Before I move on to the consequences of being stricter than God, I have to ask a related question:

What’s the matter with extra-biblical rules?

Christians have all kinds of extra-biblical rules. Are they always wrong? Does simply living by rules that are not found in scripture make you a pharisee or legalist and stricter than God?

I mean, institutions have extra-biblical rules. Christian schools and colleges have to have rules that aren’t in scripture in order to function. No Christian college is going to say “We can’t expect you to attend classes and pay tuition because those rules aren’t found in the Bible.” I think we all recognize the need for institutions, whether they be churches, schools, or businesses to have rules and guidelines that aren’t concretely laid out in scripture.

Families have extra-biblical rules too. No parent is going to say “I can’t tell my kid not to cross a busy road because that would be adding rules to scripture and make me a legalist.” We recognize that parents are called by God to do whatever it takes to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and we realize that is going to include some family rules that aren’t found in scripture.

Extra-biblical rules are necessary for order.

Whether it is ordering the affairs of your family, your classroom, or your church in a world full of people with sin natures who aren’t always living by the Spirit, there has to be someone standing between people and the desires that would destroy them, and quite often that person is standing with a rulebook. That is just the nature of authority, and Romans 13 and Hebrews 13 teach us that God ordained authority.

So if you think that this series of posts is a veiled attack at a Christian school rulebook or the leadership guidelines of some church, you are wrong. I have no problem with institutional rules in and of themselves, no matter how strict. I, for example, no longer live by the Crown College rule book, but I am glad that as an 18 year old I submitted to those rules. I never got the impression from the staff that those rules were binding for the rest of my life or were perfect applications of divine principles.

But there is a potential problem …

Extra-biblical rules can turn into their own orthodoxy

I said that I never got the impression from the staff that the college rulebook was binding or God-given, but I didn’t say that I never got that impression from other students. Unfortunately, there were no lack of people that thought anybody who wore shorts (which were forbidden outside of the dorm) or who came to church in less than a suit (which was required) were sub-par Christians.

The problem with extra-biblical rules is that some people are looking for an extra-biblical standard of righteousness. They are looking for a concrete, easily understood box that they can check off and feel good about themselves. For these people, instead of the “just shall live by faith”, its “the just shall live by our rulebook”.

Unfortunately, this attitude seeps into a lot of pulpits. I know plenty of preachers who work “standards” in as often as possible, even though that word or concept isn’t found in scripture. (Besides maybe Jesus’ dealing with the Pharisees.) I was once told by a pastor when interviewing for a church position “the emphasis of my ministry is standards.” Not Christ. Not evangelism. Not the revealed Word of God, but standards. That was our last conversation.

So what’s the answer?

Extra-biblical rules need to be clearly understood to be extra-biblical rules.

My church has leadership guidelines. I sit down with everyone involved in leadership at our church from time to time and go over the guidelines and requirements for ministry. These include a clear salvation testimony, church membership, loose dress guidelines, attendance guidelines, a few things describing the testimony we expect from church leaders. Some people would think these guidelines are extreme, many probably don’t think they go far enough.

But whenever I go over these guidelines with our people, I always make it a point to talk more about how these aren’t Scripture and how we have no right to judge the Christianity of others by these rules than about the rules themselves. Furthermore, I make it a point to never mention these guidelines from the pulpit. The pulpit is for scripture, not for our institutional guidelines.

If (when) we start a Christian school, we’ll do the same thing. We will keep the school rule book and the Bible on totally different planes and will talk often about the difference between them often.

So here’s my conclusion, take it or leave it:

Having extra-biblical rules (or if you must use the word “standards”) does not make you stricter than God, but emphasizing and elevating extra-biblical rules to a position equal to scripture does.