, so it's love. You speak in love and truth. Right, you speak the truth, but you speak with a kindness. You don't, you don't fillay them alive for not having the information. That actually goes into this next one, and it's basically it's a two part one here that you're smug about your Bible knowledge and feel superior to less educated biblical scholars. Everyone of us is a biblical scholar and the second half of that is people are deeply who are hurting, deeply, feel humiliated and embarrassed around you. Two, two section ones here, because I think they go hand in hand and they actually fall right under this thing about you know, being right versus being kind. We should not make others feel stupid, we should not make others feel less, because this is a relationship and everyone's relationship starts at different times and everyone's relationship starts with a different foundational knowledge. You might have grown up what they people say churched, so you heard all the stories and you know all the things, and so you have a foundation of knowledge that someone else doesn't have, and so they're learning at a different rate than you, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that, which means our walks are going to look different, our relationships are going to look different and our I think you use the word sanctification right Earlier the sanctification process is going to look different, like you're going to come to conclusions about maybe your specific challenges or sins, maybe before someone else, because you have more knowledge with which to build on from a foundation. So we have to remember everyone is in a different place and we cannot expect everyone to walk our walk and we can't walk someone else's walk for them.

Yeah. So to go along with that as a verse I stumbled upon today in the you version Bible app, which I love. If you don't have it, download it it's free or online at Biblecom, and it's 1 Corinthians 3, chapter 3, starting in verse 18, and it says this Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world's standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God, as the scriptures say, he traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise. He knows they are worthless. So don't boast about following a particular human leader, for everything belongs to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

I actually love that verse. Can you tell?

me where you found it again 1 Corinthians 3, 18 through 23.

Will you repeat the part that says about following a man?

So don't boast about following a particular human leader. That's verse 21.

And coming off of shiny, happy people, we can clearly see people following a man.

And this is not the first time Paul has had to say this in a letter. He's like some of you are like I follow Paul, Some of you are like I follow Paul, and he's like did I die for your sins? No, I'm thankful I didn't baptize half of you, because you're acting a fool out here.

You know, sometimes I feel like Paul was just like super sassy up in there, like you just need to be told and he's like you guys, this is about Christ.

It is not about me, it is not about Peter, it's not about Apollos, it's not about any human figure here. This is about Jesus. That's it. That's the main thing, that's keeping the main thing. The main thing and that's a lot of different formals that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected in accordance with the scripture.

Yes, I'm going to add one more before I close our list out here, and this is people use praying for someone as gossip or control. This one doesn't necessarily sound like legalism, because it definitely hits in. So the Bible tells us not to gossip, but one of the things that makes this legalistic is because you're using someone's sins against them, and that's what legalism does. Legalism says you shall not lie. So if I'm praying over somebody as a means of gossiping, talking about the fact that they're lying, now I'm making everyone know that they're a liar and therefore I have a control method over how they're behaving or what they're interacting with or how people perceive them, all of these things. And that is very legalistic Because, again, that goes back up there. You're trying to not be kind here. So that's kind of a legalistic one that I think gets a pass a lot of times in churches because, oh well, it just falls under the title of gossip and I'm like, no, that's a really it's a big legalistic damage because it's it's touting specific sins as a method of just yes, it's control and nastiness and pointing out that other people are, other people are sinners, and then kind of pointing back to the fact and it's one of the beginning ones that you know you're slightly morally superior.

And then the final oh, go ahead. Oh no, I got another story. Oh good, share it, I love it. This is unfortunately a true story.

All of our stories have been true. What are you talking about?

Well, when I tell you the story, you're going to say you're going to see why I say it's unfortunate. Okay, we're talking about calling people out on their perceived sins. And John MacArthur, who many people praise and worship because he is just supposedly awesome, he's still a man. He is still a man and back in 2001, a member of his church went to the elder board. Her name was Eileen Gray. Is Eileen Gray? She's still alive. Eileen went to the board because she found out that her husband was abusing their children. She was told now, at this point, she had separated from her husband, but she was told by the board and by other people on staff at the church that she needed to reconcile with her husband and that she was not doing what a woman is supposed to do, not what a wife is supposed to do by preventing her husband from accessing her children and by not being in the household. Ew. And one day she was sitting in the congregation in May 2002, with about 8,000 other people. So John MacArthur has a very large church. He's a huge following. He said he denounced her from the pulpit by name. He said she had forsaken her husband, the church, and he had no choice but to treat her as an unbeliever, for all we know she may be. That is the direct quote from John MacArthur.

