NOTE: If you’ve not read parts one, two and three, you might want to – I’ll wait for you here…

“I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” Matt 18:18-20

One of the “new” first-century Hebraic concepts picked up by scholars since the reestablishment of Israel is that of binding and loosing. This concept is the process by which communities went about restricting (binding) or permitting (loosing) different practices or behaviors not explicitly addressed in scripture. It is the way communities were able to stay relevant and to give everyone in the community basic guidance on how to live in the current culture. Those things that were bound (restricted) were viewed as being sinful in that community, and were treated by God as such. Those things that were loosed (permitted) were not viewed as sinful and were not held against that person by God as sin.

In the first century, according to the oral traditions, Hebrew communities needed a group of 10 adult male community members, at minimum, to be able to debate and discuss scripture and, if necessary, to bind or loose practices – based on the outcome of the debate. From Jesus’ words above, it seems that He is actually relaxing the 10-person requirement from the oral traditions down to 2-3 persons. The amount of trust and responsibility He has given his disciples is astounding, when you stop to think about it!

Why would He do this? My personal belief, based on cultural analysis and study, is that He was anticipating the shifting cultural focus from community (Hebrew culture) to the individual (Greek/Roman culture), and the emergence of a gentile-dominated church. In the first century Hebrew culture, all members of the community belonged to the synagogue. In the early Christian church, particularly in Asia Minor, the church “community” was often a small group of families and not the community at large, which would also warrant such a change in practice by Jesus.

Probably the first time we see this in practice is in Acts 15, where a question is sent to the church leaders in Jerusalem to decide the question on what parts of Torah – including circumcision – must be followed by gentile believers. Here is the answer they received:

“We understand that some men from here have troubled you and upset you with their teaching, but they had no such instructions from us. So it seemed good to us, having unanimously agreed on our decision [...] For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or eating the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.” Acts 15:24-29

Where the church leaders in Jerusalem fell out was basically that gentiles needed to follow the Noaic laws, but not the Mosaic laws – particularly the ceremonial and dietary ones – would not apply to them. However, based on the pervasiveness of idolatry in Asia Minor, they clarified that the gentile believers should not eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols.

Danger, Will Robinson!

One of the my most profound Hollywood moments in recent history occurred in Spider-man, where the key message was with great power comes great responsibility. What a profoundly concise thought.

In the case of binding and loosing, this is the paramount of truth. In the church, elders/overseers are the obvious seat of binding and loosing, with (and forgive my beating a dead horse here) “apt to teach” (i.e. scholarship) as a primary requirement. Binding and loosing often requires walking on the edge of a razor, and without scholarship deeply rooted in and respectful of scripture, the church is likely to slide into the swamp of legalism or the abyss of hedonism.

Law & Order

On one side of the razor (the binding side) is legalism, where we make up rules we think will please God but which are based primarily on tradition/culture and only loosely (if at all) on scripture. I’ve already blogged on this topic at length, so I won’t use much more space. However, this side of the razor has historically been the home of institutionalized prejudice and bigotry, and has been exploited to rail against cultural changes (like music style and clothing style) that have nothing to do with morality and everything to do with personal taste.

When the world sees Christianity, this is the dark underbelly it blows up and exploits (along with hypocrisy) in order to discredit the church. Evangelical/Fundamental churches, of which I am a lifelong member, tend to fall into this trap more often than mainline churches.

Wild, Wild, West

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Pr 14:12

On the loosing side of the razor is the danger of permitting things that are explictly and/or implicitly forbidden in scripture, often based on personal bias or a political/personal agenda. Mainline churches have found themselves indistinguishable from society and have seen their rolls drop like stones as a result of their lassiez-faire attitude toward discernment of sin and overt permissiveness. These churches often equate ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’ and try to make the Bible say things it just doesn’t say in advancing a hedonistic agenda.

In current events, the poster child for this is the Episcopal church and its ordination of actively homosexual ministers, which I won’t go into in depth here…

On the Edge

With great power comes great responsibility. Since few church leaders have the Bible committed to memory, it is important that the leaders to whom we trust to bind and loose have at minimum a deep understanding of the Bible (”apt to teach”) and preferably a modicum of sholarship in interpretation of scripture. With the advent of the internet and the depth of catalogs (like Amazon.com), it is important that our leaders stay abreast of current scholarship and thought, using this, accompanied by Jesus’ yoke, as lenses through which to view cultural practices and to judge them.

For instance, William J. Webb does a great job in Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis of dissecting the scriptural context related to the treatment of women, slaves and homosexuals by the church. He concludes that mysogynistic practices in the church are not supported by Torah, but are based on chuches misapplying advice from Paul to churches that had specific cultural questions and were not looking for overall “rulings” on what all churches should bind and loose. He then concludes that the advice on treatment of slaves was not given to condone slavery, itself, but on how to deal with what was a cultural norm in the first century. Finally, he concludes that there are specific commandments, firmly rooted in Torah and reaffirmed in the New Testament which forbid homosexuality, categorizing it specifically as sin and not as a cultural norm to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

It is this type of scholarship that is required by the church if it is to be relevant and vibrant today.

In Conclusion

I’ve reached the end of this bunny trail, I think, as it relates to the Kingdom of God. It is this entire framework of thought that has challenged, shaken, tested and shaped me into someone much different than I was even a year ago, today. As an agent of the Creator, most of the choices I make bring about the Kingdom or tear part of it down into chaos. It is important for me to know the text, to apply Jesus’ yoke to it and to support (but be willing and able to debate) leadership in its binding and loosing decisions… To me, this seems to be a much more active and real way to live life as a disciple.