Jesus We Talk About Dos And Don’ts
Dear Thomas,
In your seventeenth question you state, “I’m not saying that I want to, but if I were to become a Christian, wouldn’t I lose a lot of my freedom? Why do Christians say they are free when there are so many dos and don’ts in their lives? What kind of freedom are they talking about?”
It would be nice if when Christians talked about freedom, they were talking about the free ability to love and to be at peace with God, one’s self, and others. But that is not always the case. There are two definitions of freedom. One definition is the ability to choose or determine our own thoughts and actions without any hindrance or restraint.
However, we find ourselves living within the constraints of self-centeredness, self-serving interests, personality flaws, and emotional and psychological damage from the effects of a sinful and broken world. Thus, our ability to love seems thwarted by our very nature, and the dos and don’ts just accent the problem.
No matter what the dos and don’ts are, conformance to them does not necessarily make us love and experience that inner peace. By definition, love cannot be forced, coerced, or demanded.
Jesus’ Teachings On Dos And Don’ts
Love, if it is genuine, has to be a gift freely given by the one who chooses to love. If love is not freely given, then we have to call it something else because it isn’t love.
But there is another definition of freedom, and that is the liberation from the control of some other person, an arbitrary power, or the mandates of a human institution.
When we measure freedom against the dos and don’ts expressed within many Christian communities, we view them within this second definition and see it as anything but free.
Within both of these definitions, the word commandment can be perplexing. Commandments are often thought of in terms of dos and don’ts, thou shalt or thou shalt not.
When commandments are thought of in this way, there seems to be no freedom from arbitrary power, no exemption or immunity from specific obligations. How then do we reconcile freedom with commandments?
Jesus said in John 15:14, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends.” What does that really mean, “If you do what I command”? What does the word command mean in this context?
We most often think of command in the sense of giving a directive or an order. It sometimes comes with the attachment of a consequence if we disobey the command or an award if we obey the command.
This definition is the one most troubling to nonbelievers and believers alike. Where is the sense of freedom if couched in command and if the consequence in effect says, “Do what I say, or I’ll punish you or even kill you?”
Christian Living: Jesus’ Commandments
Is it any wonder that some shy away from an environment that expresses dos and don’ts in those terms? I think this very common definition of the word command is the wrong definition within most biblical language.
However, command, as in “giving an order,” is not the only definition or the only way we use the word. Several other definitions apply. One of these is a command in the sense of having something ready for our use.
For example, we might say that we have a command of a large vocabulary or the English language; a command of a subject, such as chemistry; or command of an item, as in the use of a tool or musical instrument. In this sense, command refers to a personal working knowledge, ability, and understanding that is ready for use.
Another definition of command is in the form of active instruction, such as a computer command key that initiates a particular function or action. Or we might say that the skipper of a yacht has command of his boat. He has discovered, learned, and developed the skills needed to command or instruct the boat to do what he desires it to do.
One other definition for command is in the sense of a precept, the way things are, or the way things work as a rule of action or conduct.
For example, we could say that if a person throws a rock off a cliff, natural law commands that it go down rather than up or sideways. In this same sense when we express anger and hatred for another person, the natural consequence commands hurt to us physically and emotionally.
Likewise, when we share laughter, joy, and goodwill with another, physical and emotional rewards are commanded to us. The biblical Ten Commandments are examples of precepts given in instructive form on how we were created to function.
Could God and Jesus be saying, when the word command is used, “This is the precept, the instruction on how you were meant to function? And I desire, even require that you have these precepts ready for use”?
With this understanding, I encourage you to read anew those sections of Scripture that use the word command or commandments and regard them in the context of a statement, a precept, or a means of an appropriate function, understood and internalized, ready for and put into use.
I am not advocating antinomianism (being free from God’s established moral law) but rather describing how one comes into conformity with that law.
The apostle Paul said in Romans 3:31, “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” Jesus said in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.”
What Jesus Said About Right And Wrong
When one has understood and developed skills that are ready for use, it follows that it is acted upon by choice. If one has developed the skill of hitting a golf ball or playing the piano or if one understands the need and importance of following the instructions of a recipe or formula, it is usually put into use.