He added. He added accusation of abuse is fine.

He added pray for David, her husband, for the sympathy and compassion and the loving kindness of God to be his portion. Then he led the church in singing amazing grace.

Again, we're just going to gloss over the fact that he was abusing their children.

Right. David Gray is now in prison because in 2003, eileen learned that her husband had sex with two of their children. So when she initially separated from her husband, she knew they were being abused. But she didn't know the depth of the abuse, and over time she found out that it was much worse than she had originally known. And even then, john MacArthur and his church stood by the abuser and denounced her because she chose the safety of her children and herself over a marriage that I would consider had been abandoned at that point by her husband.

I think all of us would have considered it abandoned. So where's his culpability and responsibility in the church for walking upright and following the tenets of the faith?

How come that's never discussed and so when this story comes out later by journalist Julie Royce, he takes to calling her names. I think he called her a feminist, a leftist, all kinds of things, just to detract from the truth of the matter, which was Grace Community Church and John MacArthur protected a rapist.

I'm going to call it spade to spade. He protected her rapist.

And presumed to call someone out by name in front of 8,000 people who did nothing wrong.

And, of course, no apology.

No, I'm pretty sure. To this day there has been no apology. Nope.

I'm going to leave my opinion of John MacArthur to myself for right now, because this is not a commentary on that. I'm going to go my last point. I'm really upset. That upsets me immensely.

And now you see why I said unfortunately, it is a true story, Horrifying.

I'm going to be honest, that's horrifying Because again here, listen I want. There is no sin that God can't bring people back from.

True.

But there are real and true consequences of the choices and the actions that we take. There are real and true consequences to the people we hurt and to ourselves. And the reality is, if we do not hold each other responsible, we are doing a disservice. And to tell you what holding someone responsible is probably the hardest thing that you will do in your entire life, but it has to be done. It has to be done and what makes me sad is that there's so many Again. You guys, we just finished all those. We finished two episodes, as you've probably already listened to, on Bill Gaythorne and IBLP and sexual abuse in the church and how they basically hit all of it. And yet here we have someone else who hasn't reaped the consequences of doing the exact same action, and it only can make me wonder. It only makes me wonder, you know.

Why not? This is exactly why, in Australia, a few years ago, they had convened I forget what the proper term is, but basically an investigatory board to look into child sex abuse amongst institutions, and at that point they also investigated Hillsong Church.

Oh, is that how Hillsong got caught out?

Yes, in Australia. That's how they got called out and why Nothing happened once the report was filed because of the political influence of Brian Houston and his father within the town, and so it wasn't until the police chief retired or resigned, or whatever he did, that they were actually able to now bring charges against Brian Houston for covering up child sex abuse allegations, and that was all documented in the documentary series the Secrets of Hillsong.

Yeah, I'm going to have to watch that. I know we talked about that the other day when we did the previous and that's the most recent documentary on Hillsong.

They finished it up earlier this year, so whatever.

Is Hillsong out of Australia? Forgive me, I don't actually know.

Yes, Hillsong originated in Australia.

