He pretty much says the opposite in Galatians 5:4…
You who are trying to be justified by the law [i.e., by works] have been alienated from Christ…
Please look at what Zaccheus said after he said he’ll give away half? He said that if he wrong anyone he will repay them.four times as much as he took. Tax collectors were a dirty professions so it expected he’d have nothing left. Secondly, note that Jesus didn’t tell him to stop with the charity and that the heart is above all, etc… Thirdly, remember the rich young ruler who had to walk away from salvation because Jesus told him to sell everything and give to the poor. This could have been just a simple attitude adjustment if your understanding is correct.
Good question. But the same thing can be asked about other teachings of Jesus. For example, Jesus taught to not resist an evil doer and to turn the other cheek. That too doesn’t make sense as it will make Christians a door mat for the world. Perhaps Jesus didn’t care about consequences?
Remember that Jesus also cursed a fig tree for having no figs even as it was not a season for figs. That too doesn’t make sense but it is what it is.
Mark 10:24 doesn’t say that having riches is okay. Jesus never says that it’s okay to be rich. But he does say woe to the rich.
Does he? In that case, you have Paul flat-out contradicting himself! So either Paul is very confused … or you are very confused and your doctrine doesn’t add up. I suspect the latter is true.
What you don’t seem to understand is that “the law” Paul refers to in Gal 5:4 is not all 613 laws of Moses, but only the ceremonial and ritual laws that Jesus rendered obsolete, such as circumcision (which Paul specificaly refers to in that same passage).
In Gal 5:4, Paul is not referring to the MORAL laws of Moses - the MORAL laws of Moses are ETERNAL and STILL APPLY TO CHRISTIANS. This explains why Paul warns Christians later in Gal 5 that their sins (“works of the flesh”, v.19-21) can result in them not inheriting the kingdom of God (v.21).
It also explains why Paul refers to the obligation of Christians to fulfill “the law” in Romans 13:8-10 - he is referring to fulfilling the moral laws of Moses.
In Romans 6, Paul explains the need for believers to say “No” to sin and “Yes” to deeds of “righteousness” in order to gain the “sanctification” that leads to eternal life. By “righteousness” he is referring to keeping the moral laws of Moses.
In Romans 3:31, Paul says “we uphold the law” - once again he is referring the need to keep the moral laws of Moses.
So you can disobey the moral law and still try to be justified by only the ceremonial law? 
Paul was referring to whole law. And people have thought and still do think that they can be justified by obeying just the moral law.
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Galatians 5:6
The point is, faith (in Jesus, his mercy and grace) and ‘works’* are two sides of the same coin, inseparable. If you look like you are obeying all of the moral law and do not have faith, the works are useless. If you have faith, then works had better be there too.
*‘Works’: obeying the moral law, not because you have to for your salvation, but because you love. And the moral law, the ‘laws of love’, include the Big Ten plus their supplements and embellishments throughout the whole NT. Those supplements and embellishments by Jesus and the apostles are additional ‘education’ about how to love well and be obedient children.
But the “whole law” includes the moral laws of Moses, so according to you, in Galatians 5:4, Paul is saying those who attempt to be justified by keeping the moral laws “become estranged from Christ” and "have fallen from grace”.
Please explain what Paul means in Romans 3:31 - “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law .” What “law” is he saying believers must uphold (ie, obey).
In Romans 13:8-10, Paul talks about Christians “fulfilling the law” and names some of the Ten Commandments. What “law” is he referring to?
If those “who attempt to be justified” by keeping the moral laws “become estranged from Christ” (Gal 5:4), why does James 2:24 says “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”? By “works”, James means keeping the moral laws.
According to you, “the whole law” and “law” in Gal 5:4 refers to all 613 laws of Moses (including the moral laws), but this verse contradicts you. “faith expressing itself through love” is faith and works – the “work” being loving your neighbour, which is part of the moral law of Moses.
What people? Who thinks “they can be justified by obeying just the moral law”?
Where did I imply that they were trying to be justified by keeping just the moral laws?
The other places you mentioned Paul is talking about the moral law.
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Galatians 5:6
I’m not sure where the hangup is. That seems pretty clear to me.
People that are focused on and fretting about law have their eyes on the wrong thing – that would merely be moralism. What we are to be focused on is love. And we cannot be correctly focused on love without faith. The moral law does of course inform us about love and what our love should look like and what it does not look like.
Obey the authorities – that is a good general rule (mandated in scripture). If you are driving 60 mph (97 km/h) in a residential neighborhood where the speed limit is 25 (40), then you are not being loving. So love includes humility before civil law. (That would include wearing masks during a pandemic.)
The “Law of Christ” or the “Law of love”. See Romans 14 (from v. 13 to end of chapter) about this. Or the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. The gospel writer, John, also states this (13:34):
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
This is the new law that we see nearly everywhere in the New testament, from the gospels to Paul to Hebrews. Acts 15 also shows how the early church wrestled with (and resolved) this very same question for the early church with its new gentile converts.
