Skip to main content

Freedom


Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:34-36)
 
          I’m reading an interesting book called Destroyer of the gods by Larry W. Hurtado, and I’m learning a few things about the Roman society of the first and second century AD that I didn’t know.
          For instance, part of Roman culture required that every time you entered someone’s home and possibly even their places of business, you were expected to honor their lares (household gods, including ancestors.) To refuse to do so was considered rude. There were temples along the roads. In effect, there were “gods” everywhere.
          As a member of your family, you were required to honor the family lares. As a resident of the city, you were expected to honor the gods the city promoted. As a Roman, you were expected to honor whatever gods the Roman emperor declared that you should. It did not matter what you believed about the gods involved. You were welcome to add to the list, but not subtract.  To refuse to participate put the household, the city, or the empire at risk of incurring the gods’ wrath, which meant that it incurred the wrath of the family, city, or emperor.
          Religion, for the Roman world, was not something you did once a week for an hour or two. It was interwoven through everything you did.
          The Jews were given something of a special dispensation. They angered people because they tended to refuse to honor the multitude of gods everyone else honored, but it was seen as a Jewish thing. The only people who did that were born Jews or became Jews.
          But imagine, in the years following 33AD, a growing group of people saying, “Nope, sorry, those beings aren’t gods and I’m not going to participate.” Imagine being one of those people who said, “I believe in the Creator God and I’m not going to worship gods I don’t believe in.” Had it been a Jewish thing that Jewish people did, that might have been tolerated, but these folks included Gentiles, members of families, cities, and empires that expected “normal” (Non-Jewish) people to participate in order to keep the gods from taking revenge.
          Becoming a Christian took courage. It could take standing up to one’s family and running the real chance of being disinherited and thrown out. It could require facing the lions in the arena. Being a Christian meant you were free from all those other gods. That’s the sort of freedom Jesus gives us, but then as now, freedom isn’t free. It could and did sometimes cost those who gained it everything they had.
          It’s unfortunate that some traditions continued the concept of the lares. True Christianity continues to be countercultural. It sets us free from the unending demands of the world, replacing them with one law: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as  yourself. We are called to be free. Don’t enslave yourselves again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Shepherd!

                 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep . (John 10:14) God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Genesis 3:14) The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths     for his name’s sake. Even though I walk     through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,     for you are with me; your rod and your staff,     they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4) For the Jews, it was politically incorrect to make claims about yourself as a teacher (or possibly as anything else.) Teachers were expected to take pride in the...
Post a Comment
Read more