Okay, I didn't know that Cool. And here's the thing, guys, one of the things that causes, one of the things I'm just going to touch on this really quick, because and I'll close out our last symptom of legalism there is room for restitution in terrible things. There's nothing that the Lord can't bring you back from, nothing, but you just have to be willing to A allow people to stand up and tell the truth and then, b, willing to do something about it, because there is nothing worse than someone a victim even, or somebody who observes a victim speaking up and then others doing nothing. It's almost, to be honest, that almost feels worse. But I will say this it's very hard to be on the other end when something bad happens and having to hold that accountability, it's so much easier to just hope it goes away, because that's the reality. Most of us hope bad situations go away, whether it's drug abuse or alcohol abuse or sex abuse, which is, if we just don't see it, it's not a big deal. But it is a big deal, and what you're telling the people involved is that they're not valuable, that they're not worthy of being protected. Like who are you choosing? The person who has made bad decisions or the person who's been hurt Right. Trust me when I say you don't pick the person who's doing the hurting. You hold them accountable and they will tell you nasty things maybe, or maybe they'll say thank you. I don't know what that is. I just know that the person who's being harmed has the right to not be harmed Right, and it makes me live it To know. In fact, that even goes to abuse commentary that I've heard from women where their husband maybe has financial abuse or emotional abuse and then they tell someone and the church. In fact, we should do a series on this. I actually have a book about this that we need to talk about. That's been used, but I've actually heard this personally and one of the people that I know told someone and the response was well, he's not hitting you, so it's not abuse, and the reality is there's so many forms of abuse and they're all bad.

Right.

They're all dysfunctions and everyone's dysfunction. Guys, we're all dysfunctional to a degree. Everyone's dysfunction looks different, like we all have. We all sin, so we all have dysfunction. The question is is my dysfunction doing significant harm and am I getting away with it? And if someone comes and tells you something, please believe them. Like please believe them Because the truth is, even if something is a misunderstanding, misunderstandings can be worked through, but if you don't believe a person, you can't stop somebody who's an abuser or a perpetrator Like you just can't. That's a whole topic. We totally need to talk on that one. I have some stuff for that because this one is actually just so important and I think the church does it really wrong. And I think the church places a lot of the burden on women for divorce in these situations and makes them out to be the bad guy when they're actually doing the thing that is ultimately the right thing. Right, but final thing is this Did this list make you uncomfortable? Did those lists make you angry? Did this list make you feel like you needed to dig your heels in and get a little righteously indignant, because if you wanted to start defending yourself or your church or your Bible study with Bible verses, you might be walking in legalism. And that's hard to hear. And I clearly shared a story in the beginning where I didn't understand where legalism and church culture could create a problem. And, thank the Lord, he opened my eyes and he put me in a situation in which showed it to me, guys, that church hurt is real. This legalistic attitude causes damage. Like I said in the beginning, it took me months to get back into church, took every ounce of willpower to walk back into a service, and that's somebody who I will call myself, church. I was raised in the church. I have been attending church my whole life and if I, as a person who has this much history, struggled that much, imagine how somebody who walked in for the first time and walked back out felt yeah, it's not okay, it's not okay. So the question is what do we do about it, wendy, what do we? Got for some ideas about what we can do about it.

When we see things, Well, it kind of depends on whether it's your church or not. I like that this in a church because it's a culture. This idea of legalism is a top-down issue. It very much starts with the senior or lead pastor and filters its way down through church staff and into the way you run your ministries. So if you find yourself at a church where legalism is the norm, for your own sake you may want to consider leaving that church because it's a recipe for hurt and you may be spinning your wheels trying to get them to change from the bottom up rather from the top down. So definitely be in prayer about this, definitely pray for the leadership at that particular church, but understand that we cannot change people. That is the job of the Holy Spirit to convict people. Not to condemn, but to convict. So if we feel like we're going towards condemnation, we need to check ourselves too, because we're not perfect. The other thing we need to do Check yourself before you wreck yourself Right. Check yourself before you wreck yourself is very, very wise-saying. The other thing that we need to do is to remember that if you are coming out of or in the middle of legalism and you are constantly looking and judging at other people. You have to recognize that everyone is on their own walk with the Lord, and some people are not walking with the Lord, so therefore, your rules don't apply to them. They just don't Spiciness Because they're not on your team, so to speak. They're not playing the same game, so therefore-.

They don't even follow the same rules. They don't have the same premise in life, nothing.

