Not committing adultery is a ritual? Jesus raised the bar – he did not lower it. The NT elaborates on the laws of love, e.g., submitting to authorities – obeying residential area and school zone speed limits (and others 
) is acting in love. It does not erase any, and Jesus said so explicitly:
Christians must obey the 10 commandments both in act and intent - Christ taught this and also expanded it by specifying the attributes we must aspire to as exemplified by Christ.
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I guess I conflated your two paragraphs improperly.
The short answer is that Jesus gave us a new covenant.
Christians are not required to keep the Sabbath, so we are not obligated to obey the 10 commandments
I think you misunderstand the importance of The Lord’s Day of Rest (not the essay, but the day ), which is not uncommon.
Christians keep the Lord’s Day as He was ressurected on Sunday. We keep all of the 10 commandments.
If you do any work between Friday sundown and Saturday sundown, you do not keep the Sabbath and therefore do not keep the 10 commandments.
In Exodus 20:
8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
In Deut 5:
13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.
15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
In Numbers 15, we have the first recorded breaking of the Sabbath:
32 When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day.
33 Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation.
34 They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him.
35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.”
36 The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
It is interesting, to me at least, that two different reasons are given for the Sabbath in the two different presentations of the 10 commandments.
If you cut your grass on the Sabbath, you do not keep the 10 commandments.
You can choose the 10 commandments, or all 600+ commandments of the law of Moses, or you can do better and follow the new and better covenant, given by Jesus.
I don’t think you’re quite understanding the relationship of law and grace. The former still need to be obeyed, but not because we have to, but because we love.
OT moral law, ‘laws of love’, are still in effect, and then some.
Thank you for telling me what I don’t understand. Let me add, Dale, that I don’t know what you are arguing.
Dale, are you arguing that the Christian today should do no work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday?
If you are not, then you do not believe Christians are called to obey the 10 commandments.
You’re welcome.
Maybe you should read the little essay? You apparently have not.
No sense discussing this if you can’t answer my simple question.
Have a great day!
There’s no sense in talking about my argument if you won’t read the little essay.
And your simple question?:
In a literalistic, letter of the law sense, you are correct, but your conclusion is way off from understanding the argument about the spirit of the law. It is about God’s heart, but maybe you are not interested. If you are, read the essay.
Did you notice the passage I quoted earlier?
35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.”
That’s rather a strong argument about how strongly God’s heart feels about the commandment. Thank you. (It’s the same commandment that infuriated the Pharisees and they killed Jesus over. What does that say about God’s heart and our redemption. That the commandment went away any more than the commandments against adultery and stealing went away? I don’t think so. But our reasons for obedience are different.)
It’s also rather curious that people deny God the right to condemn anyone to death.
I cannot see how I can add to what I have said so far. The Gospels and for example, the Epistle to the Hebrews, clarifies and shows us what the Sabbath means and why it is given. A commandment can be kept by rote, or its meaning understood and in this way it is obeyed through intent and act. I believe Christians chose the latter. Christ changed our understanding on numerous matters, such as for example, the Last Supper (making Passover meaningful).
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Well, you could add to the discussion by stating whether you ever do yard work or other work between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday.
In the application of the 10 commandments that I quoted from scripture, picking up sticks on the Sabbath (a violation of the 10 commandments) was a stoning offense.
If “kept by rote” is required not to be stoned, isn’t keeping by rote the appropriate choice?
The law of Moses had its time and purpose. It passed away with the coming of Jesus. The Savior certainly started the rejection of the Law of Moses in the Sermon on the Mount, and He eliminated it in the discourse at the Last Supper.
If you go through the 10 commandments, one by one, you will see that none of them would be broken by a person adhering to the commandments of Jesus to Love God and Love one another — except the commandment about the Sabbath.
The 10 commandments are replaced: nine commandments continue to be obeyed by obeying Jesus. The Sabbath commandment is superfluous.
Christians aren’t under the law of Moses. We don’t have to wear tassles on our clothes. We can eat catfish and mow the lawn on Saturday afternoon. Even more so, we can mow an old widow’s lawn on Saturday afternoon — a stoning offense under the 10 commandments.
There are moral laws, or ‘laws of love’, in the OT that still apply. They are summarized in the Ten Commandments, and then even more concisely by the two greatest commandments. They have not gone away. We are under grace, so we do not have to obey them to secure our redemption, adoption, or spiritual rebirth. We obey them* (and the ones enumerated in the NT*) because we love and want to please our Father, receive his smile and not grieve the Holy Spirit of Jesus, rather than receive his discipline. When Paul says test yourselves, what is he telling you to test yourself against? (It’s not marshmallows or wet noodles.)
Good for you. (Irony alert, after the fact.) Do you really think that reflects Father’s heart?
Oh, and mercy trumps law.
*I have difficulty obeying some, as everyone who has been here a little while knows, nor am I sorrowful enough about it.
GJDS,
I would like to add one more point:
The law was given to Israel, not to others.
Before the law, Noah had been give a covenant and associated laws that applied to all people.
After the church was opened to Gentiles, there was confusion about whether believers of Gentile origin should keep the law. The first church council was convened to discuss the matter. This council is documented in Acts 15. In that council, it was decided that believers of Gentile origin are not obligated to keep the law of Moses.
It is interesting to me that the restrictions on blood from the Noahic Covenant were continued in Acts 15.