The Way
What started as an interesting thought project for my own amusement has grown and developed into something quite substantial that I'd like to share with you. For you long-time readers, you may remember an article with a similar title that was posted quite a while ago, but regardless of the similarity in title, they cover two completely different topics.
As followers of God, we refer to our walk with God as, “Christianity” and we say “Christianity” is our “religion;” one of many religions worldwide, and even one of many sects within Christianity. A problem has developed with the idea of religion and even with the idea of Christianity, and they have come to carry the idea and weight that they are a thing that exists alongside our lives. We have our life and then we have our career and our religion, and these two things exist in parallel with our life.
Religion is found in the New Testament, so there is nothing wrong with the word itself, but the idea behind the word, and the connotation it carries with it is problematic. Even in the New Testament the Greek word for religion means external ceremonies and worship, which James says should be taking care of widows and orphans. Instead of pointless rituals, we are supposed to be doers of the law.
James 1:25-27 NKJV — But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
Herein lies the problem with using the word religion or even Christian to describe our walk with God. I've been as clear as mud up to this point, but allow me a moment to clarify. Religion implies something existing outside but alongside our life, as does Christianity. It's something we are in addition to all the other things we are, but that isn't exactly how we are supposed to be living. Following God isn't a part-time gig that we do when it's convenient for us, and that's what got me thinking about finding a different word for the act of following God. With little difficulty, one came to mind, and it is actually what the Bible uses to refer to those following God.
Following God should encompass our entire life, rather, it should be our entire life. We should live out of the act of following God, not follow God out of our way of living. Most every religion in the world uses this way of living, which is one reason the word religion has come to mean what it has. It is something that exists alongside the worshiper’s life to be pulled out and utilized when it is convenient. God's way and our lives are not supposed to be like this at all.
Deuteronomy 30:16 NKJV — “in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.
An interesting phrase pops up throughout the Old and New Testament that takes one step closer to how we should view our walk with God. “You will live,” or more correctly, “You shall have life.” I'll share a compilation of all these scriptures so you can see what I am getting at.
Leviticus 18:5 NKJV — ‘You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.
Ezekiel 20:11 NKJV — “And I gave them My statutes and showed them My judgments, ‘which, if a man does, he shall live by them.’
Ezekiel 20:13 NKJV — “Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they did not walk in My statutes; they despised My judgments, ‘which, if a man does, he shall live by them’; and they greatly defiled My Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out My fury on them in the wilderness, to consume them.
Ezekiel 20:21 NKJV — “Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, and were not careful to observe My judgments, ‘which, if a man does, he shall live by them’; but they profaned My Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out My fury on them and fulfill My anger against them in the wilderness.
Nehemiah 9:29 NKJV — And testified against them,
That You might bring them back to Your law.
Yet they acted proudly,
And did not heed Your commandments,
But sinned against Your judgments,
‘Which if a man does, he shall live by them.’
And they shrugged their shoulders,
Stiffened their necks,
And would not hear.
Habakkuk 2:4 NKJV — “Behold the proud,
His soul is not upright in him;
But the just shall live by his faith.
Luke 10:28 NKJV — And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”
Romans 1:17 NKJV — For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
The law, properly used, leads to life, which means that an absence of law leads to a reduction of life. We see this quite clearly when we look at such laws as “Do not commit adultery,” or “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” Not following these laws will quickly reduce the quality of life a person enjoys, or even at its later end, death. Reaching this conclusion hardly requires advanced calculus, nor is it rocket science, yet far too many Christians seem unable to reach this conclusion, and one is left to wonder why. Returning to our earlier topic, it seems that in the course of time, God’s law has become a matter of religion rather than righteousness. We just rely on faith now, and if someone is keeping the law, well, it’s simply part of their religion and they are legalistic to boot.
Reading through the Bible, we don’t find such a thing among the writers contained therein, rather, we find a deep love and reverence for the law of God held by all the writers regardless of the time of writing. They treat the law as an obvious conclusion of anyone seeking to follow God, and for anyone to do otherwise would mean they were not following God at all.
1 John 2:3-7 NKJV Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
4 He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.
6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
7 Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning.
The Secret Service has specially trained people on its force, people trained to be able to recognize counterfeits of official government documents. It would seem an impossible task, for the very nature of a counterfeit means that it must be as close to the original as possible if it is going to pass inspection. A counterfeit is very close to the original document, but it is still its own thing, the creation of the one who made it. With the thousands of different counterfeits running around out there, an agent could train his entire life and still not be able to recognize them all, but for one thing; they only have to study one, know one like the back of their hand: the original.
That’s right, as long as they know the original, they will be able to recognize all the fakes out there because no matter how close a fake might be, even if only one thing is different, the fact remains that it is not the original: it’s a fake. Religions are the same way, especially when you start talking about Christianity.
A common question, or rather a common statement that gets made is, “Is it a salvational issue?” Where this question is applied to God’s law, it’s the wrong question. It’s not a matter of salvational vs not salvational when it comes to His law, rather, it is a question of original vs counterfeit. You might ask, “Really, what’s the harm in changing one thing, adding Christmas, or keeping the Sabbath on Sunday or not at all? God will understand. It’s really not salavational.”