They don't agree with you about who God is and the role of God in their lives, or who Jesus is. They don't agree with you on any of that. So why are you trying to impose your personal Because it feels good to control someone. That's legalism. But also tune into the Reconstructing After Legalism episode of the Verity podcast, because Felicia Meisenheimer takes a wonderful deep dive into how to put your life together, back together after you've been through legalism and it's not something that I have personally really experienced, so I can't give you that experience to tell you what to do. But I listened to the episode and I found it to be very well researched, very full of love and kindness and mercy. So remember the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. And if you do not do that, you cannot claim that you have the love of God. Because God we love, because God loved us first. We reconcile ourselves to other people because God first reconciled us to himself. We don't do these things because it makes us better people. We do these things out of love because God did it for us first.

Well, and it's a good reminder too. Let's touching in Ephesians two, eight through 10, for grace we've been saved through faith. It's not of your own doing. It's the gift of God, not the result of works, so that you can't boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And it's as important for us to understand we didn't do this, so legalism makes it so we do with the work, not that God did the work, and one of the Bible studies that I did recently I liked it. They were talking about how, when you experience God, you're walking in obedience, but then you're doing these amazing things that clearly you can't do. Because God is using and he uses people in the Bible that clearly couldn't do some of the things that they did because of their lifestyle, their choices and they were not all amazing people because it's clear that when he uses those people, that it's him who does everything, and I think that's important, that we remind ourselves that daily.

Jesus was the only perfect person who walked this earth. The rest of the Bible is full of people who were crooked liars, adulterers, murderers, all kinds of things, but when God worked through them, because of who they used to be, it was undeniable that the power came from God and not from them.

I mean and that just like the first, that when you say that in that sentence I always just think of Paul, who was formerly Saul, like in there, you can't, I can't imagine somebody so firmly steeped in what he believed in his actions literally having the next day being like yo, I was wrong. Nobody has that kind of like self epiphany Right, unless God is involved, because we are not that self aware as humans.

Noah was a drunk, but God still gave him the Ark. Moses murdered an Egyptian in a fit of anger, but he still led the Israelites out of Egypt. David was called a man after God's own heart and was anointed when he was a shepherd boy and then became king of Israel. But he had an affair with Bathsheba and had her husband killed. And had her husband killed. And we already mentioned Paul. There are so many examples in the Bible.

We have Mary Magdalene, who clearly had a wide variety of male lovers.

We have the woman at the Samaritan woman at the well, who, for all we can tell, is the very first evangelist she had. She had had five different husbands and the man she was staying with wasn't currently her husband and Jesus still spoke with her and offered her the living water and she went and told everyone about it.

So many broken people, because that's we're broken, and I don't mean that like we're so broken, we're irretrievable, we're just, we're human and we make human mistakes, but it's that which allows God to shine through and makes everything amazing.

It's, it's, it's, it goes with that phrase. But God, yes, I went through this. But God, yeah, and if you there was a quote that I was going to use in this episode that I decided you should have left it in, I should have left it in. I'm going to bring it up now. Good, heather Thompson day. Heather Thompson day is a PhD. She has a PhD in communications and she is the host of the viral Jesus podcast hosted by Christianity today, and when I heard her speak at she speaks last year, she said this you say God has changed your life, but you don't tell anyone. Where is God in the midst of all this? He shows up in his image bearers, which are us, we need to show up so people can see God through us. That is what we are called to do. We're not supposed to be out there telling people they did right, they did wrong. God. Through us, we are to point people back to Jesus, because without Jesus none of this matters.

Nope, and that relationship in this convictions, that all comes later. I think we're so intent on these miraculous, instantaneous changes in a culture that's just like I can order anything from Amazon and it'll be here in an hour. We need to get over this mentality that change is instantaneous, change takes time. Right, it takes time.

A further example of that is John Newton, who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace. Do you know about John Newton? Tell us. He was a slave ship driver. I didn't know that. Yes, and after he became a Christian, he continued to drive slave ships for five more years Before he was convicted that this was wrong. So, again, not an instantaneous thing in most people's cases. In most people don't have the story that they believed in Jesus and all of a sudden, in the next instant, they were delivered from this thing. No, it takes time. That's part of the sanctification. But John Newton we don't remember him as a slave ship driver. We remember him as the author of Amazing Grace.

