Covenant Loyalty, Righteousness In Faith

I have stumbled across an idea that interests me. I was listening to a podcast during my commute. For whatever reason, when the podcast ended, I decided I wanted to listen to it again from the middle. Something told me I had not paid sufficient attention to it. I did that again two more times. I was certain I'd missed something good, I just didn't know what it was. (Obviously! Because I'd missed it.) On the fourth go around, I finally caught on.

Today, I want to investigate the relationship between covenant, loyalty, obedience, disloyalty, transgression, righteousness, and faith. They are interwoven. Is that a lot? Let me simplify. I want to look at how our righteousness can be from faith in the New Covenant. Righteousness from faith is a difficult concept for people like me, from legalist backgrounds. I think it's important for any Christian from any system to understand.

When you think of righteousness, what comes to mind?
I would guess you are saying to me, "Moral behavior, right thinking, obeying God's laws etc." You wouldn't be far from what most readers of this blog would say.
When you think of transgression, what comes to mind?
I would guess opposite things from righteousness, "Breaking God's laws, sinful thinking, immoral behavior, etc."
No doubt you have at least one Bible verse in mind. So would I!

I am going to ask you to consider tweaking your response just a bit, by being acutely aware of the concept of a covenant at the center of your responses. In our responses above, we never mentioned faith. We should have started with that. This is a post about how righteousness and faith are linked.

Funny how this all ties in so well with my post "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?".

THE MISSING DIMENSION IN LAW

In Armstrongism, the system I was once in, we were taught the way to follow God is to keep His laws. That seems reasonable enough. You want to be a good Christian, right? Of course you do! How? If you want to know how to live rightly, why not turn to the Old Testament and ask the law what to do?

(DEU. 7: 9, 11) 9 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; ... 11 Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.

(JON. 14: 15) If you love Me, keep My commandments.

See? Not only is Jesus blatantly insinuating that He is God, but He says if you love God, you will do what He commands. Seems reasonable that this refers to the law.
Well, you know, 2% of the law, anyway. Most of the time.

But there's something missing here: the Covenant.
The missing dimension is the commandments, statutes, and judgments - in other words, the law - are the Covenant. Along with the promises; the blessings and cursings. The law is the Covenant and the Covenant is the law.

Look at how God speaks to Abraham (this is not the Old Covenant but the Abrahamic):

(GEN. 17: 9) This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised...

Covenants are contracts, and they have terms. Terms are things you have to do to satisfy the covenant. For man's side of the Abrahamic Covenant, circumcision is the only term. The rest was up to God.
The terms are the covenant and the covenant is its terms. Because it is. Because that is the nature of covenants.

This same thing happens with the Old Covenant:

(DEU. 4: 13) So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

Here that same peculiar language is. The terms are the covenant and the covenant is its terms. For the Old Covenant, those terms are called "laws", because they apply to a nation - the nation of Israel.

The same thing happens in the opposite direction, from the perspective of breaking the terms.

If you did not keep the term, then you broke the Abrahamic Covenant:

(GEN. 17: 14) And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.

And if you did not keep the terms, then you broke the Old Covenant:

(JER. 11: 10) They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers who refused to hear My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.

(ISA. 24: 5) The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

Keeping the terms is keeping the covenant; breaking the terms is breaking the covenant. Because the terms are the covenant and the covenant is its terms.

When an Israelite broke a law, did they break a law only or did they violate the Old Covenant? They violated the Covenant! That is how James was able to say if you've stumbled in anything, you've broken everything (JAS. 2: 10). Transgressing a term defaults the entire agreement. You've been disloyal.
Or, think of it in marital terms. If you commit adultery, did you transgress the adultery rule only, or did you violate the entire marriage covenant? You violated it all! Only an idiot would say, "All I did was commit adultery. I kept most of the marriage covenant. It's just one rule out of many. It's not so bad in the grand scheme." You were disloyal to the marriage covenant as a whole.

Failing the outward signs, transgressing the laws, changing ordinances, committing idolatry - it is all breaking the covenant. Because the law does not exist apart from the covenant. The covenant is the law and the law is the covenant.

Do you see how obedience, loyalty, transgression, disloyalty, and covenant are all related? They are covenant words. Loyalty to God is through loyalty to the covenant God made with you. You want to be considered righteous? Then be loyal to your covenant. Don't want to be loyal to your covenant? That's considered wickedness. Do you see how it all relates?

