Deuteronomy 4:2 “Do not add to the Word which I command you, and do not take away from it, so as to guard the commands of יהוה your Elohim which I am commanding you.
We hear all the time the church accusing the Jews of giving more weight to the teachings of the rabbis and sages than to the Instructions which God Himself entrusted to them - which is true - Christ Himself got in a bit of hot water when He challenged them on this very issue... but what does the church turn around and do? They do the very same thing that they condemn the Jews for. There are so many people in mainstream denominations (and not so mainstream) who would much rather let their pastor or Sunday school teacher or Bible study leader do all the prep for them and spoon-feed them pablum instead of dusting off their Holy Bible and cracking it open to read it and think for themselves. And in so doing, we give more weight to the thoughts and leanings of "the professionals" than we do to the Very Word of the Most High.
And also, we don't grow. We take our spoonful of sugar, think that the medicine has gone down, and go on our way - nothing has changed in our hearts or minds. We have checked off our to-do list:
- Go to church
- Sing a song
- Drop a shekel in the plate
If 99.9% of the people who sit in the pews every Sunday morning would actually read through their WHOLE Bibles themselves every year... yes, even the "dry and boring" parts, and the stuff in the middle that everyone thinks should be left back in the desert, they would find some gems and nuggets in there that would probably upset their theological apple carts just a tad. At the very least, they might start wondering about passages such as Deut. 4:2 - "does that actually apply to us, too?"
OF COURSE IT DOES!
If we claim HIM as our Elohim, we certainly ought to be paying attention to what He says "His people" should do - how they should be living their lives as a reflection of Him. How we are to model holiness ("set-apartness") to the rest of the world. "Hey folks! Yes, you out there! THIS is what He says His people should look like!"
Instead, we go and do as Jeroboam did - as soon as the Kingdom was divided he set up his own religious system (this time with TWO golden calves, instead of one!) - and pretend that we can dictate to the Holy One how HE wants to be worshipped.
Come on... if "God" is really the Almighty, the Holy One, the Creator of the Universe, who are WE to tamper with His Word? More importantly, who are we to dictate to Him what and how we want set-apartness to look like? What and how worship looks like? Answer: We are fooling ourselves into thinking we are serving Him when in reality, we are only serving ourselves, and then giving ourselves a little pat on the back for all the "suffering" we do, and the "sacrifices" we make to follow Him.
We are really only serving ourselves.
Reminds me a little of a little hissy fit I threw a few years back in the Christian Family Bookstore (when it was still in business)... running into a display of "Christian pencils", "Christian bookmarks", "Christian flashlights", "Christian bingo"... really? Since when can inanimate objects worship the Most High God? Since when does a bookmark need to be redeemed? It's so ludicrous... it's nothing more than money changers in the Temple, in my opinion. They were using God as a marketing ploy.
