Golf swing illustrates legalism

My co-teacher Curt taught the lesson “Are you saved?” today and did an excellent job. First he overviewed the beginning three lessons since we missed last Sunday. Then he covered the meaty material in chapter 3 of Romans followed with the example of Abraham in Romans 4.

Curt used the “golf swing” as an illustration of a complex task that has a simple goal—hit the ball (download and try the 'polygonviewer.exe'). The golf swing is amazingly complex and he made the point that a perfect swing cannot be achieved on every stroke. There are so many little points to remember such as grip, stance, alignment, rotation, down swing, follow through, etc. so as to make it impossible to put them all into practice every swing. It’s like trying to achieve salvation thru a legalistic system. It is just not possible.

Sometimes players hit a crummy shot and exclaim, “But I did everything perfect!” That’s like bringing a wrong attitude to the Lord and saying “Look at what all I did.” It’s not faith that is exercised in this case.

Anyway, I think you get the main idea! Curt did an excellent job of creating an interactive session with many members of Encouragers participating in the discussion. Thanks Curt!