Holy Spirit, Legalism, and Tupac

Short post today. Peter slept through chapel because he worked all night, so it’s just Tim. The speaker was an intern in the campus ministries office. I really enjoyed it. His goal was to talk about the Spirit in terms of practical life. Like in all of this series, I think the thing that was missing is discussion of discernment. However, his message was good, except that he went to college in Green Bay. Down with the Packers!

He talked about legalism in Christianity. He became a Christian when he was a freshman in college and encountered what we think is normal: Christianity’s behavioral expectations. He wondered why we are supposed to not drink or dance or do anything fun. In a British accent, he described many Christians’ Victorian ideas about sex. No, he wasn’t saying that we should sleep around or anything. I give him brownie points for speaking in an accent. It was amusing.

Anyway, he talked about how he grew up idolizing Tupac. If you don’t know who that is, then consider yourself blessed… When he became a Christian, he didn’t understand why people were telling him he wasn’t allowed to listen to that music anymore. He thought that was silly. Why did Christians have all these rules? So he didn’t comply. Then later in life he started to realize, “hey, this music isn’t influencing me in a good way and is getting in the way of my relationship with God.” So, he stopped listening to it. His point was that the Spirit led him to change his life. Legalism didn’t. Our good behavior should be a result of relationship, not rules.

I agree with him. Especially when we grow up in Christian communities, we know what we can’t do, but we never actually have to deal with the reasons why. When we break the rules, we figure it out and the Spirit guides us out. But I think a lot of people struggle with these things and rebel because they never have to deal with them in a real way. We just know they’re bad, even if they aren’t necessarily. Sadly, though, I also think lots of people take it too far the other way and do whatever they want because they don’t like the legalism. As much as I don’t like legalism, we ought to at least consider that those “rules” were made for a reason. Maybe they are too much, but it seems like lots of people discount everything just because they can.

That said, I do still think it’s important that we live guided by the Spirit, not necessarily by rules. But again, what about discretion. There is bound to be that person who thinks the Spirit is calling him to do something like sleep around, but is he really being called to that? I wouldn’t say so. So again my ultimate question is how do we learn to discern. Sometimes it’s easy, but other times it’s not. I have rarely heard anyone tackle that question with any success.

Good job, Intern Guy. And skol Vikings!