Human Rules

Human Rules

“Jesus answered them, “How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you!  You are hypocrites, just as he wrote:  These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me.
It is not use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were God’s command!
‘You put aside God’s command and obey human teachings.”
And Jesus continued, ‘You have a clever way of rejecting God’s law in order to uphold your own teaching.”  (Mark 7: 6 – 9)

Today in the year 2006, the Body of Christ is splintered into probably 40,000 parts!  Each part claims to know the truth.  No part admits to teaching human rules and obeying human teachings.

Yesterday, I read a very interesting article from Christianity Today.  The author of the article, a “well-known scholar” had just seen one of the earliest manuscripts of the Didache, a first century catechetical work instructing the early Christians on Baptism, the Eucharist, Penance and Church hierarchy.  Our scholar was excited by what he discovered and he compares many church practices today with those of the first Christians.  

If we compare the practices of the early Church with what those of many churches today, one cannot escape the conclusion that many churches are teaching human rules and obeying human teachings.  It reminds me of Cardinal Newman’s famous saying that to know history is to cease to be protestant.