Pagan Christianity? was quite a thought provoking book. It brought a lot of accepted practices in the church into question and made me wonder back to the core of what Jesus came to do. One of the things the authors of the book mention is the lack of formalization or structure Jesus gave to the church and how different what Jesus came to restart (for it had been lost long, long ago) looked so unlike the systems of his day. Religion was a cornerstone of ancient civilization.
Everything back then revolved heavily around religion, whether in Athens, Rome, or Jerusalem, religion, with its priests, rituals, sacrifices, condemnation and exaltation, was king. It was highly structured and organized. There were people who intermediated between the gods and the people. There were specific rituals that were practiced at specific times, in very specific ways. There were strict rules governing what people could wear, who they could associate with, what they could eat. There were detailed instructions of how to make up for any infractions against these rules.
This is the system of religion the world knew when Jesus came. Even God's people had such a system (probably one of the strictest even!). What the authors point out in the book, and what had until then never crossed my mind, is that Jesus does not create for his followers anything resembling the religious pattern of his day.
The priest class is abolished. Everyone is now a priest, everyone has direct access to God, no more going through a "holy" man, everyone can be made holy by God.
Jesus mentions only one thing his followers should do regularly, remember him when they eat. Obviously eating is a regular part of one's day, unlike the many rituals required by Judaism, and so is hardly a burden. It is important to note that Jesus followed the rituals of Judaism in his day but he doesn't seemed to have had any intention of carrying them over to his followers.
Jesus didn't set up a set of rules to guide the lives of his followers. We have no book like Leviticus or Deuteronomy in the New Testament. The closest thing we have is the Sermon on the Mount recorded by Matthew and yet even there Jesus is decribing a better way to live, not laying out a set of rules.
Instead of a set of rules to follow, Christians are given THE SPIRIT OF GOD to guide them, to mold their hearts, minds, and body and to make them more like God's. The Jews needed the law as a guide. They couldn't be asking the priests what God wanted them to do every day so in order to give them some guidelines of what He wanted, God gave them the law. We CAN ask God what He wants, He can tell us directly, we no longer need the law. Instead we are guided by the Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians 2:10b-11
Jesus didn't come to create a new religion. He didn't come to create a new set of priests or give us an updated list of rules God wants us to live by or a miriad of rituals to perform to be right with God. He came to close the gap between God and people, to reconnect Father with child, and to give us his Spirit to guide us from then on.
Christianity isn't meant to be a religion, it's a purpose and spirit for living. The purpose is to honor the One who gave us this life and to experience it in the fullness He designed us to (which also involves helping others do the same). The spirit is the way we go about life, not ungrateful but grateful, loving of others, wanting the best for all people, forgiving wrongs, being joyful.
For so long I've thought of Christianity as another set of rules to follow, not a spirit of living. It may sound like an insignificant difference but to me it changes everything! With selflessness it's the difference between punishment and joy. It's easy for me to think of the rule that we are to be selfless as closer to punishment or torture than as a gift and joy. Like another chore that I have to do and then check off the long list. But living by the Spirit I'm doing my best to be like Jesus (who, coincidentally, was selfless...) because the Spirit within me is causing me to desire it. Not only that but that same Spirit is causing that desire to be fulfilled. When my joy is to be more like Jesus, and I am eager to pursue that, and I know the Spirit in me (the only one that can actually make that joy possible) is working to make it happen, that is such a different life than one following rules. Perhaps it may look similar from the outside and may yield similar results but the journey is vastly different!
I'm not sure of all the implication of this yet (haha). It puts a completely new spin on everything (at least for me).
