Based on your short response, it would seem you share in much of the criticism tied (by some of us here) to an old testament impression of who God is. “Redemptive violence” is a prevalent theme through much of Christian history that Anabaptists like myself have often criticized. So I for one, am curious if you have more to say about all that.
We’ll look forward to hearing more from you in any case.
[I should add as a couple procedural helps, you can edit your own posts (as I’m doing here, to add this) by just clicking the grey pencil underneath any of your own posts. And to include a quotation from a prior post in your own, just highlight the text of interest, and click on the grey ‘quote’ box that pops up. That helps people know specifically who and what you are responding to.]
Psalm 116:12-14 (NIV2011)
12 What shall I return to the LORD for all his goodness to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.
14 I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.
Psalm 119 tells of the OT covenant, Psalm 116 tells of a covenant which could be the NT vows. Christians are not under the OT law. We are governed by God’s Love.
Christians are not under the OT Law. We are governed by God’s love. Governed by denotes government, which in turn denotes law, laws of love in our case.
Ideally, our hearts and thus behavior will spontaneously show the evidence that we are loving, but we are not ideal. So when we aren’t, the explicit and articulated laws of love give us a standard by which to measure ourselves.
Even 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 gives us ‘rules’, laws of love:
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. 6Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
“Be patient, be kind, don’t be envious, do not boast, don’t be proud…” That is the law Paul delights in and subsequently confesses he fails.*
Romans 7:21-25 (NIV2011)
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 8:5-8 (NIV2011)
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
Recently reached this chapter (3) in 2 Corinthians again. Seems to have direct bearing on the subject of this thread. Sorry if all this was already posted somewhere up there. But it sure does give us a lot of “old covenant set aside” language.
From 2 Corinthians 3 (NRSV)
… 6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, 8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! 10 Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; 11 for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!
12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, 13 not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. 14 But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. 15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; 16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
There is another thread on this, and I encourage you to investigate that thread and place your comments and questions there.
The summary is that the Bible never claims to be, in its entirety, the Word of God, and those making claims for the Bible that it does not make for itself are imagining man-made traditions to be teachings of God.
The last two? Short as they are, they look reasonable enough to me. Of course God’s law (which I now interpret as Christ’s law) is good. And, yes, we have trouble following it in the flesh.
Well, the whole passage was straight from the pen of Paul. Glad you ‘approve’. I’ve brought up other material in other posts, and don’t feel beholden to agree with any one person on everything. Feel free to bring up any passages you feel are being neglected.
Psalm 119:1-3 (NIV2011)
1 Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart—
3 they do no wrong but follow his ways.
OK, you made Psalm 119 an important proof text. Ps 119 speaks about the OT covenant, the Torah. Are you claiming that the OT covenant is the same as the NT covenant just updated and improved? or are you saying that Christians need some guide lines to know if they are doing what is right as @fmiddel rightly has said?
Paul disagrees with the first view. He kept the OT covenant and found that he was apposing the Messiah. In the passage from Romans from which you quoted and I quoted more fully he is talking about his situation before Jesus knocked him off his horse, confronted him in a vision, and took away his sight. Paul, then Saul, loved God’s Law, but he was unable to carry it out, because he was held hostage by sin. Only after Paul accepted Jesus as the Messiah was he able to accept the fact that his sins were forgiven and enter into a new relationship with God the Father.
Now if you are interested in discussing Paul’s views, I am glad to talk with you. On the other hand if you are only interested in a debate to justify your own view, we are finished.
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