Beware of acting "holier than thou"

Colossians 2:16-19 (NLT)

So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths.   For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come.  And Christ himself is that reality.   Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For He holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it. 

There has always been the problem of zealous individuals and churches attempting and often succeeding in imposing their man-made beliefs onto others.  They think they know what is right and wrong by taking Bible verses out of context, flatly misinterpreting them, and/or do not even know what the Bible really teaches.  Some examples, similar to what Paul was writing about millennia ago:

·  Condemning you for eating certain foods like meat

·  Forbidding the drinking of tea or coffee

·  Forbidding activities such as dancing, playing football, taking medicine, chewing gum, watching movies, wearing jewelry, and many other false forms of self denial that are not Christ-honoring, but rather man-honoring.

·  Condemning you if you worship on a day other than Sunday

·  Condemning you for reading Bible translations other than the King James Version

·  No reading the paper or watching TV or cooking or anything secular on Sundays

·  Enforcing certain dress and personal appearance rules

·  Condemning you for any kind of sin without any aspect of grace.

Think about people who exemplify “holier than thou” attitudes and actions:

·  Hypocritical judgment of others---condemning another’s sin when the condemner is doing the same thing. 

·  Claiming to have a special relationship with God that others don’t

·  If you do not speak in tongues, you do not have the Holy Spirit in you (and, therefore, you are not saved)

·  Examples from movies and television:

·  The prison warden in Shawshank Redemption

·  The townsfolk in Inherit the Wind

·  Robbie's wife's parents in Everybody Loves Raymond.

·  Dana Carvey’s “church lady” parody in Saturday Night Live

No one has the right to condemn you for your failure to obey man-made rules.  For someone to tell you how to without proper or correct biblical referencing is wrong and you are not to listen to them.  Paul uses two examples of man-dictated rules---pious self-denial and worship of angels.  Pious self-denial means false humility and worship of angels means that angels were worshipped rather than God through Jesus. These are not from Christ.  In fact, people who create and/or enforce man-made rules are obstacles to Christ and have historically done the church much harm.  Paul calls them sinful and filled with pride and, in fact, such people are not connected to Christ.

If someone you know---and this could be you---starts trying to manipulate and control others through claiming that God spoke to him/her, you know now that the apostle Paul wrote about such people long ago and they are not connected to Christ.  Do not be swayed and do not feel condemned by them.  Keep your mind and heart on Christ through the careful studying of His Word.  Those who are swayed by such false teachers and prophets are those who do not know their Bibles.  And, indeed, biblical illiteracy is a huge problem in the lives of most Christian people. 

How well do you know your Bible such that you could easily discern man-made rules from what is really taught in the Bible?