It all comes back to covenant. Covenant is the missing dimension in law.

WHICH COVENANT?

People in our time - who are not Israelites and not party to the Old Covenant - will take those covenant terms (the laws) and remove them from their covenant context (the Old Covenant). Then they claim the laws continue forever, apart from the covenant. Laws just leap like a deer from covenant to covenant, all on their own. Then they divide the laws up, throw most of them out, and claim they are keeping the law.
But that is not how any of this works.

"The seventh-day Sabbath is a sign between God and His people," the Sabbatarians say. The Sabbath was a sign, yes, but a sign of what? Of loyalty to a covenant. If you kept the Sabbath, it was an outward sign that you were loyal to that covenant. "It shows we are God's people," they say. Yes, a sign does identify loyal people. That was it's purpose. But not apart from the covenant. The sign shows you are loyal to God by being loyal to the covenant. It was a sign of covenant loyalty.
But you aren't a part of that Old Covenant. No one is.

Tell me, which books of the Bible did you read about the Sabbath being a sign of the covenant? Exodus and Ezekiel. Those books were part of what Testament? The Old Testament. And which covenant was in effect then? The Old Covenant.

Loyalty to terms of a covenant identifies which people are members of the Covenant. The weekly Sabbath was one of the two outward signs of the Old Covenant. It is difficult to know who is coveting, but it is easy to know who is circumcised or resting on the seventh day. If you are keeping the Sabbath as a sign of loyalty, and using proof-texts from Exodus and Ezekiel to back it up, then what covenant are you showing loyalty to? The Old Covenant! Of course you are using Old Covenant dialogue to back it up, because it is an Old Covenant sign.

But which Covenant are we supposed to be loyal to? We are supposed to be loyal to the covenant we are in: the New Covenant! The weekly Sabbath is never once at any point made a term of the New Covenant, by anyone, ever. It is not the sign of the New Covenant. What is?

(JON. 13: 35) By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

Love is the New Covenant sign of loyalty.

I had to speak about covenant in this article because it is critical. I hoped to take your mind off of "The law! The law! The law!" and refocus it on "The covenant! The covenant! The covenant!"
I want you to keep in mind this phrase: covenant loyalty.

RIGHTEOUSNESS IS IMPUTED

We've talked about covenants. We've talked about loyalty to your covenant. Now let's talk a little about the nature of righteousness. There is something critical we need to be very much aware of. Righteousness does not come from what you do. It is always imputed.

You already know about the "faith chapter", Hebrews 11. People were heroes for having faith. You already know that righteousness was imputed to Abraham because he believed. But you might not know the same happened to Israel because they were loyal to their covenant.

(DEU. 6: 25) 24 And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. 25 Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.’

That doesn't say they will become righteous. As if to say their fallen nature will be changed. It says it will be their righteousness. As if to say righteousness will be imputed. Sacrificing and resting and blue thread in your clothes does not make you a good person. But if that is your covenant loyalty, then righteousness is imputed to you for those things.

Some tried to keep the covenant and some did not. Altogether, however, the law did nothing for what they were inside.

(PSA. 14: 2-3) 2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. 3 They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.

Psalm 54 repeats this. No, they did not become righteous.

So, how does the Bible say out of one side of its mouth that some people were righteous, and out of the other side of its mouth that no one is? It says none are righteous because none of us are righteous, it's true! We tend towards wickedness by nature. God alone is righteous by nature. But to those with covenant loyalty, righteousness was imputed. You never really deserve it. It's given to you. It is given even though you don't really deserve it.

Why is this so important to understand? Because the question shouldn't be about how we become righteous, but how we get that righteousness imputed to us. The way to imputed righteousness is loyalty to the covenant you are in. It is not through some covenant you are not in. You want righteousness? Be loyal to the covenant you are in. God is not going to impute righteousness to you for things He didn't ask you to do.
"God, I didn't really do what you asked me to do, but I did like 2% of those things you told those people to do. I knocked it out of the park, too. I went above and beyond. Now, give my my inheritance." How about no.

Back when I was an Armstrongist, I tried to be right with God by keeping the law (some of it ... some of the time). I had such good intentions! I only wanted to be a good and faithful person. I went about it all wrong. I listened to people who told me to get righteousness by keeping Old Covenant laws; terms of a covenant none of us were in. I was doomed to fail before I even started. The very base assumption - that God wants us to obtain righteousness from the Old Covenant law - is not correct under the New Covenant.

