How the Bible doesn't exactly condone slavery

How is that different than what I was saying? They are something to measure ourselves against, a bar, “laws of love”… “to see what love does and does not look like.”

It probably isn’t so different. I think you’re right that we are probably largely talking past each other. But one thing I suggest that might have a different emphasis is this: when we are with the bridegroom, we are no longer obsessed with “how well we are measuring up”. I.e. It wouldn’t exactly be a heavenly time of joy and celebration if we were always on pins and needles wondering …did I do something wrong there? have my thoughts offended him here? No. No. No. Would you want your own son to perpetually feel that way in your presence? Walking on pins and needles lest he ignite watching dad’s foul temper? None of us wants our loved ones to live that way. And if we who are evil know this, how much more does our heavenly Father know what makes for joyful communion? Sure; that doesn’t mean I can do evil things and dad just ignores it. But eventually when I’m grown into full love for Him, the training wheels come off, and I no longer should be obsessing about rules or “the law”. If I love Him and want to please him - seeking his will, then I will have reached that fulfillment of the law. But since I’m not yet even close to perfected in that way, I do still need those training wheels at times. Perhaps we can think of that as the “babe’s milk” of our fledgling faiths. God wants us to grow to a point where we are ready for meat. When Love is present, the imperfect disappears.

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A loving and beloved child that does not describe! (Maybe one whose foot is asleep, though. :grin:)

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Christianity is the True Sabbath, the Lord’s Day of Rest.

@Dale, @Mervin_Bitikofer, forgive me if it was already referenced, but do not the following words of Jesus add some relevancy to the conversation?

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

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Very much so. It sounds like we are on the same page in that regard. Perhaps my difference with you (if it is a difference at all) begins with exactly what do Christ’s commands include … specifically if they include observing every jot and tittle from the Jewish law of the time.

Clearly they don’t. I can’t remember the last time I offered an animal sacrifice. As many better theologians than I have recognized, the Old Testament law consisted of a conglomeration of ceremonial, civil, and moral laws. Clearly the NT taught us many of the two former categories are not in immediate effect… (though my plea is we recognize what those categories do in fact tell us about the character and nature of God. Just because they may not directly apply to us it doesn’t follow that they are irrelevant to us).

But my bigger plea, as we discern what command an of God are still in force, is that we recognize that they remain commands. His commands may become a delight to us if we are motivated by love for him, but they remain commands. It may be a joy to serve my king, but he is still my king. Our obedience becomes happy and free, but it is still obedience.

Only reason I’m emphasizing this… I have seen all too often (not accusing you specifically) some variation of the idea that “the only command that matters is love” used as a pretext for, or prelude to, all manner of disobedience, or as a hermeneutical sledgehammer used to eradicate any command, instruction, or concept of God as revealed in Scripture that was not consistent with the interpreter’s subjective impression of what “love” would look like. God’s justice? Capital punishment? church discipline? Not eating with someone denying the faith? Sexual morality? Rejecting the validity of other religions? Not being unequally yoked with an unbeliever? All these and plenty more I’ve heard rejected on the basis that these commands and beliefs are contrary to “the more important law of love”.

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Your concern there is not misplaced.

[Of course, if somebody is making unGodly choices and trying to use “Love” as a cover, then it wouldn’t really be love then, would it? It would be something else masquerading as love - or trying to hide behind a false veneer of “love”, rather.]

[It does give me pause to think, though, on what is meant by the assurance that “love covers over a multitude of sins.” - most likely referring to our love being willing and even able to overlook/absolve the sins of others, and not to our desire to excuse our own.]

I just have to ask (and of course you are not obliged one bit to reply if you aren’t inclined), but this one thing caught my eye out of all your list of your ostensibly remaining concerns. So do you really check in on the faith of any table mates before you would dig in?

[the absence of mention of any other listed concerns is not to be taken as commentary on my own sympathy or antipathy toward them … it just struck me that the mealtime one was an odd bedfellow on the list.]

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Choices involve standards, and the OT moral law plus the myriad of instructions and mandated self-tests from both Jesus and in the epistles constitute those measures and laws of love for Christians.

We don’t need to continuously test our hearts against an extensive checklist of minutiae, guilt-driven and afraid of being disobedient, to see if we’re being godly or not. We do need to have read thoroughly and repetitively, however, so that those ideas, tests and standards become part of who we are and integrated in our hearts so that we can recognize ungodly behavior instinctively and instantly in ourselves and in others.

It might be analogous to the relationship of algebra and calculus. You are not consciously enumerating nor checking off the properties involved in the former that you are using while working in the latter, They have become second nature from frequent use and you don’t have to consciously think about them during their use.