That makes that Amazing Grace so much more profound. Exactly, apparently, he saw something that changed him so drastically. And let's be honest, guys, back in the day. Changing careers not so easy. Nope, nope, not at all. We're too easy to point fingers at our ancestors for not doing what we have easy to do today and that's disingenuous. And everybody who's lived before us is a good example for either A what not to do or B what to do, because sometimes we can learn from people. There's good, amazing people to emulate in their Bible, their walk. I don't mean worship them, and I want to make sure that's very clear, right? Not hero worshiping Like I have. As you guys all know, because you listened to me for the last year. I love Corey Tenvue, I love her time in the Word and I love the fact that it was central to her life and through that it encourages me to do the same thing. Not because I think that she's a woman on a pedestal, she's still a human. I just need to understand that what I see in her has value and that, because I see that it has value, I should want that value for myself and I should emulate that value point, not worship her. And I think there's a little bit of hero worship when it comes to like biographies and people back, and then we get a little disappointed. We get a little disappointed when we find out that John Newton was a slave driver. I mean, I love Amazing Grace. It's a beautiful hymn. We could be like, oh, that's a terrible hymn. He was a slave driver. He tells the story of what changed him and what took him out of that job. It took him a while. We should want to be like John Newton and willing to change and willing to do something so outside of the norm that maybe we write a song, I don't know Is that this is not hero worship, and I really think in the church we get a little bit of the danger zone. I think, culturally we get a little bit in the danger zone because we have this idea of just well, if we've read about them, they must be worthy of being honored and worshiped, and they're not.

And then we do that. We do that because we think that they are doing something or that they've done something that we cannot do. We think that God has bestowed some favor or some righteousness on them that is not available to us, and that is. It's just simply not true.

No, it's not. Well, guys, I will say this Legalism is a difficult one, and I know Wendy gave you a tip or two, and I want to kind of just kind of close you out with one other thing. When you see legalism around you, you do not need to be the red flag bearer of everything. However, one of the best things that you can do is, if you see something gently in love, say something Okay. If you see something bad happening, please be the one willing to do something about it, because it's not like you don't have to correct the problem. Maybe you can correct it. Like, if you see somebody doing something nasty to someone, you don't have to like go over them and be like you are nasty to them. You could just simply go over to the person and talk to them and say I'm sorry, that looks hurtful, like not all, like I don't. You know, I'm so sorry. What can I do to help? Right?

Pray for what's in disarmament.

Yeah, I mean, you have to have disarmament. You can't go, you know, start throwing down in church or in the pews and you know, throwing punches. That's not, that's not appropriate. But the flip side of that is, you know, you can have a conversation with the person that you witnessed that was hurt and say, you know, hey, I'm so sorry you were hurt, I saw it too. That's not okay. It's okay to say something. I think too often we're frightened to say something, even in the positive or the negative of understanding a situation. So we just tuck and cover, we just duck and roll and we're like we don't want to be involved and I didn't say you have to like go and throw down when the person who was wrong but you can certainly comfort the person who was wronged Right, see something, say something, do something, be compassionate, show the mercy that God wants us to show, be the person that simply makes small changes in your world, around you, and I'm going to quote Wendy because I feel like she's going to say the eight to 15 people around you. I was going to bring up that book, but then I was like I know she's going to say it, I'm going to beat her to the punch.

Eight to 15. Yes, it is a wonderful book. It is a relatively short read by Tom Mercer about the eight to 15 people that you have influence over in your life, in real life, more than likely and in that book it also talks about how this us versus them mentality happens with Christian hero worship and talks about what Paul admonished the Corinthians about, which was hey, don't follow a human leader, don't worship a human leader, you need to worship God. So, yes, eight to 15. Great book. It's one of the first books we read during my internship. It was so long ago but I keep bringing it up because it was that good.

Yeah, well, and it's. I feel like it's so simple and yet so profound, like we feel like we can't make change, and the reality is, yeah, we actually can. We surprise at how much a simple act of kindness can make a cascade of change, and I don't mean like those Starbucks, pay it forward things.

Those really annoy the cashiers.

They do, they do and they annoy everybody around and then people feel the person that ends it feels guilty. And I'm just saying if you make someone's day, sometimes that pays it forward to make someone else's day. You don't understand the reach that sometimes a simple act of kindness can have.

