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Results from: Notes On or After: Thu 12/31/70 Author: Dexarouskies Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | What is the relevance of OT practices? | Luke 4:8 | Dexarouskies | 138014 | ||
As I've said earlier, Jesus's standard of the law was a much higher standard than the Jewish Law as outlined in the Torah. For instance, Jesus now outlawed divorce. As we see in Matthew 22, Jesus's teaching on divorce superceded that of the Torah. 7"Then why did Moses say a man could merely write an official letter of divorce and send her away?"[c] they asked. 8Jesus replied, "Moses permitted divorce as a concession to your hard-hearted wickedness, but it was not what God had originally intended. 9And I tell you this, a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery--unless his wife has been unfaithful.[d]" Similarly in verse 21, Jesus tells someone who has followed all of the "law" of God that that isn't enough in order to receive eternal life. He says: 21Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." 22But when the young man heard this, he went sadly away because he had many possessions. There are many more examples where Jesus's teaching went far beyond the law, and deep into the heart of the individual. What he taught the people is that God demands love, first and foremost. The Jews at that time were following only the letter of the law, and not the spirit of the law. And that wasn't good enough for God. |
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2 | What is the relevance of OT practices? | Luke 4:8 | Dexarouskies | 138013 | ||
God's law is God's law, but it wasn't what the experts in the law thought. It was a surprise to learn that God's law was just a law about love. As see in Matthew 22, Jesus simplified the "law" merely into a command about love. 36"Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?" 37Jesus replied, " You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. [e] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments". This is what Jeremiah meant when he said that God would write the law in their hearts. But you can forget about that being things like burnt offerings. And indeed, this is why you don't see any Christians of today bothering with burnt offerings, and also except in the case of the 7th day advantists, most Christians worship on Sunday rather than the traditional Sabboth day of the Jews. It also greatly simplifies all the commands of God, since you just run it through this simple test, and if your act or failure to act doesn't meet this simple requirement, then you need not bother checking any other part of the Bible. |
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3 | What is the relevance of OT practices? | Luke 4:8 | Dexarouskies | 137962 | ||
I have often wondered the same thing myself, but keep coming back to the passage from Matthew 9:17, which reads in the NLT: "17And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. That way both the wine and the wineskins are preserved." To me, the wine in this teaching represents the teachings of God, or rather, the understanding of God. The Old Testament represents the human understanding of God, whereas, the New Testament represents a much clearer understanding of the nature of God. The wineskins represent the worship practises. The worship practises of the Old Testament with their understanding of God would be unsuitable to us with our better understanding of God, since we have been taught by Jesus. Hence, this "new wine", has to be put in a new wine "skin", or container, which is our mode of worship. The worship service always just represented a symbolic outword act to represent an inward approach or feeling towards God. Jesus represented the teacher who would write God's word in our hearts and minds. So, as in Jeremiah 31:33, Jesus is the one who will write God's laws in their hearts and minds, ie: loving your neighbour, and loving your enemies, and loving God. I believe this is what they were quoting in Hebrews 8:10 and Hebrews 10:16. So the short answer to your question is that these procedures are only significant to Christians to teach them the history of the understanding of God in Judiasm which resulted in Christianity, and the background with which Jesus appeared, and to which Jesus spoke to. Jesus clarified that it was far more important to concern oneself with the state of one's heart than external religious symbols. So to answer the second part of your question, in my opinion, the practises were of no value relgiously if they didn't make an impact on the worshippers heart. Their value was purely for the worshipper, and of little value to God. There are several references in the OT where God states that he delights not on burnt offerings, such as Isaiah 1:11 which states: ""The multitude of your sacrifices- what are they to me?" says the LORD . "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.", or Jeremiah 6:20, "What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me." These references give me the idea that these burnt offerings don't do much for God, but rather, they were designed to generate a certain worship attitude and state of mind for the worshiper. |
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