One doesn’t normally putt a golf ball to purposely miss the hole or strike the wrong piano key to purposely make a sour note. One doesn’t normally bake a dish prior to putting all the ingredients together and in order.
There are established ways to solve a mathematical problem, and ignoring them would bring a wrong answer or no answer at all. Thus, to ignore a precept, refusing to internalize them to the extent they are not ready to use or put into practice is indeed foolish. Matthew 22:36—40 says,
To paraphrase we could say, “To love God with all your being is the first and greatest precept, the way you were meant to function. Internalize this precept in your very nature so that you will have it ready to use.”
We could paraphrase John 15:14, “You are my friends if you do what I command,” to say, “We will be intimate friends if you will understand my precepts and instructions and have them internalized and ready to put them into use.”
Jesus says in Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27, “Love your enemies.” To command love as in giving an order is impossible. Love involves the whole being, including emotions and feelings.
True love requires freedom and is given one to another by choice. Love as a precept can be commanded as an expression of how we were meant to function and an exhortation to have it ready to put that love into use. I think this reflects what Jesus was talking about when He said in John 15:9-14,
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands [precepts, internalized, ready for use], you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands [precepts, internalized, put into use] and remain in his love.
Jesus’ Moral Teachings And Guidelines
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command [precept, internalized, ready for use] is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command [understand love’s precepts, internalize them, and have them ready for use].
Much of the time, the dos and don’ts expressed within a Christian community are all about culture and not at all about freedom to love. The way we dress or comb our hair when we are going to church, the issue concerning whether Christians should drink alcohol, or personal theological beliefs that differ from the belief of a particular Christian community around us can all stop the expression of Christian love. When this happens, we witness a subtle shift from unity in purpose to unity for the sake of conformity in belief and action.
I know a woman who is an admitted atheist because of a particular Christian community’s cultural don’ts. As a high school student, she attended a church school that expelled students if they were caught smoking.
One day she was at a public park with a few friends, one of whom was smoking. He asked her to hold his cigarette while he casually played on the swing set.
A teacher at the school happened to drive by and saw her with a smoldering cigarette. She reported it to the school principal, who summarily expelled the student without consideration of the circumstances.
The young girl found it so unfair, so humiliating, and so judgmental that she left the church and God as well. To this day, she is not interested in any discussion about a relationship with God.
Her motto is “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” She has concluded that this earthly life is all there is, so we might as well get over it and enjoy life.
At a very sensitive and impressionable time in her life, she was snared in the dos and don’ts of a church community and has paid dearly for it.
I remember getting into trouble at the Christian college attended. This campus was strictly vegetarian, so there was no going to the cafeteria to get a hamburger. However, I had not been raised vegetarian.
Biblical Dos And Don’ts From Jesus
Against the rules, I kept an old-fashioned deep-pan popcorn popper in my dorm room. Once in a while, I would leave campus to purchase some frozen peas and hot dogs to boil in my popcorn popper.
My roommate and I would enjoy a fine meal, but of course, the smell of my hot dogs drifted all through the third-floor hall. Somehow we always seemed to attract others to our private banquet.
One day the dean happened to come along and get a whiff of my delicious meal. He took great offense at my infraction of cooking in my room—and cooking hot dogs no less! It was as if I had contaminated the dorm to an almost uninhabitable status.
If I wanted to keep living in the dorm, I would have to get rid of my popcorn popper, I was told. I could understand the fire hazard created by my cooking in my room, but I didn’t think hot dogs were such a big deal that they should disqualify me from being a member of the campus community. This, however, was a cultural don’t based on that community’s understanding of what constituted good, healthy living.
Another illustration of religious dos and don’ts involves beliefs. A church community may hold certain ideas or interpretations of Scripture. To question those interpretations is oftentimes a don’t, while unquestioned adherence to those ideas or interpretations is an expected do.
For example, one church community that I attended had a number of members who would not tolerate questions on long-held church beliefs. However, I have always enjoyed the freedom of exploring beliefs and the reasons behind them.
I was always curious about the ideas and understandings that led to certain church creeds and particular interpretations of Scripture. However, when I asked questions during times of open discourse, I soon discovered that my questions were not welcomed.
Eventually, members of the church board informed me that I was not welcome to attend anymore unless I would keep quiet. No questions here, please. Just believe and keep quiet.