So before we end, I have one kind of announcement. It's about a fundraiser for team for kids that is sponsored by the rising New York Roadrunners. So I am signed up to do the New York City Marathon in November and this is one day talking, and as long as I remain injury free, I will be completing this run. But in the meantime I am raising money for this free youth program designed to help kids of all ages and abilities to build confidence, gain motivation and develop healthy attitudes toward physical activity that lasts for life. As you may or may not know, I have type two diabetes. I was diagnosed as an adult, but running is my jam. Okay, lately, also walking. We love it, also walking, but we're going to. I like to run as much of it as I can. So the way I got into the New York City Marathon was through this charity partner team for kids. So there's a link in the description or in the show notes to donate to this worthy cause. I chose them because I think it's good to give kids something that will help build their confidence and show them that they can show them something they can actually do. That doesn't involve social media or technology or whatever. Just get out there and have some old fashioned fun. So that's my announcement.

I love it. Thank you, and yes, she really does love running guys.

That's because she's saying that, cause next week I'm about to sign up for something called the tour de pain, which is three races in two days. They do.

I don't know how long the tour to pain is. They have the goofy run in Disney, Like I think. You run like a 10 K and then a half marathon and then a full marathon the next day and then if you do that, you get like this goofy medal because you're goofy for running all that much I have.

I have done the ball to moronathon as in, you have to be a moron to do this, and it was a five K and a half marathon in the same day. That was 2019. And then I did the nut job challenge, which was a five K, the night before a half marathon. And then I did the booby trap challenge this year, which was a five K the day before a did do that A five K the day before a half marathon in support of breast cancer eradication. So the tour to pain yes, it is raising money for local cross country teams here in Northeast Florida, but it is a four mile run, a five K and a one miler.

That's fabulous, I love it. It's so good. I mean it's it gets you out there. I was just thinking the more you're talking about, like the kids and running. I was thinking about girls on the run. Yes, amazing programs out there that really get people to move and just do something different, but move their body and in helpful ways and provide, you know, community at the same time.

It's just so if any of you feels called to donate, that would be great. Obviously, that's not required. We continue to bring this content for free to you because we love you. Yes, all right.

And then today.

Yes, and so in the show notes you will find the verses that we spoke of today, links for the Verity podcast, the Verity conference, the book Every Woman A Theologian by Felicia Maisenheimer, the book Stop Calling Me Beautiful, also by Felicia Maisenheimer, it by Craig Groschelle and the article about legalism in the church from BibleReasonscom. And so it was a Heather Day, too, right, heather Thompson Day. That was a quote. Oh, it was a quote, not a book. Okay, yes, not a book, not this time. But thank you for tuning into Grace in Real Life. If you enjoyed today's episode, we would love to hear from you and you can leave us a message by audio on our website, which is brand new, at gracingreallifecom, or you can message us on Instagram at the handle Grace in Real Life media. You can also email us at hello at gracingreallifecom if you feel the need to get in touch with us. In a. Don't send us a novel, I'm just saying If you have something that doesn't quite fit into an audio message or a DM on Instagram, email is open. So don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast app. Subscribe if you're watching this on YouTube. You can also leave comments below the video and share this episode with your friends and family and leave us a review, because that helps others find our show and helps us serve more people. And with that, deborah, will you close the Salon.

Prayer, Absolutely. Dear Lord, thank you so much for this time together that we've had. Thank you that we have resources that teach us what not to do as much as we have your Bible resource that teaches us what to do. Lord, help us to love and serve our neighbors as we love ourselves. And if we're struggling with the love ourselves, Lord, help us to just love ourselves as fiercely as we possibly can. Love our neighbors and you, Lord and Lord, we're just so grateful that you have loved us first so we know what love is. Some of us don't have that example and with that Lord, I am just so grateful for you. And again this time, and please bless each of our listeners today and just pray over each of our listeners. If they're going through something or they're maybe seeing some legalism in their church, Lord, I just pray that support you are able to send support and love their direction In your name or prayer. Lord, Amen, Amen.

All right, until next time. Bye.