7. Easy

Paul encouraged us to not stray from the simplicity that is found in Christ. His thought was, well… we tend to make things infinitely more complex. We tend to move towards complex religious systems.

Jesus, on the other hand, came to make things easy.

Follow me here…

Moses received the Law- ten commandments which, in Hebrew, were expressed using only ten words (they have a far more economical language than we do).

613 more laws were then added to explain what those ten words meant. They had moral laws, civil laws, and religious laws.

You’d think that would be enough, but no… well intended leaders created the Mishnah, the oral tradition built around the laws, to explain what each one meant…

That wasn’t enough, either. Enter, the Talmud.

Then the legal comments added by scribes and lawyers (and their “fences” and “hedges” around the law).

And, then along come the rabbis…

Jesus drops into this tradition of the rabbis, and picks up some of their practices- So, we see Jesus do things like:

• Binding and loosing (and passing the same power to His disciples)
• “You’ve heard it said… but I say…” (the “go to” formula rabbis used to compare and contrast their positions on matters
• Fulfilling Torah, that is, showing the essence / heart of it

A rabbi’s system of thought was known as a “yoke.” Jesus came with a simple, though (read Matthew 11:28-30) NOT a yoke that bound people with a heavy burden (see Matthew 23:4).

We see His disciples make the yoke lighter in Acts 15 (see 15:8-11,28-29) and in Galatians (see 5:1).

If religion is weighing you down, it’s not the yoke of Jesus, for sure… because Jesus came to make it simple, easy…