In the September 2010 issue of Evangelicals Now Eleanor Margesson has some helpful advice on cinema-going for Christians (Should we watch this?). In this article Margesson refers to Tom Hovestal’s book Extreme Righteousness: Seeing ourselves in the Pharisees:
Tom Hovestal points out that the Pharisees ardently believed in the mandate that they read in the Mishnah to ‘make a fence around the law.’ “They felt duty-bound to protect the sacred and to keep people from transgression of God’s commands caused by ignorance, indifference, or insolence.”
Margesson summarises by noting that these fences did protect believers, protecting their areas of weakness and thereby limiting their propensity to sin. Hovestal warns:
fences may direct us to God, bu they will not make us holy. We must watch that fences do not become a substitute for a relationship with God… Fences subtly teach us that God wants us to ‘play it safe’ rather than walk by faith.
The foundational importance of justification by faith means that we live under grace and not in conformity to the tight cultural expectations of others or rules they might seek to impose on us as to what we are free to do and what we are not free to do. Margesson reflects: “In some cultures, it is considered wrong for Christians to dance, drink alcohol and even for women to wear trousers.” Where Christians erect these fences varies from culture to culture and, indeed, from subculture to subculture.
Posted October 16, 2010
www.facetofaceintercultural.com.au
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