I could not do that and remained honest with myself. Thus, I graciously left that community and found another that welcomed the exploration of ideas that make up the varied understandings within the Christian faith.
So just what are all the dos and don’ts about? When do they enhance faith and provide aid to promote growth in their relationship with Jesus, and when do they destroy faith and foster walking away from Christian fellowship? Let me say that many things applied externally to improve performance at living the Christian life are wrongly intended.
We don’t work out our salvation by how well we perform or how correctly we believe to prove our acceptability. Christianity is not about performance in that sense but about relationships. It is about transformation from the inside out.
That gives rise to the following question: How do we do that? How can we be redirected or reoriented in a way that promotes love for God and love for others? One thing is very clear.
It cannot be achieved through external self-will and self-effort. It takes a new birth. It takes a new creation springing to life within the core of our being to change this orientation.
Again this is what the good news of the gospel is about. It is about being enlivened by the Spirit of God and allowing Him to change us from the inside out. The apostle Paul expresses this clearly in Romans 12:1-2,
In other words, it is God, in Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit dwells within us, makes us spiritually alive, and brings change. This spiritually alive nature does the transforming.
Through the process of renewing our minds from within, we become truly free. No longer are external dos and don’ts the means of becoming what God wants us to be, but it stems from a desire within to become what God intended and desires us to be.
When we struggle to conform to external dos and don’ts, we find no freedom. That’s because the only real means of change is to surrender our lives to God and enjoy the transformation He brings.
As Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls [mind, emotions, and will]. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).
Does that mean that external information on causes and effects, such as the effect of diet and exercise on health or the effect of thought on belief, are of no use or value? Not at all.
That is still important, but the orientation and method of application of that information are different. The orientation from within, given power by the Spirit, who dwells within, will take external information and use it to free us and enable us to follow God’s commands (precepts, internalized, ready for use).
God perfectly loves us, and that perfect love casts out trepidation, timidity, and fear (2 Tim. 1:7; 1 John 4:18) as to whether we are doing or believing rightly.
Change in the doing and the believing will come as God’s Spirit continues to guide us to mature Christian thinking, believing, and living.
Quite often the dos and don’ts spoken of by Christians are only a descriptive way to help us find the path to freedom in loving. The Ten Commandments, for example, are just that. They are an expression of the way love acts and the exposure of our shortcomings in living up to that ideal.
If we lie, cheat, steal, covet, dishonor, gossip, threaten, demand, moralize, preach, lecture, judge, ridicule, abuse, or shame in our relationships with others; harbor hurt; express anger and resentment; participate in malice, envy, murder, strife, or deceit; or are immoral, stingy, insolent, arrogant,
senseless, faithless, heartless, or ruthless, how can we claim to love? (sec Rom. 1:26-31). It is our choice to say with David, as recorded in Psalm 51:1-2, 10, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” David’s prayer was about understanding a precept, internalizing it, and having it ready for use. It can be our prayer as well.
We are truly free only when we function in a free environment of love. When we find ourselves confronted with, participating in, or getting caught up in the actions or the effects of those things listed previously, we are not free.
The dos and don’ts can be instructive in helping us to recognize and avoid bondage-producing, unloving attitudes and actions toward God, others, and ourselves. They can act as reminders and teaching aids that assist us in understanding how love acts and how it does not.
But remember, the doing of the acts of love isn’t the being of love. The ability to genuinely love is not within our natural human nature and comes only when our mind, emotions, and will have been enlivened by God’s indwelling Spirit.
Even here we start out as children needing to mature. We also need to be very careful not to make the dos and don’ts a performance substitute for true loving. External loving behaviors for selfish and self-serving motives yield nothing toward experiencing true freedom.
“God is for us,” Romans 8:31 triumphantly declares. God’s will is that sinners should live in freedom and not perish from lack of freedom. That freedom should enable us to process and understand the precepts of the dos and don’ts, and by God’s grace and the work of the Holy Spirit, it will enable us to find freedom in the law’s demands (commandments) by understanding their precepts, internalizing them, and having them ready and then putting them into use. I know of no other religion that offers this kind of freedom and love (see Deut. 6:4-9; Micah 6:8).
Your friend,
Matt