Getting Fined!

When I was at the Naval Academy and someone broke a regulation, through either neglect or poor performance, that person was given demerits.  And with too many demerits came extra duty or restriction.  It's what you'd expect from a service academy.

My son is at a small Christian college, and like every college, it has rules for students' behavior.  Before his freshman year, I noted that students who missed a mandatory floor meeting (in the dorm) would be fined; I think it was $25.  I sort of chuckled, but...

I've since learned the college has other standards that, when broken, also carry a fine.  Hmm.  

Is this how a Christian college should teach or enforce desired behavior?

You see, a lot of people think that the main part of being a Christian is following the rules, doing what's right, being a good person. 

And they got it wrong.  

Yes, Christians are taught and commanded to obey, to follow the law.  But the law isn't what saves; it can't save.

It's through the law that we're convicted, that we know our own sin.

Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.  Romans 7:7b 

God's law, His Word, it condemns; it shows us our sin.  It ultimately tells us that we can't keep His law, that we can't save ourselves.

...yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ...because by works of the law no one will be justified.  Galatians 2:16

It's when God's law tells us we're guilty, that the door is then opened for us to know the complete forgiveness of sins.  In Jesus, all fines have been paid.  But if we don't know we're sinners, through and through, then we don't know or comprehend that forgiveness.
 
I know that the college just wants to maintain order and wants the students to follow the rules.  But I have to ask, "Are they just making Pharisees, Christians who look down on others who aren't as good as they are?"

I think the college is missing an opportunity to share and reinforce the heart of Christianity in two ways.  They should be:

1.  Teaching God's love and forgiveness of sins based, not on works, but on the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

2.  Teaching the importance and joy of loving and forgiving other people.

And having a system of fines - well, it just emphasizes and supports the idea of salvation by a person's own works.

I don't know the answer to this, but I think it starts with hearing and reading God's Word.  Our true good works will always flow and follow from our own forgiveness, from the gospel.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive...Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  Colossians 3:12-13, 16-17