The people I was listening to told me the terms of the Old Covenant pretty much were the terms of the New. "The laws are brought forward into the New Covenant unless otherwise stated," they said. That was simply not correct. If you want more about why not, please read our post "Confusing the Covenants". Since that post explains this, I will skip it here. Suffice it to say, that is not at all how covenants work. Terms do not jump from covenant to covenant all on their own. Two different covenants, two different sets of terms, two different sets of promises.

In the Old Covenant, Torah was the means to covenant loyalty. So long as they also had faith, that is. But there were issues. Law-keeping was insufficient to please God (LUK. 17: 10). The law does not justify us (GAL. 2: 16). The law made nothing perfect (HEB. 7: 18-19a). The law made no one righteous (ROM. 8: 3). The law wasn't enough for the Rich Young Ruler, it wasn't enough for the Pharisees, it wasn't enough for Israel, and it isn't enough for us. Is that the law's fault? No! The law is good and just. It's our fault. The law from outside of us could not change our sinful nature. That is why we need a Savior.

(GAL. 2: 21) I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.

Do you understand the magnitude of what this verse says? It means if we could accomplish our goal of pleasing God through the law, then Jesus died in vain! That means the law only ever showed us our own inability to obtain righteousness by our own efforts. It also means Jesus' death fundamentally altered the entire landscape.

I was proving God right. "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (ROM. 7: 24). Where is the solution??

FAITH!

RIGHTEOUSNESS IN FAITH

'What?! xHWA, do you mean to tell me, this whole time, I just do nothing and believe, then I will be right with God?"
No.
I mean to tell you that this whole time if you are loyal to your covenant, then you would have been right with God.

Faith is not about doing nothing. That is something legalists say to make faith look bad. "Greasy grace" and other slanders. Everyone needs faith, even a legalist. A law-centered person looks at a grace-centered person and says they aren't doing anything because they don't keep the law. But they are doing something -- they are being loyal to the covenant they are in.

We are saved by our faith. We are called to love. Do you think love is easy??

Hebrews 11, "the faith chapter", talks about a lot of people who had faith and were right with God, but none of them did nothing. Even some people who kept the law are listed, but not because of law-keeping, rather because of their faith. None of them did nothing. Some of them, like Rahab, did quite risky things. All of them let their faith manifest as action. But what action is expected of us? The action required by our Covenant. We must follow the Holy Spirit into works of charity and love, that's what we do (GAL. 5: whole chapter). But it starts with faith.

Righteousness is loyalty. Transgression is disloyalty. Loyalty or disloyalty to what? To God, via His covenant. Which covenant? It depends on who you are and when you lived. For us today, it's the New Covenant. What are the terms of the New Covenant? Faith and love! Loyalty to God via loyalty to His New Covenant means having faith in God and following the Holy Spirit into acts of love to one another. We are saved by faith, we are called to love. That is our covenant loyalty. Not Sabbath. Not circumcision. Covenant loyalty in the New Covenant is faith and love.

This is why the New Testament talks about obedience to the faith (ACT. 6: 7; ROM. 1: 5-6). This is also why the New Testament talks about judgment for those who do not "obey the Gospel" (ROM. 10: 6; II THS. 1: 8; I PET. 4: 17 ). What do you mean "obey the Gospel"? It means believing Jesus is who He said He is and will do what He said He will do, and then becoming His disciple. Not Moses' disciple but Jesus'. Obeying the Gospel does not even factor in under the Old Covenant system, but it factors heavily into New Covenant system and only makes sense under that system. (Are you sure the Gospel isn't for today? Not even a little?)

I think some people have an issue with righteousness imputed for faith because in their minds they see righteousness being directly related to things we do. In other words, works. We do good works, and that makes us good people. Like I said at the very start of this post,

When you think of righteousness, what comes to mind? I would guess you are saying to me, "Moral behavior, right thinking, obeying God's laws etc."

But here is the thing -- righteousness is not caused by things we do. The things we do are a result of the righteousness imputed to us by faith. More specifically, works are a result of us following the guidance of the Holy Spirit in-dwelling.

The focus is backwards in some people. They think faith → works (in other words law) → righteousness, when it really is faith → righteousness → works (in other words love).

