Transactional Christianity

Transactional Christianity

 

Mary Ann Wray

While listening to the morning, show on Joy FM the other day, JR shared something that really stood out to me and helped me not only recognize a thought pattern that I’ve had, but understand “Why” I believed that way.

He said that he grew up with a transactional type of Christian theology. He went on to explain that his younger sister‘s son was born with juvenal diabetes. For the first two years of his life, it was extremely difficult-touch and go with him. He literally had to wear a bell around his neck in the event that he fell or passed out and needed attention.

He went on to say that his sister asked him one day, “What sin did I commit that God would allow this to happen to my son?” He used this example to say that it has taken him many many years to overcome this type of mentality.

I have to say that I grew up with the same type of theology/ mentality and it was iterated again when I followed the word of faith movement. From a personal experience, I will never forget the day that a priest came to my home the evening that my parents lost my adopted baby brother due to asphyxiation. I was only 10 years old. He said the following in our living room while pointing his finger at my father and said, “God is punishing you for some sin you committed.” The room, fell to dead silence while my mother, friends and I listened on with a sense of unbelief and deep shame. Somehow, I knew in my heart this priest was wrong. Unfortunately, my dad believed him and carried that guilt for the rest of his life.

As JR explained transactional theology, and Christianity goes something like this…” I do something good and God does something good for me. I give something to God, and he gives something in return to me. I do something bad, and something bad happens to me. I commit a sin, and God punishes me with some sort of bad circumstance.”

This sounds so much like the modern day view of “Karma.” It also reminds me of how I’ll go to a store and want to purchase a blouse for example, and I give the clerk $10 in exchange for being able to own and take the blouse home.

Adding my own thoughts to this, it is true that God corrects and chastises those whom he loves (Hebrews12). But correction and chastening does not inflict the kind of pain that comes from unexplained hardships, betrayals, and tragic circumstances. It is also true,  there is a spiritual law of sowing and reaping found in Genesis 8:22 and a Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8. However, that law has little to do with “transactional faith” as JR coined it.

If God rewarded me according to my sins, I’d be long dead. At the same to me, if I could measure in tangible units, how much I have given in exchange for what I have received in “kind” there would appear to be an extreme imbalance. Having said that, many of God‘s blessings cannot be measured in physical units, or human terms.

The point of all this is that we might understand God‘s mercies are new every morning, and He is faithful, even when we are not. He does not reward us according to our sins. In fact, the gift of eternal life cannot be bought or sold. Eternal life is a gift of God. Yes, it is just that, a gift. It is given to all of us who would believe upon Christ, repent of our sins and receive him as the sacrificial lamb slain for our sins.

I heard someone say that Grace is when God gives us what we don’t deserve and mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve.

To sum it all up, it is truly freeing, to walk by faith in Jesus without any condemnation!Romans 8:1

Related scriptures:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

You were saved by Grace through Faith out of urine works less any man should both. Ephesians 2: 8-9

“For whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid themrespect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened usas seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Hebrews 12: 6-11