This has been rattling around in my head for a few weeks now . . . getting ready to come out in something coherent I hope. 🙂
Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
A few weeks ago Pastor spoke a sermon on Mark 12 where Jesus gives the “greatest commandments” ( God’s guide to a life well lived) in response to a trick question. I’ve heard before and made the connection that the greatest commandment corresponds to the first 4 of the 10 Commandments (relationship to God) and the second greatest corresponds to the last 6 (relationship to people). He also pointed out how Jesus takes the old, negative commands and turns them into positive commands. Instead of saying “you shall not”, he says “you shall”. The old way only tells you how not to live, but leaves the interpretation of how to live up to our own devices (which is what ultimately got the Israelites into trouble). The new way tells you how to live, and if there was any way we could actually live up to those commands (love God and love others), he doesn’t even have to tell us how not to live. This is great news! The good news is, we don’t feel so weighed down by the oppressive “do nots” and our stubborn traits have an easier time with “do this”.
Since we live on this side of the resurrection, I think we (or least I) have a tendency to focus totally on the new testament and disregard the old testament. To treat it as historical facts with no application to our relationship with God. Especially true in some denominations. At least in most traditional denominations, they read from the OT, the Pslams, and the NT each week even if they don’t preach on the OT reading very often.
I feel like we think we are no longer held to the rules and regulations of the OT, probably due to the writings of Paul.
Romans 6:14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”
But Paul also warns us of falling into this trap.
Romans 6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!
Jesus also tells us that the OT should still stand.
Matthew 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
A lot of times, we argue away the Levitical laws saying that “Christ died for me so I don’t have to do that sacrifice thing anymore.” True . . . but what about the rest of the regulations? There’s everything from how to be considered “clean” to how to repay someone when you have done something you shouldn’t have to them, to how often we should take a sabbath day, year, sabbath celebrations, and what thithe really means (every 10th animal or crop item is the Lord’s).
This idea, the idea that we should still take the OT very seriously, has been convicting me recently. How do we know what it means to “love God and love others” if we have no rules to live by that show what love isn’t. That is the purpose of knowing those rules. They were the regulations God set before the people, His people, so that they would be set apart from other cultures, that if they followed them, would point other people to Him. They would provide the guidelines for how to love God by “obeying” Him. If you love me you will obey my commandments. . . ouch. I don’t think he’s talking about just the NT here.
So what is the practical application? What is the outcome of all this conviction? I have no idea. I suppose I need to start by doing more than a cursory glance through Leviticus and some of its surrounding books. And since I’ve read it before, that probably actually means I need to understand what some of those ceremonies really were for to make an educated decision about whether or not I should still be living under that regulation or whether I’m covered by the blood of Christ in that case. We still teach our kids the 10 Commmandments right? Why don’t we teach them all the rest of the laws? (Probably cause there’s a bunch of blood and death in them!) Pastor has a saying that I really like “We are not freed to do what we want, we are freed to do what is right!”. Why is right so hard to figure out?
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