Matthew 16:19
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

I don’t remember ever hearing this passage preached on in any sermon I ever attended. Was Jesus talking to Peter only? Was Jesus talking to everybody then and now? Some believe it was just the disciples themselves as they utilized this responsibility in Acts 15:

¹⁹"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. ²⁰Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. “

Here Peter decides (“It is my judgment”) that gentiles do not have to keep the law. He takes some of the behavior that would have been most egregious to Jews in that time and forbids it, but otherwise frees them from keeping the hundreds of other laws.

Then check out verses 28-29. Here’s how he makes his announcement to the Gentiles:

²⁸It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

Seriously? “It seemed good”? What – he doesn’t know for sure?

I’ve thought, prayed and read about this for months now. We have to bind and loose as Christians – we don’t have a choice. The reason we don’t greet one another with a holy kiss is because we have loosed ourselves from that command. The reason Baptists generally don’t drink is because they have bound themselves to that. Even something as basic as “love your neighbor” requires lots of interpretation for our time in history (who is my neighbor? What does loving them look like? etc, etc). Most Christians accept the binding and loosing of their denomination or of their local preacher and like it or not - they are unconsciously agreeing to the yoke of whoever (a person or group of people – not God!) bound or loosed them. Once I truly grasped this concept, it scared me somewhat.

Now that I’m aware, who am I going to trust with my binding and loosing? Lots of prayer revealed something to me……I can’t trust me. I would eventually bind up what I don’t like and loose what I do like. So I think it’s crucial to discuss issues with Christian friends that know me well and give honest judgments about my life and whether I’m binding or loosing correctly. Confessing your sins one to another makes a HUGE difference here! The next level would be my local church and what they bind and loose, and then broader than that would be denominations or authors of books, etc.

Don’t really feel comfortable with this? Good – that makes 2 of us.