ABERRATION

From My Perspective - - -

When you listen to or read the daily news, do you begin to think there is more to a story than that which is being reported? Regardless of the television or radio source utilized, do you begin to feel that you are listening to news readers rather than news reporters? Do you start to think that all are using the same sources and not doing investigative and research journalism? Do you find yourself reaching for the remote or dial so you can change the channel or station? If so, you are one of many who believe the “news” has become subjective rather than objective, and is biased to reflect a particular point of view or promote a particular person or cause. We might call such activity either Journalistic or Political Aberration.

What is an Aberration? It is “the act of departing from the right, normal or usual course; the act of deviating from the ordinary, usual or normal; a deviation from truth or moral rectitude.” Some of this was apparent during the recent protests and demonstrations at American Embassies in more than twenty countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The American representatives were hesitant from stating that in Libya, where the Consulate was infiltrated and the Ambassador and three others were murdered, it was an act of terrorism. There was an effort of subterfuge, deceit and stubborn resistance rather than a readiness and willingness to identify the actions in the various countries as Terrorism. It seemed as though everyone observing from afar had reached that conclusion despite the official aberration to the contrary.

Aberration is not only present in the secular but in the spiritual as well. It is most obvious in the Legalism addressed in Holy Scripture. Legalism is a commitment to the letter of the Law rather than to the spirit of it. This was epitomized by the Pharisees. Jerry Bridges writes in, Jesus Challenges The Pharisees, the following: “The Pharisees were the ultimate religious of people among the Jews during Christ’s life on earth. Determined not to break any of God’s Laws, they…devised an intricate system of oral tradition to keep them from breaking the Mosaic Law… For them, the Scriptures of the Old Testament were a set of rules that must be kept at all costs… For the Pharisees, God looked only at their external compliance with the Law of God… The most proximate cause of the Pharisee’s antagonism toward Jesus…lay in His ignoring of their hundreds of elaborate but petty rules that they had devised for interpreting the Law of God. Not only did they devise these hundreds of man-made rules, but they had also elevated them to the level of Scripture, so that to break one of their rules was to violate the Law of God itself.”

In Matthew 23:11-12 (NKJV), Jesus makes a general statement: “he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” He follows this statement with a scathing denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees and the danger and consequences of their teachings. In Matthew 23:13-29, Jesus pronounces a series of “Woes” upon those who were teaching and placing unnecessary burdens upon the people. The Message Paraphrase states in verse 24, “Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?” The force of these “woes” is given in Matthew 23:31-33, “you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?”

Sadly, in what we call the “Church of Jesus Christ”, there are those who establish their sets of rules and requirements. Some become borderline “cultic”, although they would deny it. There are those who have their “standards” for how a person should dress and act if they attend “my church” or “our church”! One would suspect that some might even frown and gossip about Jesus Christ if he walked into one of “our churches” and/or challenged our “traditions and customs”! As professing “Christian people”, we may have too many oral traditions and our own aberrant approach to spirituality. Consider these things with me!