Binding and Loosing - It's Your Job Too
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.
Labels:
binding,
loosing,
sin confession
I have heard many a sermon on this topic in my days hanging out with the word of faith charismatic folks. I wouldn't recommend it by the way.
My first question is how did you get to connecting the passage in Matthew with the passage in Acts? But second and perhaps more important is to get some context about the passage in Matthew. If we go back to verse 13 and read through to verse 19 we might have a better shot at understanding.
Consider the following
"The power for binding and loosing is something that the Jewish rabbis of that day used. They bound or loosed an individual in the application of a particular point of the law. Jesus promises that Peter - and the other apostles - would be able to set the boundaries authoritatively for the New Covenant community. This was the authority given to the apostles and prophets to build a foundation"
Ephesians
2:19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household,
Eph 2:20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
Eph 2:21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
2:22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
At this point the new testament was not canonized yet and the apostles and prophets were tasked with building the church.
Just some thoughts to start off with
Jim, regarding your first question, do you not think that Acts passage is an example of the disciples binding and loosing? It seems like an obvious example of it. Please let me know how you see it differently.
Then you brought in some commentary from somewhere:
"Jesus promises that Peter - and the other apostles - would be able to set the boundaries authoritatively for the New Covenant community. This was the authority given to the apostles and prophets to build a foundation"
Was this authority ONLY given to the apostles? That was one of my original questions about that passage when I first studied it.
I don't want to put words in your mouth so I'll let you answer but if I read into your last statement about the NT and the canon, I'm guessing you think that passage only applied to them.
I am just a purist when it comes to answering questions about scripture. I am not saying that they don't relate and they probably do, I just want to get to the heart of the context and point of the Matthew passage prior to comparing it to the Acts passage. My first question is around the term "loose" Waht does that mean? I am still working on understanding this passage so know "grand knowledge" over here!!! I would think that the authority given to the apostles and prophets applies in limited scope, i.e. maybe only to Pastors and those in charge of churches/denominations?
I'm not claiming to know it all either. However, people would look to Rabbi's to interpret the text for them and they would "bind" and "loose" on topics (such as divorce, etc). One Rabbi might say it was never ok to divorce, another would say it was ok in cases of adultery or whatever. I read about this quite a bit and it all makes sense just too long to type in this comment section. If you agreed with a certain Rabbi's binding and loosing you would take his "yoke" on you and that's how you'd live. Jesus said his yoke was easy - this is what he meant by "yoke".
It would be great to just say "Well I just follow the Bible." The truth is, we all follow someone's binding and loosing. Do you keep the Sabbath? Allow your wife to wear pants? Do women ever speak in your church? Do you anoint with oil in front of your church to heal the sick? If not - you've loosed yourself from those commands.
I think it's important to realize that we are all under someone's binding and loosing; you can't say it just comes from the Bible because if you really think about it - it doesn't. It comes from someone interpreting the Bible for us in our day right now.
That would underscore the importance of 1 Corinthians 11:1 "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ". It is really important who we are imitating. Our Pastors are held to a very high standard and woe to them that don't live that way.
I would agree that we all are under someone's interpreting of parts of the scripture. Some parts however, are self explanatory. For example, I don't need someone to tell me that God created the heavens and the earth. I don't need someone to help me understand that only those who believe in Christ will be saved. I did need someone to point me to the scripture but the meaning is obvious. Some other topics aren't as easy.
If we are good students of scripture and surround ourselves with good pastor/teachers then we reduce the risk of being taken down a dangerous path