That is why I want to impress upon you the idea of covenant loyalty so much. Righteousness is always imputed. God alone is good. Righteousness is not imputed for law-keeping, but for covenant loyalty. Your covenant loyalty is faith and love. Faith IS our obedience, and it is expressed in love. That will be righteousness to us.

For people in the New Covenant, to try and obtain our righteousness from law is to stumble at the stumbling stone (ROM. 9: 30-33). That stumbling stone is Jesus Christ - the guy you're tying to please by failing at keeping the law you weren't asked to keep.

So, to summarize --
Righteousness is imputed to us by faith, and that faith is expressed in works of love as we follow the direction of the Holy Spirit. That is our New Covenant loyalty.

CONCLUSION

What was the idea that interested me? Righteousness is imputed to us for covenant loyalty. Our way to be loyal to the New Covenant is faith. Our visible sign is love.

At the start, I said, "Today, I want to investigate the relationship between covenant, loyalty, obedience, disloyalty, transgression, righteousness, and faith. They are interwoven."

Do you see how this all comes together? Do you see how this all relates?

Covenant loyalty. Imputed righteousness in faith. Evidenced in love.

The trick is to be mindful of what Covenant you are in. The Bible was not written directly to us, but it was written for us. The wise know the difference. There are so many lessons in the Old Covenant for us, but it was not given to us. It was given to Israel. Faith is how you remain loyal to the covenant you are in. The outward sign of your faith is love. I hope the phrase "covenant loyalty" helps you.

"Covenant, covenant, covenant!" not "Law! Law! Law!"

Good thing I listened to that podcast the fourth time! Or I would have missed it.

Do you know what the truly mind-bending thing in all of this is? If you follow the Holy Spirit, and pursue covenant loyalty through faith and love, you will end up fulfilling the whole law - the very thing the legalists hoped to do in the first place (ROM. 3: 31; GAL. 5: 14).
Like I said in the post "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?":

"Am I throwing Matthew 5: 19 out the window? No. I am not telling you to break the commandments. I am telling you the only way you can possibly hope to keep them as expected."

No doubt many will have lingering questions. If you have questions about the law being eternal, we have two posts for that: "Common Legalist Arguments - Part V" and "Common Legalist Arguments - Part VI". I would also recommend to you "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?". If you have questions about moral laws continuing into the New Covenant, we have a post for that: "What Use Is The Old Law?". If you have questions about the sabbath rest that remains, we have a post for that: "The Sabbath Rest of Hebrews 4". And don't forget we have a general FAQ Page where we answer some standard questions.

This post is dedicated to Angela. God bless you.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Where Do We Draw The Line?

Greetings, dear readers. It's your punctilious proliferator of peeves and profundities, presenting a post about paganism and principles. Today, I would like to talk about where to draw the line with people of weak conscience who take issue with holidays and birthdays. Also, there is something you should know about the people who peddle these message about holidays being evil.
Yes, it is that time of year.

I was reading through my old 2018 article "Three Reasons Why I Stopped Keeping Christmas - Part II", because I honestly could not remember what it was about, and in the comments I noticed a small mention of scruples. To refresh your memory, scruples are, "An uneasy feeling arising from conscience or principle that tends to hinder action" (from the American Heritage Dictionary).
I said in a comment:

"I can promise you that once you start down that road to scrupulosity, there is virtually no end to that road. There is practically no limit to the things a person can question and worry about. You can become a slave to it. Trust me on this one, I have seen some seriously enslaved people who worry about the smallest little things and constantly need reassurance. Their lives are beset by it."
-Me, back then.

Nothing has changed my mind about that statement.
But the reason I said that was in response to a request for more holiday articles on things even like the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving. I never did write those articles. It's not that I thought it was an unreasonable request. I thought at the time it would be more efficient to get directly to the heart of the matter - which I think is scrupulosity.

Scruples are good. Scrupulosity is not. Scrupulosity takes our good conscience and twists it into fear and doubt. It can paralyze us with questions and worries. It can take over our lives. It can negatively affect our relationship with our Savior. Not good!

It can be beneficial to go away from your own posts for a while then visit back again after forgetting all about them. When I am thinking about what to write, I know just what I mean. When I write, that doesn't always come across as I'd thought. Coming back later erases all those thoughts and gives me the perspective of a first-time reader. Many times I say to myself, "I think I know what I was getting at, but it could have been stated so much clearer." This is one of those times.

