Who Let The Dogs Out?

"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."
G. K. Chesterton

The quote above caught my eye because of its obvious importance for Christianity. God has put up certain fences. Yes, sometimes churches add fences of their own. The Jews of Jesus' day did it; it's natural for people to do. However, tearing down fences requires one to be very cautious. Sometimes people have torn down fences they thought were church fences when they were really God's fences. It is the same thing as when we say, "Throwing the baby out with the bath water."

One of those God-built fences Christians seem to be tearing down is baptism. Many are saying baptism is unnecessary because it is "only a form." What really matters is the heart. Baptism is only dunking if no faith is present in the heart of the baptized. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11.6).

But God does some things, and some things happen when one is baptized. We are imitating Christ (Mark 1.9), obeying Christ (Matthew 28.19-20), showing our belief in Christ as Savior (Acts 18.8), being saved (Mark 16.16; 1 Peter 3.21), having our sins washed away (Acts 2.38, 22.16), receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 2.38), being born again (John 3.5; Romans 6.4, 2 Corinthians 5.17, Titus 3.5), being put into Christ (Galatians 3.26-27, Romans 6.3, 1 Corinthians 12.13), and becoming part of Christ's burial and resurrection (Romans 6.3-4; Colossians 2.12). We tear down God's fence by saying these things happen before baptism, when God says they happen in baptism.

Another God-built fence is sexual purity. Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5.27-28). In America, we are not yet inundated by sexual impurity, but we are headed that way. Innuendo, sexual situations or relationships in "day-time dramas" and sit-coms, living with our boyfriends or girlfriends, sexually-explicit song lyrics, Hooters, pornography, etc., prevent spiritually healthy sexuality (and, yes, there is such a thing). It's like drinking water from the Hanford nuclear power plant and wondering why you keep getting tumors. We tear down God's fence by saying we know best and are immune to any kind of sexual influence.

A third God-built fence is church attendance. Hebrews 10.25 says, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching." It was Jesus' habit to attend synagogue (Luke 4.16). The New Testament is full of "one another"s and "each other"s. We tear this fence down by saying God's not interested in us checking off our Christian to-do list so it doesn't matter if we attend regularly or not. Bad things happen if we do not go to work or school regularly. One reason the readers of the Hebrew letter were having so much trouble is because they were lax in their attendance. Church attendance is not the end-all of the Christian life, but neither is it irrelevant to the Christian life.

A fourth is congregational loyalty. The Bible says, "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love (Romans 12.10)." Again, the Bible has lots to say about how we "one another" and "each other." Yet church hopping is becoming a national pastime. George Barna said the average Christian changes churches every three years. When we refuse to work through congregational difficulties and conflicts, we end up being a mile wide and an inch deep spiritually. God does his best faith-building and purifying work in relationship difficulties, whether it is marriage, families, committees, or congregations. We tear his fence down when we say things like, "I have to go where I'm happy."

We may not like God's fences, but I guarantee that he has a jolly good reason for having them.

~Shawn