“You didn't hold your mouth just so, and that’s why it didn't open.” “You have to tilt your head to the left and make a face to lift it.” Jokingly we pretend that the expression on our face, the one we often make when exerting force to open or move something, is the active cause of the lid opening or the couch moving, rather than the pressure of our hands or the leverage of our legs and back. We know there's no connection so we make the joke.

It’s not funny when we begin to think that way about some of our traditional church activities. Throughout time God’s people have taken His specific instructions, found acceptable means to accomplish the authorized task, and then bound that specific means of accomplishment on others.

For example the Jews of Jesus’ day took the OT instructions to bind the law to their hands and forehead recorded in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 so literally that they tied scrolls with Bible passages to their hands and foreheads. This became a symbol of obedience for everyone who thought himself a true servant of God. Those who wore the scrolls judged everyone who didn't as unfaithful, despite their own complete failure to believe and obey the words written on those scrolls. It had become such a farce that Jesus rebuked them for their hypocrisy in Matthew 23:5.

Think carefully about some of the things that are merely means of accomplishing God’s requirements that we've turned into requirements. The saints met on the first day of the week, Acts 17:20; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2. We've been meeting twice on Sundays for as long as we can remember. So we bind those two services and wear them as our badge of honor, and woe be to any church that has only one Sunday assembly. Why? We know one Sunday service is perfectly scriptural, but we have two, so if you don't something must be wrong with you. There may, or may not, be a problem with your reason for choosing to have just one Sunday service, but there's certainly something wrong with me binding my tradition of two services on you.

Now this isn't a call for one Sunday service, I happen to like two. It's just some thoughts for your consideration on today's Morning Minutes in the Bible on Traditional Tuesday.