I had hoped it would be more efficient to comment on scrupulosity rather than write more articles. But I never really explained what I meant by scrupulosity nor gave any advice at all on what to do about it. I was asked about holidays and responded with scrupulosity, and that was that. It all made sense to me back then, but now it seems I sidestepped the request without heeding it at all. Not what I intended!
You know what they say about good intentions.
Maybe I can make amends six years later?

As I discussed in my post "Peddlers of Paganism", there are people out there who make their living off exploiting people's fears and scrupulosity. They twist good things, things created to be received with thanksgiving, into doubtful things. They tell you God cannot save you if you enjoy pine trees or lights or candy or various mundane things, even when God Himself used these items in His worship in the Bible. They use shifting definitions they themselves don't meet. They tell you once a thing is tinged with paganism it remains pagan forever. They tell you that you can secretly contract paganism without even being aware of it. They tell you that you are headed for condemnation if you celebrate God's own miracles. And it doesn't matter at all how terribly false their claims are, so long as the end result affirms what they want to hear. How preposterous!
I disagree with all of these things, and ABD has several articles that explain why.

I also said in that same post:

"The question is - how far do we take this? Do we let people of weak conscience control our lives and our homes and our churches? No. Their weak conscience is not a license for manipulation."

Much of this discussion on drawing a line rests on good taste and Christian charity. Paul is clear, in I Corinthians 8 and 10, that a good Christian bears those of weak conscience with patience and charity. Sometimes, doing the right thing means avoiding what we fully believe is perfectly acceptable if that thing upsets our brethren of weak conscience. We bear it until they mature in the faith.
But that has to have its limits.

We cannot let people of scrupulosity and superstition take over our churches, our faith, and our good conscience. To bear with a brother or sister in Christ with patience and understanding is good! It's the loving thing. It's the Christian thing. But not when it ends up making people feel terrible about themselves and causes division.

The anonymous commentor on my Christmas post said:

"If there is truly a pagan holiday out there then I'll give it up for God. No pagan holiday is worth participating in if it risks our relationship with God."

That is noble! There is a very commendable spirit at work in this heart. Look at how they are willing to repent and change anything they feel comes between them and their Savior. Well done!

But!

That good intention is easily taken advantage of by people of weak conscience and ignoble motives who peddle paganism. The comment started, "If there is truly a pagan holiday..." Therein lies the rub. The holidays are most often not pagan. The claims most often false.
The good intention of avoiding paganism is taken advantage of. That particular commentor might not be easily taken advantage of, but I have had several other readers over the years who were/are.

Do pay attention to your conscience. Do not violate it! But at the same time, do not base your conscience and decisions on the questionable information you get from peddlers of paganism. Test the spirits!

I want you to know something else, most esteemed reader. The story you are being told about pagan holidays, from many sources but not all, is not really about informing you. What it is really about is uplifting themselves in their own eyes by putting you down.
Those are not informative messages you are reading. Those are accusations.

In Armstrongism, the system the As Bereans Did blog is mainly about, my former church system, we did not tell people about their pagan ways to educate and reform them. That would be a misunderstanding. We were told the rest of the world is not being called by God right now. We literally were told that to help the world is to fight against God. We were even discouraged from giving to charity because of this. Those messages about paganism were never intended to bring the world to repentance. Then why did we put out so much material about pagan holidays and etc? We did it for us! We preached about the world's pagan ways so we could feel superior! That message isn't for you, it's for them. And it goes far beyond holidays.

Herbert Armstrong's Church of God movement is a branch of Seventh Day Adventism. They preach seventh-day Sabbath, Old Covenant holy days, meats laws, tithing, and various other Old Covenant traditions. They are anti-Trinitarian, and believe the Holy Spirit is not a person. They are iconoclasts, and believe the image of the Cross of Christ is a pagan symbol of Tammuz. They used to believe (and some still do) whites are a superior race descended from Noah's son Shem, and other races are cursed. They believe British-Israelism (aka. Anglo-Israelism) which says God secretly preserved people of Israelite descent who populate western Europe, America, and Australia in this modern day, to be His only called people. They believe all Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and almost every other Christian tradition besides (sometimes including other Armstrongist churches) are all condemned, deceived followers of Satan the devil, who have all been purposefully relegated by God Himself into the system of "Babylon the Great and her Harlot daughters". They believe that grace is a very different thing than how mainstream Christians understand it, and grace is only for those who keep the things they keep and don't keep the things they don't keep. They believe if you do not join them in ALL of their beliefs, then you are doomed in this life, and only in your next life will you be given an opportunity to repent, and then you will live in eternity under their rulership and benevolent guidance.