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Paul does (and so did Jesus) specify explicit details about the law of love. I gave just one example above from civil law. I should judge myself and we can judge others (not judgmentally 
) for disobedience, conscious or otherwise. If I or someone else in my church were known for routine conspicuous and dangerous excesses while driving, the church should say nothing? The “Law of Christ or the Law(s) of love” does not erase specifics – they are elaborated upon quite manifestly.
What does Jesus do? He adds detail to the moral law to show love should look like and what it should not. But we need to start with self-examination (and my heart is found wanting).
Indeed the law of love is actually the more demanding one, in a way. Because before, the motivation was (had ostensibly been) to follow God’s rules. But Jesus corrects this and tells us that actually the motivation is (and always had been for those who had eyes to see it) the welfare of your neighbor.
So now, instead of feeling an obligation toward a set of rules (as so many are tempted to do), we are now to feel that obligation toward our neighbor instead. Which is a much higher and harder obligation. The rules (being well-designed as they were for place and time) were good ways to do that, of course. One doesn’t love their neighbor by stealing from them or lying about them, cheating on them, etc. So the higher law of love still includes any/all of those to the extent that they do help us actually love others. But meanwhile if there is some archaic food ritual that had been important as a rule in some cultures, but doesn’t apply now in a different setting, the difference between the two attitudes comes to light: the rule-follower still insists on a rule being followed … because it’s a rule. The new-covenant under Christ follower refuses to insist that everybody must be bound to rules for rules’ sake. They insist instead that we be bound by the higher law of love. Which means that even after I’ve obeyed all ten of the commandments that would be necessary to love my neighbor well, I’m still not off the hook. My obligation of love is never satisfied in such a way that I can then turn my back on it, or check it off a list as ‘something completed’. This probably explains why there are so many ‘law-enthusiasts’ still today. It tries to keep as transactional, religion and obligation to God. And not only that - but in a much less demanding way on us - which is saying something; because that was no light yoke even back then as Pharisees would have been happy to inform us. Rule-followers like to imagine that they can eventually “get a receipt” to dangle in God’s face that then obliges him to acknowledge our due.
Jesus basically (and quite unceremoniously) drove a truck right through that entire edifice - effectively telling us: there’s a new sheriff in town. But this one doesn’t use guns or coercion. Quite the opposite, in fact.
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That is pretty darned inspired. Looks like you have still another calling.
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I see what you did there (intentionally, I hope). He did it uncivilly, too, and maybe a Hebrew dietitian would complain, as well.
Yes.
Right. But, if our behavior (including the behavior of our eyes or minds) is found to be out of accord with the details, the rules, then it is absolutely true that our hearts are not right towards our neighbors nor ourselves, nor God.
Absolutely. But neither can disobedient children expect their Father’s smile, nor can obedient children demand reward. Nontheless, Father’s smile and gracious reward can be witheld. So it is not only about loving obligation to our neighbor, but loving obligation to our Father, as well.
So don’t throw away the rules just yet – the whole NT would be way lighter without them, à la TJ’s Bible.
Is that a new category? I like it, and wish I could take credit. But there are so many giants’ shoulders to stand on around here (or links and references to great stuff!) This is what you are in danger of if you spend a lot of time listening to the likes of Richard Rohr, N.T. Wright, or even others in the heretics collection around here! Before you know it, you’re paying new attention to scriptures themselves again!
These (and yours) are the voices so many atheists I’ve known almost never hear or respond to. I guess it is just too easy to point to the low lying fruit and ‘win’ without making an effort.
I don’t think this is right. Jesus did stuff that they were pretty sure were against the “details and even not-so-detailed rules”, and (very important - this) Jesus doesn’t take the opportunity to correct them and say “well, actually - I’m not technically breaking any rule here as you will see when I” … and then he could have gone all lawyer on them in a way to make today’s fundamentalist proud by showing how, according to the written word, it’s really he himself that is in the right and they are in the wrong. But no. As a lasting let-down to law-mongers everywhere Jesus (rarely?) does this. In fact, he even grants that such law is not the last word, and nor has it been even back in O.T. times (see Matthew 12:3-7).
Granted, there are times he does use the law and the prophets. He uses it to correct the Pharisees in how they are failing to honor their parents, for example. But whenever Jesus does things like this, it is usually to point out how Pharisees are letting the letter of the law usurp the spirit of the whole thing; and Jesus pretty consistently (so far as I can recall) turns that on its head. The closest he comes to sounding like a letter-of-law endorser might be when he warns people to do as the Pharisees say “because they sit in Moses’ seat”, …but don’t do as they do. And he also says he’s come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Though this latter reference really works against what so many law-enthusiasts are so eager to promote.
“I don’t think this is right.” Your antinomian predisposition is showing, I think. Jesus was against pharisaical insistence on rules and the rules that had been added by the Pharisees and the Talmud. He was not against ‘rules’. Jesus added rules, boundaries, guardrails. (Do boundaries and guardrails sound better than rules? 
) There are an additional big bunch that can be enumerated in the the epistles, as well, speaking of speed limits well-delineated guardrails.
The usher that is pocketing cash from the offering plate is not acting in love. Why? How do we know?
Did he fulfill the law against stealing? Did the law against stealing go away? Yes and no, respectively. The same questions and answers apply to the other nine of the Big Ten, as well.