Early in my Christian life, I struggled greatly with asceticism - the idea of refusing earthly pleasure for spiritual (or perceived spiritual) disciplines.
There are, of course, true spiritual disciplines encouraged by the bible that can be seen as ascetic - like fasting, but the bible never approves of all avoidance of care for the physical body or the avoidance of all earthly pleasure.
This principle I had to learn by trial and error, but in the mean time you can imagine my confusion when I encountered a text that goes like the following:
Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.
Hebrews 13:9
Avoiding food altogether is a great recipe for humility and one I learned quite quickly as a new believer in Jesus.
But the author, speaking in the context of the passing of the Old Covenant, and it's uselessness compared with the new, is referring to Jewish dietary customs.
And when we talk in those terms, the author of Hebrews is not even talking about food really. Instead he is talking about false spirituality. The kind of false spirituality which everyone boasts about, lauds openly, but actually is devoid of spiritual life.
Ironically, the author of Hebrews is not describing the false spirituality of the Greeks and Romans of his day, nor the tribalistic pagans of ancient Germany - he's talking about kosher laws in Judaism, a dietary restriction that God himself authored.
A Changing of the Spiritual Guard
So then, why would the author of Hebrews profane something God had commended to the sons of Abraham as "not benefiting those devoted to" what God had said? And why would he pit something God had breathed out as a command, even calling disregarding the kosher laws as "unclean" and an "abomination?"
It is because depending on where you stand before God in time, what he requires changes based on what is occurring.
So if you were 20 days into the journey to the promised land in the days of Moses, you had better observe that dietary restriction. But after the Lamb of God was rejected of men and slaughtered, and the presence of God tore the Jewish Temple's curtain asunder and departed... the grace had departed from such a system, such a code, such a spirituality.
You see there was a time when those who eked out exacting Jewish standards for their diet could be considered faithful (think for instance of Daniel and his friends in Babylon), but in the time of the new covenant, the grace inherent in the Jewish ceremonial law had faded to nill. Nothing was left of God in it.
And so now I explain why we're even talking about Jewish dietary laws, and what Christians think of them.
It's because Ichabod is the lesson here. The season of Christianity we dwell in is the Ichabod season. The ark of God going to war with the devil, the secularists, the wicked of the earth, has been captured, and all the confident religious types are ashamed.
The glory has departed from the tabernacle of Christendom.
So the rites of Christendom which normally would be totally faithful: the normal rhythms of Christianity - gatherings in particular - have been vacated of spiritual graciousness.
We live in a Matthew 25 season, where the grace evident in the remnant is unique, and individualistic. We must each look to our own lamp, keeping our oil good for our own souls.
A Principle for The Changing Time
So here is a principle to always be looking for:
What is the thing God requires NOW?
Not the thing he required yesterday.
Not the thing he will require SOMEDAY.
He requires us to live with the troubles of TODAY, not tomorrow, and we must press on for the goal - not thinking of the troubles of yesterday.
If you are always keen on what God requires in the present, you will never miss a boat like some of these "Jewish Christians" the author of Hebrews was addressing: observing a vacated and empty spiritual activity.
Given the speed at which things are moving spiritually these days, I would hope you are already on the boat of this principle and sailing with God with each change of the headwind.
If not, wake up smell the coffee, keep the robes white with God's grace and not the empty spiritual practices of the masses of Christendom.
S.D.G.