This is not just about holidays, dear reader. Not by a long shot.

These people who accuse you of paganism are not calling you pagan just because of holidays, and they are not going to stop calling you a pagan just because you stop keeping holidays. Holidays are but the tip of the iceberg. This was never really about Christmas or Easter or birthdays. You don't keep Christmas? OK. But you're still a pagan to them for so many other reasons.
None of their annual messages about pagan holidays are to help you stop being a pagan. There are two very real reasons for it: 1) to accuse you of being a pagan, and 2) to reassure themselves of their superiority. They put you down to lift themselves up.

You cannot challenge them. You cannot reason with them. You cannot plead. This isn't about facts and truth, it's about reaffirmation. Do you understand now why the accuracy of their source material does not matter to them? Do you understand now why they will not listen to anyone no matter what evidence is offered? It was never about accuracy. It was always about affirmation. You need to be aware of this so you can truly be informed about what this message about pagan holidays really is. 

They might not post their content for your good, but I hope As Bereans Did does. That is my sincere hope in every post. That you are helped, and God is glorified.

Now, we go back to Paul's advice.

In I Corinthians, Paul said to be aware of your fellow Christian's weak conscience. But Paul also said to Timothy (in the context of bondservants, but I believe the lesson applies here):

(I TIM. 6: 3-5) 3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, 4 he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, 5 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.

This very same Paul who was very conciliatory in I Corinthians has clearly drawn a line in I Timothy. A line must be drawn at some point. We cannot infinitely give way to our brethren of weak conscience. We cannot treat them poorly, because that is uncharitable and un-Christian, but we cannot allow people of weak conscience to stay immature in the faith forever, and we cannot allow ourselves to be led by those who are immature in the faith.

If people will not listen to what the Bible unambiguously says in Esther and John, that celebrating man-made holidays is completely acceptable - something even Jesus Himself participated in - but instead continue to dispute and argue and accuse, from such withdraw yourself.
If people will not listen to what history says, that Saturnalia and Brumalia were not on December 25th - to name just one of many examples where the claims are false - but instead continue to intentionally promote incorrect information, from such withdraw yourself.
If people will not listen to Ralph Woodrow or countless other researches besides, that Alexander Hislop was wrong and his claims were unfounded and conjured from his own imagination, but instead falsely accuse their fellow Christians of Nimrod worship and paganism based on known lies, from such withdraw yourself.
If people will not learn what makes for good research even though the Internet has made good research not only possible but easily obtainable, but instead persist in quoting nonsense, misrepresenting their sources, and presenting confirmation bias and century-old encyclopedias as "God's truth", from such withdraw yourself.
If people are "Refusing To Understand", but are willfully ignorant, from such turn away.

Before you who are new to this blog get too upset with me, I wrote this post assuming most people who will read it are already familiar with this ABD's extensive catalog of material on holidays, "once pagan, always pagan", and etc. Please do read our posts. I cannot expand on them all here.

If you want to know what my own personal line is, knowing what I know and having experienced what I have experienced, I draw the line at well-informed conscience. Not scrupulosity, but scruples. If I feel guilty about it, I don't do it. Easy peasy.
But then I research it. I need to know if I feel guilty reasonably or unreasonably; rightfully or mistakenly.

Scrupulosity. Superstition. Bad information. Hidden motives. Fear. Pride. Willful ignorance. Legalism. I definitely feel guilty about those things, and I won't have anything to do with them.

I also said in my Peddlers of Paganism post:

"If you really feel that badly about a holiday or a decoration, don't do it!! There is freedom in Christ. Do, or do not - it's the same. So long as it is to Christ that you do or do not do. I am not here to convince you to keep holidays. I am merely telling you that you are being falsely accused and there is no valid reason for you to feel like a pagan. Yet, if you do feel badly about something, then don't violate your conscience.
But ask yourself - do you feel badly because it is bad, or because peddlers of paganism made you think it is bad, falsely? Our articles are here to help you decide that. Test the spirits."

So, where are you going to draw the line?

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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