Jesus Did Not Believe in the "Nadab And Abihu" Argument for Authority In Religious Matters

Many might get riled up by the suggestion that God didn't lay down specific plans/instructions for how we are to assemble. This is a huge leap for many of us who have been trained since childhood to "keep the pattern" (a la Heb 8:5). But even within the book of Acts we can see how the "pattern" changes over time and distance, with communism being the first way of life for Christians (Acts 4:32), but moving quickly to a model allowing for private-ownership of property (Acts 5:4); with new church roles/offices being "invented" as the need arises (Acts 6:1-6); with allowances being made for different worship practices by different groups (Acts 15:6-35).

So we need to question the idea that "Everything believed and practiced in religion must have divine authority behind it."

Jesus did not believe in this principle. Please bear with me; please don't be reactive without considering what the scriptures say about it. Here are three lines of evidence that Jesus did not believe in the "Nadab and Abihu" principle:

1) He pointed out the example of David eating the showbread (Matt 12:3-4), which was not "lawful" for David to eat. The point Jesus is making is that situational need takes precedence over red-tape law-keeping.

2) Jesus himself practiced things in religion without having divine authority behind it (Example 1): He attended synagogue. Yet synagogue was never commanded, never authorized. It just magically appears somewhere between the Old Testament and New, without any God-given authority, and yet Jesus accepts it and participates in it as a customary habit (Luke 4:16).

3) Jesus himself practiced things in religion without having divine authority behind it (Example 2): He drank a beverage, and ate bread-dip, at the Passover (Mark 14:20, 23), neither of which was authorized anywhere by God. The regulations were very specific about how to keep the Passover, and there was no mention of either beverages or bread-dips, and yet Jesus participates in his Passover worship with these unauthorized things as a part of it.

Originally published at:
http://kentwest.blogspot.com/2014/09/jesus-did-not-believe-in-nadab-and.html