And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. [Deuteronomy 6:5 (NLT)]
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. [Leviticus 19:18 (NLT)]
Yesterday I told about a friend who was reading her Bible in a coffee shop when a young Jewish man belittled her belief in God. Admitting that he once believed, he explained he no longer did because the Torah had too many laws. My friend was pleased when the Holy Spirit provided her with this simple response: “Try the New Testament; there are only two laws in it!”
As Christians, we adhere to some laws found in the Old Testament but not all. For example, while abiding by the commandments regarding adultery and idolatry, we ignore the ones requiring ritual baths or prohibiting pork and shellfish. Because of this, non-believers sometimes accuse us of being inconsistent or hypocritical. The law God gave in the Old Testament was given specifically to the nation of Israel. Setting them apart from the pagan nations surrounding them, the covenant He made was with them and not anyone else.
God gave the new nation of Israel a set of civil laws dealing with such things as their relationship with one another, conducting business, and settling disputes. He gave them ceremonial laws dealing with things like worship, temple practices, sacrifice, ritual cleanliness, and priestly duties and attire. God also gave Israel moral laws: laws telling them what was right and wrong, like those found in the Ten Commandments. Because Israel’s nationality and religion were one in the same, their civil, ceremonial, and moral laws often were interconnected.
The civil laws governing the nation of Israel don’t apply to us any more than Colorado’s laws regarding ski resorts apply to Florida’s beaches or New Jersey’s speed limit of 65 applies to a driver going 80 down a rural freeway in Texas. Like the civil laws, Israel’s ritual laws also were specific for them. Jesus finished the work of their priests and no more sacrifices or days of atonement are necessary.
What then of the moral laws? Based on the character of God, they transcend Mosaic Law and the principles behind them remain valid. With the exception of keeping holy the Sabbath day, the Ten Commandments are repeated throughout the New Testament. Sometimes, they are repeated in much stronger terms, as when Jesus equated anger with murder and lust with adultery! [Mathew 5:21-23,28]
Under the Old Covenant, the Israelites were given a choice: obey and reap God’s blessings or disobey and reap His curses. Having to justify themselves, Israel struggled and failed time and time again. The New Covenant, however, is based on grace rather than obedience—Jesus did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. With the New Covenant, God’s grace wasn’t limited to one nation but was made available to all people and for all time.
So what laws are we Christians to obey? Jesus made it simple with just two laws: wholly love God and love others as ourselves. Those two simple laws cover every conceivable situation far better than splitting hairs over who qualifies as a neighbor or how many times we are to forgive. We don’t need specific laws telling us to pay wages in a timely manner, use honest weights and measures, be charitable, honor our promises, do no wrong in buying or selling, and not to afflict widows and orphans. Found in both the Old and New Testaments, we have two all-purpose laws that cover all of those situations and much more. If we can fulfill these two, we’ve fulfilled them all!
Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” [Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)]
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Protestant reformers summarized the essentials of the Christian faith in five short statements, the first of which is “Scripture alone” (Sola Scriptura) which means the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) is the sole, definitive, dependable, and essential authority for our faith and practice. While the Bible is not the only place we’ll find truth, the concept of “Scripture alone” means that everything else we learn about God must be interpreted in light of Scripture. When it comes to theology, if an idea doesn’t stand up to the Bible it hasn’t passed the acid test of truth.
When I was a little girl, I had a beautifully illustrated picture book of the Lord’s Prayer. I clearly remember the illustration accompanying these words: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” A beautiful angel stood at a crossroads in front of two children and blocked their way down the wrong path.
It was obvious we had ceiling fans in all three bathrooms but, because all their bulbs were burned out when we moved here, we didn’t know they also had lights. Never having seen how bright the bathrooms could be with working fan lights, we didn’t notice their absence. It was only when we had some electrical work done that we discovered the dead bulbs. Now that we’ve put in new LEDs, we’ll be sure to notice if any stop working in the future!
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. [Psalm 139:23-24 (NLT)]
Although ancient Israel did have lions, they rarely wandered the streets and today’s verse about the sluggard who uses preposterous excuses to avoid work reminded me of more than 45 years ago when I regularly hosted a support group for nursing mothers. Among the chairs in our family room was a large La-Z-Boy rocking recliner. On meeting nights, that chair should have been occupied by the mom with infant twins or the woman within days of giving birth but the women who usually made a bee-line for the comfy rocker were the ones I came to think of as “the excusers.” Although they arrived with a litany of new mother complaints and said they wanted advice, they always had a reason why every suggestion wouldn’t work. While not quite as far-fetched as claiming a stray lion was in the road, some of their excuses came close. Perhaps, operating under the mistaken belief that motherhood was undemanding and trouble-free or that their lives weren’t going to change substantially with a baby’s arrival, these young mothers found it easier to wallow in their misery in a La-Z-Boy than to make an effort to solve their problems and find a way to make their new normal work. Apparently, they weren’t familiar with Proverbs 19:20: “Get all the advice and instruction you can, so you will be wise the rest of your life.”
Devotions of the Heart 