Making Rules

We have a new pastor. Just started (full time) in January. Followed immediately by COVID. Like a big, "Welcome to the church, pastor. Now, go home." Must be tough. Recently he instituted a digital Lord's Supper. "For you folks here, the elements are under your seats. For you folks watching from home, you should have prepared your elements in advance. Let's begin together ..." Now that is something new. But in the midst of it he laid down some rules. "If you are a baptized member in good standing, you may participate." Mind you, this is a baptist church. So, on one hand, I don't suspect the "baptized" caveat would be a surprise. On the other hand, baptist churches don't generally hold to a "closed communion." Generally they do a "self-check" kind of thing. "You need to be right with God to do this. Take a few moments to confess your sin and clear the air with God. If you can't, please don't participate." In the "closed communion" it is normal to hand that mechanism over to the leadership of the church and let them decide if you're right with God -- a "member in good standing."

Now, I wanted to ask, "Pastor, don't you have to be baptized to be a member here? Pastor, do we have members not in good standing? Are either of these an actual issue?" But I didn't. Well, I was remote, so I couldn't. But I was more concerned with this concept of making rules.

In this case, the "rule" comes from Paul's teaching on the Lord's Supper. Specifically, "Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly." (1 Cor 11:27-29) It's important, that's for sure. But where is the "baptized member in good standing" in that text? Where do we go in Scripture to substitute "a man must examine himself" with "his church will examine him"? I see the reasoning for this rule -- it's important not to be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord -- but I don't see the basis. It seems to be a made-up rule.

We do this a lot. Historically a segment of Christendom assured us that drinking alcohol and dancing were works of the devil even though Jesus turned water to wine and David danced before the Lord as a function of worship. Made-up rules. Most are pretty sure that smoking is a violation of Scripture although 1) finding that Scripture is unlikely and 2) if you do, I don't think you can use it to support your contention. If you understand it to mean what you're claiming it means, then it has all sorts of implications you're not willing to embrace. We do this a lot. Like Eve. "God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'" (Gen 3:3) No He didn't, Eve. He said nothing about touching it. You made that up. And we love to follow her in that ... like Adam did in eating the fruit (Gen 3:6). That didn't end well.

How careful are we with our "rules"? Are they biblical or man-made. Man-made isn't always bad, but it certainly doesn't rise to the level of "Thus says the Lord." How many of our demands are manufactured and how many come from God? More importantly, do we know the difference? Should we really be in the business of making stuff up when we seem to have enough instructions from God that we're happily ignoring? I'm just wondering out loud here.