rules can rob the joy in a relationtionship...

now joy is a recurring theme in the book of philippians. paul talks about joy seventeen different times in this book and he keeps returning to this point, repeating himself. this is a good teaching tool. any good communicator knows that you often have to repeat something many times for people to really get it.

philippians 3.1 (ms) and that's about it, friends. be glad in GOD! i don't mind repeating what i have written in earlier letters, and i hope you don't mind hearing it again. better safe than sorry—so here goes.

paul is concerned that the philippians don't lose their joy. and in this passage he gives some safeguards to them and to us on how to keep our joy.

now legalism is a kill joy. it destroys the joy in your CHRISTian life. it can ruin a family, people, churches. so it is very important to resist it.

so what is legalism? well, legalism is substituting rules and regulations for my relationship to CHRIST. it comes in very subtly as a believer. it gets the focus off what GOD has done for you and gets the focus on what you have to do for GOD. and when you flip the focus around like that, you're going to lose your joy.

he continues in verses 2 & 3 (ms), steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. all they're interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, i call them. the real believers are the ones the SPIRIT of GOD leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with CHRIST's praise as we do it.

now paul is angry here. he is talking about a group of people who were called judaizers who had set up this matter of being a CHRIST-follower upon following a bunch of rules and he is frustrated.

you can tell he’s frustrated with them because he calls them barking dogs…those dogs. now when we think of dogs, we think of warm, cuddly pets but in the new testament times dogs were not pets. they were wild scavengers that would attack human beings. it was the worst thing you could think of to call somebody a dog. he’s saying if somebody tries to steal your joy by putting rules on you that are not in the bible then they are dogs.

just a thought from the front porch...