That would be the wrong conclusion, naturally. When you change one thing on the original, it becomes a counterfeit. It might seem harmless, but at the end of the road, you find tragically that the path went the wrong direction and followed the wrong Jesus the whole time. There are certainly non-salvational issues such as the calendar arguments, the arguments about how to pronounce Jesus’s name, etc, but God’s law is not one of them. Modern Christianity has forgotten this, however, and that is why religion and the words “Christian” and “denomination” become problematic.
There is nothing wrong with these words, to be clear, but they tend to conjure an idea that there is more than one acceptable way to follow God, and that would be a very dangerous conclusion to reach. The Bible is full of stories about people who reached that same conclusion, and it didn’t end well. The entire book of Judges, for example, can be summed up in the phrase, “and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” If you are familiar at all with the Book of Judges, you know that that never ended well for them. They went their own way, a counterfeit way, instead of God’s way.
Those words are how people in the Bible referred to themselves, though, right?
Maybe, though there is some disagreement about that, there is another phrase they used to describe themselves that fits a bit better. This is the thought that set me upon writing this article in the first place. If Christianity and religion are problematic and rarely used words in the Bible, is there another word that they used to describe themselves?
Much to my surprise, indeed there is, and it perfectly embodies the singularity of God and His instructions, putting to bed the idea that there are many ways to follow God.
First, I’ll share some sections from the Old Testament.
Psalm 27:11 NKJV Teach me Your way, O LORD, And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
Psalm 119:15 NKJV I will meditate on Your precepts, And contemplate Your ways.
Psalm 119:128 NKJV Therefore all [Your] precepts [concerning] all [things] I consider [to be] right; I hate every false way.
Proverbs 15:10 NKJV Harsh discipline [is] for him who forsakes the way, [And] he who hates correction will die.
Isaiah 30:21 NKJV Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This [is] the way, walk in it," Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left.
Psalm 25:4-5 NKJV Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths.
5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You [are] the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.
Did you ever wonder what followers of God were called before they started being called “Christians?”
Worshippers of Jehovah were not just in Israel. Remember, Abraham, Noah, and the three wise men came from outside of Israel. We can make guesses as to how they were known, but by the New Testament, they were known by the simple fact that they walked in God’s way, as you’ll see in the following scriptures.
Acts 19:9 NKJV But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
Acts 9:2 NKJV and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.
Acts 24:14 NKJV "But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.
Acts 19:23 NKJV And about that time there arose a great commotion about the Way.
Acts 24:22 NKJV But when Felix heard these things, having more accurate knowledge of [the] Way, he adjourned the proceedings and said, "When Lysias the commander comes down, I will make a decision on your case."
Acts 24:22 NKJV But when Felix heard these things, having more accurate knowledge of [the] Way, he adjourned the proceedings and said, "When Lysias the commander comes down, I will make a decision on your case."
2 Peter 2:15, 21 NKJV They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the [son] of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known [it], to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
The followers of God were known as, “followers of the Way,” and the system of worship of God was simply known as, “The Way.” Nothing out of the ordinary beyond the new footing that Jesus shed His blood for sins brought, in fact, notice what Paul says in Acts 22.
Acts 24:14 NKJV "But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.
This “Way” included the Old Testament, that is, the law and the Prophets. No surprise there, since it is called The Way, meaning one way, and since God does not change, it would be silly of us to think that His Way of worship would change either. One Way, with all the others being counterfeits, and is referred to as the same thing in the Old Testament as we saw in the scriptures above. It might appear that Paul had a problem with the law, but that is also the wrong place to start from. We have several posts on this blog that I'll add links to at the end that more fully explain this concept, but here is a great place to begin.
2 Peter 3:16 NKJV as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable [people] twist to their own destruction, as [they do] also the rest of the Scriptures.
Is there anything wrong with using the other titles for followers of God? No, and now there is another one to add to the list of things we can call ourselves; a title that is short, sweet, and to the point. We don’t have to worry about the wrong message being sent because this tells us and those around us that there is only one way to go, only one original, only one true system of worship. We might not know everything there is to know about God, and we might not do things perfectly, but the Bible gives us a great place to start. When we start with the Bible as the one true source of wisdom and knowledge and the guidebook to God, we start in the right place.
Religion, sects, or denominations are traps that are really easy to fall into because there is only one way that leads to life. Just like those early followers of God, we should be followers of The Way, not men or religions. It’s pretty easy to tell which ways are counterfeits when you know the real Way like the back of your hand. Any other no matter how close to the real Way, is counterfeit. Any of them that try to add things or remove things are trying to make God’s Way their own. They are trying to make it into their own image, and they are counterfeit ways. There are many false prophets and teachers, and the easiest way to know which ones are not true is to compare them to the Bible. If what they teach goes against the Word of God, then they are false.
1 John 4:1 NKJV Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
There is only one way that leads to life, and it is God’s Way. This is The Way, walk you in it.
As promised, here is some further reading!
The Mystery Of Christian Anarchy
10 Pagan Traditions Of Mainstream Christianity
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