"How Should We Live?"
This past Sunday I was teaching on Martin Luther and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. After addressing the doctrine of justification by faith alone, I came to the point on the believer’s freedom.
Luther stated words similar to this: “If we are freed from the law, both in terms of its condemnation and in terms of its placing requirements on our lives to make us virtuous, how should we live?” Luther’s answer was, “However you want, as long as you’re not sinning, you can do what you please.” He was paraphrasing Augustine who said, “Love God and do what you want.”
To be honest, after years of submission to man-made religious rules, this was hard for me to say out loud….so I said it again.
Thoughts?
I think I get the basic gist of what he is saying but I am not sure I would say it exactly like that. Paul talked about being under the law of Christ. Saying “just don’t sin” seems to me to only present half of the equation. There is also an active pursuit of holiness that should govern the believer’s life in such a way that he may choose to give up things, or adopt others, in the acquisition of experiential holiness.
For instance I choose not to drink alcohol, not because I believe it is sinful, but because it is something that I did as an unbeliever and I do not want the temptation. I think if we thought about it we would realize there are a lot of choices that we make like this.
All that being said I would agree that fundamentalism, as I am familiar with it, has probably erred on the other extreme.
Discussion