SOTM 13: Our Breath Stinks

17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Mt. 5:17

Years ago a friend of mine asked me how my love life was doing. I got really excited because I knew that he knew that we both knew that I had no love life. So I thought maybe this was a clever way of starting in on how he knew about someone who liked me. "Not much going on" I said. "Why?" "Because your breath reeks," he responded. Ouch! One of the 15 books I'm currently reading (I can't stay focused on one book for very long) is about why people don't like Christians. Yeah, that's right. A lot of people don't like us. And it basically feels like the book is telling us that our breath stinks. People don't like us because we aren't very pleasant to be around. The books lists specific things that are often associated with evangelical culture that our society finds so unpleasant. The central theme is clear--we are viewed as being too negative. We are known for what we are AGAINST rather than what we are FOR. This, unfortunately, is what Phariseeism is all about. The problem with the Pharisees wasn't that they wanted to follow a bunch of rules (though some of them were a little wacky) but that it appeared that that's what it was all about. There are many things that we should be against, but if that is what we are known for, then we aren't coming across as much different than the very people with whom the one we claim to follow found himself in so much opposition. This is why verse 17 is so important. In fact, I do not think I'm overstating the case to say that this verse is the key to understanding every other verse in the Bible. In other words, as you read about Moses and the burning bush, David and Goliath, sacrificing pigeons, unclean bodily discharges (it's really in there!! See Leviticus 15:2), etc., the key to understanding it all is to see how it fits into the overall story of Jesus and his fulfillment of the story of the people of Israel. In a similar passage Jesus scorns the Pharisees for missing this point. "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." (John 5:39-40). We need to be absolutely clear, not first and foremost about what we are against, but about what we are for: Jesus. It is through Him and by Him that the law is and can be fulfilled in our lives.