After the Sunday morning service, the congregation gathered at our home for a baptismal service. Since planting the church a few months earlier with my Zambian students, ten converts desired baptism. Prior to the service, I instructed the associates to explain the meaning of baptism and ensure the candidates understood the ritual. After baptizing several, a young man stepped down in the water. As he stood holding his nose, I put one hand on his forehead and the other on his back and asked the standard question I learned in Bible College, “Have you received Christ as your Lord and Savior and been saved?” “No”, he replied. His response caught me completely off guard. My brain went into high gear searching through my memory of every class, book, or note from my training looking for an answer, “What do I do now?” Recalling nothing, I asked him why he wanted me to baptism him. He thought baptism brought salvation. I told him to step out of the pool instructing an associate to explain the Gospel in his native language.
Scripture mandates only two rituals, baptism, and communion. Through the centuries, churches added other extrabiblical rituals. A ritual is a tradition, ceremony, rite, social custom, or protocol done in a specific situation, in the same way each time, and usually without thought. Nothing wrong with rituals, however we must guard against believing the mere enactment conveys a spiritual benefit. The young man in Zambia believed going through the ritual of baptism brought salvation. In contrast, baptism proclaims by an external action the internal work the Holy Spirit already accomplished in the believer’s heart
A second danger exists when people turn a ritual into legalistic practice. Most evangelical Christians would deny they perform any kind of rituals in church beyond baptism and communion or in their personal lives. Yet, every activity—order of service, songs, time of service, clothes one wears, styles of prayer, styles of preaching, and demeanor of one’s emotions—are in fact rituals. The problem arises when a particular custom becomes compulsory protocol. One example involves our daily devotion time. All Christians should engage in a time of studying the Bible and praying as a daily ritual. I practiced this routine since I committed my life to Christ. However, at one point because of incorrect teaching, I found myself feeling guilty if something prevented this time, or guilty because it was shorter than normal, or I didn’t read a prescribed amount of scripture, or I didn’t do it early in the morning as I was taught. This resulted in fear I would go through the day without God’s blessings. I realized my ritual had turned into a legalistic bondage. After this insight, I returned to freedom in Christ.
The best of rituals can slip into legalistic traditions. The Pharisees and scribes journeyed over 60 miles from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee where they confronted Jesus about why His disciples failed to follow the ritual of washing their hands before eating bread. Their concern was not physical hygiene, but over a complex ritual for ceremonial cleansing by dipping the hands, rubbing with the fist, and allowing the water to drip down their elbows before eating. This illustrates an unbiblical man made ritual turning into a legalistic religious tradition.
Few may realize the expected demeanor of emotions in church fall under the category of rituals. Through the years, I attended churches on both ends of this spectrum from no display of emotions to shouting the roof off. We are emotional beings and somewhere between these two extreme lies a balance. A danger exists when people equate hyper-emotions with God’s presence, spirituality or ‘the anointing.’ If people don’t experience particular feelings, they assume God did not bless the service. In contrast, a sermon may be horrible or even unscriptural, but if people experienced their expected emotion then they believe it was a wonderful service. People can develop the ability of prompting their own emotions assuming this must happen to experience God’s presence. Ministers in these settings soon learn how to manipulate emotions so they have a ‘good service’.
The Lord condemned Israel for their meaningless rituals (Isa 1:11-16) because of iniquity in their lives. Living for or ministering to the LORD is not a set of rituals. Serving God is a matter of the heart through a relationship with Him and obedience to His Word. Believers can perform external rituals and go through mindless motions without even thinking about God—sing, pray, read, etc. However, God desires we enter His presence with conscience deliberate focus and fellowship with Him and He with us through the Holy Spirit.
Sustaining Word for the Week: By faith, not feeling, enter into His presence with conscience deliberate focus on Christ and fellowship with Him through the Holy Spirit. Beware of your good rituals turning into a legalistic bondage.