Issues with Legalism....

I have been burdened by things out there that many Baptist churches, mainly the independent fundamental churches recommend, and some require, their members to take part in. I myself grew up in a church where listening to rock music was wrong, girls couldn't wear pants or shorts, we could only use the KJV Bible, and a few more "odd" rules.
I am not exactly sure why I have been thinking about this in the last few days. I think much of it is because I have been looking at myself and asking, "are you serving God doing this or doing that?" I decided to investigate what legalism is. In a basic sense, legalism is following a law. To get the main definition, click here. There are blogs and articles out there on how "bad" IFB churches are, but the one author in particular that I am speaking of failed to mention that instead of focusing on what these other churches are doing, we need to be focusing on ourselves and follow God's leading. I read his page and I do agree that in some areas he was correct but I do think he went a tad bit to far.
My question is where do IFB churches get their basis for some of their standards? That's what I looked into. Lets start with Bible translation. I grew up in churches that were and still are KJV only or King James Version only. I had always wondered why. What is their reasoning? I was always told "its the closest to the original Greek and Hebrew texts." Ok. I can understand that but what about those who translated it? how knowledgeable were they with Greek and Hebrew? Did King James himself choose these translators because they knew Greek and Hebrew or did he choose them because "they were the best in the business"? While searching, I found a site called www.Bible.org, and I checked out their statement of faith. Green light there. I found some articles that were a series of lectures given at Lancaster Baptist College. There are 4 parts to the series called The History of the English Bible. Although I would love to make my points on here, I urge you to read the series yourself as my explanation here would take a lot of copying and pasting and quoting sources. Inserting hyperlinks is much easier. Now I am not trying to convince you to "switch versions." That is not the case at all! My main concern is that no version is "the closest" to the original due to different cultural as well as language barriers, after all, you can say something in French but if you wanted to translate something in English to French, you are not going to get an exact word for word translation. Not only that but back in Bible times, the language was "primitive" as in one word could have several different meanings and words that we have today (some of which are used in the KJV) there aren't even Greek and Hebrew words for! My advice is to not be afraid to take of the veil and to be open to reading and learning from other translations. I personally like NASB and NKJV. I still use KJV. In fact, its what I use in church and in my own Bible reading. If there is something that I don't understand, I am not opposed to opening up a different translation to read the verse. Maybe I will use two or three more translations. Then I go back to the KJV and re-read. Now I know people may try to use the Bible verse that tells us that God is not the author of confusion but of peace but I personally think that those who try to use that reasoning are doubting God's power. Why? Because my own experience tells me that because I went to the Lord and prayed for His help in understanding, He has helped me to understand. Now when I hear another translation being read from the one I am looking at, I don't get confused. I understand and I know that it is God's power that has helped me to do that. Another thing too, is that because I have "let down the wall" that prevented me from fully being able to enjoy God's Word, I have had a few people from my church tell me how blessed they are to see how God has worked in my life. I ask how they know this. They tell me that by my questions, they see God working in me. Isn't that a comfort and a blessing? Onto the next topic, women's clothing.
All while growing up I was told that I couldn't wear jeans because it was men's clothing and "God says women are not to wear men's clothing." Ok. That made sense. As I got older, and I saw people I knew, even people from my own family and church, wearing jeans or pants, I started to question this. Then there was the fact that I could find jeans in the girls/women's section of the shopping malls and other stores. If it was "men's" clothing, then why was it found among women's clothing. I started looking for answers. First, I want to share an article I found online that looks at what the Bible has to say about this. The article is called That Which Pertaineth and takes a look at Dueteronomy 22:5. What I found was truly interesting. The author takes the word pertaineth from the KJV and states the Hebrew word, keily, means an article or a vessel/utensil. Then they look at the word man and the Hebrew word for man that is used in this verse is 'geber' which means man or strong man/warrior. So if this verse forbids women to wear what pertaineth to a man, this verse is really talking about forbiding women to wear the gear of a warrior. Interesting. Now this article also explains that there is another word in Hebrew that also means man but it means man in the sense of 'male' as in not female. The article points out that Moses was targeting a specific kind of man in verse 5. Not a farmer, or doctor, but a warrior. I would love to explain this more, but the article says it so well you will just have to read it. Now I am not saying that those who do wear skirts and dresses only should wear jeans because the verse here is not stating women can't wear jeans. After all, the New Testament speaks about women dressing modestly and I can agree that many of the clothes made today including jeans really arent that modest. I mean, if a girl wears "skinny jeans" they may as well wear dark blue paint on their legs because this particular style of jeans are so tight. The New Testament (forgive me for not knowing the reference right off hand) also speaks about men lusting after women and in doing so are committing adultery in their hearts. So in defense of women wearing dresses and skirts only, this does decrease the amount of looking that men will do, unless the girl in question wears a very short dress or a skirt that is missing quite a bit of length. Wearing dresses and skirts of appropriate length and size (meaning not too tight as to draw the eye) is modest apparel but keep in mind that pants and jeans as long as they are not too tight and are very casual in appearance are modest too. Especially since the jeans cover more leg than a knee length skirt will. Another thing to consider is that in Bible times, their choices of clothing were very slim. Both men and women pretty much wore clothing that had very little to no distinction as to if it were for men or women so it would make sense that how a person acted had a lot to do with it. For example, a woman wearing jeans and a t-shirt and acting like a man. And the last thing to consider is the ministry that people are in. For example, a pastor's wife may wear pants at home but not out in public because she wants to portray a more ladylike appearance. Of course it goes a bit deeper than that and there are more reasons but I am going to leave it at that for now. Within the next week or so, I am going to talk about rock music or more specifically contemporary 'Christian' music and what the Bible has to say about that.
Please take a moment to read the articles that you find the links to above. Read with an open mind and also pray about what the Lord wants you to learn. Cast all previous opinions and beliefs aside.