I’m trying to be religious, but I’m not as religious as I’d like to be!
That may seem strange to you, because at some point in time, religion became a dirty word. Perhaps it was always a dirty word outside of the church, but then for some unknown reason to me, christians decided to make it a dirty word inside the church.
“Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship” and “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual” are two popular sayings among Christians. But it’s more than those two sayings that have me writing this post, it’s the amount of times I’ve heard someone stand at the pulpit and basically say, “religion is bad.”
3 Definitions of Religion:
1, Dictionary definition – what you believe.
2, Modern church definition – a system of rules.
3, Biblical definition – doing good.
The word “religion” is only used five times in the Bible and only two verses (that I can find) in the entire Bible seem to give us a definition of what religion is, and they come back-to-back in the book of James. And both tell me that religion or being religious is a very good thing!
1:26 – If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
1:27 – Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
So first looking at 1:26. I’m no theologian and I’m not that smart, but if I sub in the words “good” or “bad” for religious, it seems that only “good” would make sense. If any one among you seem to be good, and birdbath not his tongue, but deciveth his own heart, this man’s goodness is vain. That makes a lot of sense to me. But sub in “bad” and it doesn’t work. If any one among you seem to be bad, and birdbath not his tongue, but deciveth his own heart, this man’s badness is vain.
1:27 is even more clear, “pure religion” is basically to do good and be clean from the world.
“But so much evil has been done in the name of religion!” Yes, yes it has. But that doing bad and calling it religion make true religion bad?
So as for me, I’m seeking to be more religious, because the Bible seems to say that pure religion is very much a good thing!