Music might be a better metaphor and a more fitting image of our hearts (especially for those to whom algebra and calculus do not evoke pleasant thoughts :grin:). I am impressed with musicians who do not read music, but intuitively and instinctively perform it with excellence (I’m thinking country, bluegrass and jazz :slightly_smiling_face:). On the other hand, those of us who read music may know the details, ‘the laws, rules and regulations’ (the laws of love of music?) that need to be followed correctly, and with practice, performance can become second nature and instinctive as well (me, maybe not so much :slightly_smiling_face:).

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Just to clarify, … Are you directing that question at me, personally, as to how I choose to apply or follow that instruction?

Or are you asking why Paul and John would have issued such guidance in the first place? From what you wrote, it seems your quibble with that being on the list would be better directed towards them, no?

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That would be a rather legalistic extrapolation on your part. Antinomians imagine a more legalistic mindset than those they accuse, those who want to uphold the laws and tests of love.

Maybe antinomians are the musicians who do well without music, but those who read it are criticized. (I’m glad for polyphonic motets and well-tempered claviers.)

Entirely at you … since John and Paul aren’t here and you are - and the point of the whole conversation was if or how or which O.T. law should be continued now. You gave a list of examples of things Christians (in your experience) may often try to hide behind ‘love’ … so I was curious how that one made your cut for what you still presumably find important for today. I’m pretty sure I already know how Paul and Peter answered it … at least after God’s Spirit got a hold of Peter and let him see some visions about the new things God had in mind for him and a certain Roman household. So my curiosity is 100% directed at you on this. What would make you keep that still on a short list for today?!

It’s at me, too. I presume this is what is in question?:

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 1 Corinthians 5:11

Actually - that’s a whole 'nother question. The concern as I understood it from Daniel is over eating with those who are not believers at all. The verse you raise would no doubt be heavily sited among Amish or others who practice shunning or excommunication … what to do or refuse to do with those brothers or sisters who aren’t living as they should. Though typically over the centuries, that list of misbehaviors gets truncated to “sexual immorality” and most other things there are given a bit more grace.

I think that was your inference, and the verse I cited was what he was referring to. The behaviors cited are exactly that, behaviors of those who are not believers at all.

So the question is really one of church discipline, repentance and grace. I believe I have mentioned in another place the usher who is pocketing cash out of the offering plate and the church treasurer who is embezzling (or greed).

Um, because they are instructions from the New Testament??

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

Now, working out exactly how and precisely to whom and when this does or doesn’t apply, when I should or shouldn’t “receive someone into my house” that “does not abide in the teaching of Christ,” when I should or shouldn’t eat with those who claim Christ’s name but who live and act as unbelievers, there is indeed much to be worked out, and there is clearly going to be nuance there (even Paul explicitly said he didn’t mean we should not associate with any and all unbelievers in the world). There is certainly complexity and nuance there.

What I am concerned about, though, is when people utterly ignore these instructions completely, and do not even attempt to ever apply them in any way whatsoever, or try to understand when or when not to practice them, because “love” somehow overrides, abrogates, or otherwise invalidates these principles and instructions in their entirety. This to me has often proved a poignant example of a biblical (New Testament) instruction that is entirely and completely ignored because… “Love!”

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Totally unhitched. And those who can read music are vilified.

…those like Jesus and Paul?

if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.

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So are you practicing all those things, Daniel? Are you going through your church roles and making sure that any who are not employed as well as they should or could be (idleness) are removed from membership? I’m having trouble believing you actually mean what you say here. But maybe you do … let me know how that works out for you.

Meanwhile I think I’m going to have to stick with what Jesus, Peter, Paul, John, and just about the entire New testament teach about the supremacy of love. Perhaps you find it easy to summarily dismiss as some suspiciously liberal agenda what all the N.T. authors spilled so much ink about, but I do not. To think of the new covenant as merely a “new and improved” law 2.0 is to (I think) miss nearly the entire point of the new covenant. Paul had some pretty strong words (read just about anywhere in Galatians) for people who actually did want to do that. And no … this isn’t me advocating for a sudden “free-for-all”. Acts 15 showcases a very judicious response where the Spirit led them to affirm certain important points for the new gentile converts to follow, yet while being able to set aside many more then-important laws (excusing the new believers from many requirements that would have been equally scriptural to the Judaizing law-enthusiasts of their day). There is now a higher principle at work. The veil has been torn.

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You cannot be loving without making choices, and to make choices, you have to have reasons, and reasons necessarily imply measures or standards. You cannot just “LOVE!” in a vacuum.

Again, you are disparaging those who read music, figuratively, not to mention those who read the New Testament and see the larger context and the laws of love.