He Cannot Tell What Is the Bible and What Is Just How He Was Raised

He noticed it in a supermarket, of all places, standing in front of a shelf.

There was a thing he does not buy. He has never bought it. He felt the familiar low resistance and then, for the first time in his life, asked himself where that came from, and could not answer.

He got home and started making a list, and the list was longer than he expected and it went in three columns.

Column one, things he is sure are in the book. Column two, things he is sure are his grandmother. Column three is the problem. Column three is most of it.

And the thing about column three is that he cannot tell from the inside. They all feel exactly the same. They all arrive with the same weight, in the same voice, at the same speed, and every one of them has felt like God for thirty years.

Jesus separated the two by name

There is a confrontation in Mark where He does exactly this operation, out loud, and He is not gentle about it.

Some religious leaders complain that His disciples are not doing a hand-washing ritual, and He answers with this.

For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men. (Mark 7:8, King James Version)

Two categories, in one sentence, named separately.

He is not saying tradition is worthless. He is saying they had become indistinguishable in that room, and that when they became indistinguishable, one of them quietly displaced the other.

And He says it to serious people who genuinely thought they were being careful.

You are not the first to have those two run together. Mark 7 separates them by name in a single sentence, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old confrontation feel like a tool rather than an accusation.

He gave the test in one line

A few chapters earlier there is a sentence that gives the way to tell.

And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath. (Mark 2:27)

Made for man.

That is a question you can put to any rule. Who is this for.

A thing from God is for the person. It exists because it does something for somebody. A rule that has drifted has usually flipped, and the person is now serving the rule and nobody remembers what the rule was serving.

And He says this about the sabbath, which was not a house rule. It was in the ten. Even a real commandment can get turned around.

You have a test you can put to any one of them. Mark 2 gives the question in eleven words, and it is His Spirit who makes an old line usable at a supermarket shelf.

Paul refuses to hand freedom back

There is a sentence in Galatians written to people who were being talked into taking rules back on.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1)

Entangled again.

That is a word for something you get caught in without deciding to. Not chosen. Caught.

And Paul, who was as observant as anybody in his generation, is the one writing it, which means he is not sneering at anybody's practice from the outside.

You are standing in something you were made free into. Galatians 5 puts liberty and entanglement in one sentence and picks a side, and it is the Holy Spirit who is named all through that letter as the one who leads instead of the list.

Colossians names the shape it takes

There is a passage in Colossians that describes what these rules sound like from the inside, and it is uncomfortably accurate.

Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using; after the commandments and doctrines of men? (Colossians 2:21-22)

Touch not. Taste not. Handle not.

Three short prohibitions, given without reasons, in the imperative. That is exactly what column three sounds like at a supermarket shelf.

And Paul says something about them a verse later that is worth reading twice: they have a shew of wisdom. They look right. That is the whole difficulty.

You are looking at things that have a show of wisdom rather than a source. Colossians 2 names the sound of them and then names the appearance, and it is His Spirit who makes an old description read like a diagnosis.

And he leaves room for the ones that stay

This is the part that keeps the whole exercise honest, because the answer is not to throw the list out.

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. (Romans 14:5)

Fully persuaded in his own mind.

Paul is not saying it does not matter. He is saying the man himself has to know why, and that two people can land differently and both be honest.

Which means the goal is not an empty list. It is a list where a man can say where each item came from.

You are allowed to keep the ones you can source. Romans 14 asks for a man to be fully persuaded rather than to be uniform, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old allowance feel like room rather than laxity.