A few weeks ago I heard a talk by David Pawson online about there being 1100+ Laws of Christ compared to the 613 Laws of Moses. He shared it during a story of an irreligious Jew who for a journalistic experiment over a 12 month period attempted to keep all of them and failing for obvious reasons and I have been intrigued and captivated ever since.
Being a fan of lists and collating information it had already been in my plans this coming year during my Bible study and devotion time to go through the New Testament compiling lists of 'do's' and 'do not's' and both positive and negative character traits. In an attempt to put in one place using umbrella categories like 'Relationships' 'Finance' 'Self' 'Family' and 'Work' as a bigger picture, of an outline of what a Godly character looks like. Flipping back and forth in Scripture was not helping the information to sink into my mind and heart. And during meditation I would get distracted and forget the passage I chose. I felt the need for an in my face checklist for lack of a better word which will not replace Scripture or Bible study and devotion time but will increase my productivity and intention to please God.
People often compliment me on my memory skills but I find it usually only absorbs irrelevant information like movie scene dialogue, commercials, phone numbers, interesting facts in my special interests... When I apply it to practical things, household chores, shopping in a store with many isles, focusing on a task that does not interest me... it can fail me. It is all well and good to have favourite Bible passages memorised but I tend to forget the bigger context that they fit into. Hence the idea to go through the New Testament and map out my personal character tracker and areas I need to work on by breaking them into smaller category chunks so I can start to see patterns. Similar to what Matthew did in his gospel outlining the 5 blocks of teaching about God's Kingdom.
I knew it would be a mammoth task and likely take longer than a year, more like my life time but it would and will be a labour of love and thankfulness back to God who has shown His light and love to me.
I have been praying and thinking about it a lot ever since Pawson's talk. I even made a preliminary start in Matthew's gospel and this week I came across an article online with a list of 1050 New Testament commandments. It lists them under 69 headings and used a specific Bible translation so it has not exactly done the work for me but is a base off of which I can kick off of what I want to do and seemed like confirmation in a way. It will be interesting at the end to see how many I find compared to the article and Pawson's calculations!
Today I spent several hours going down the article's list finding the 1-2 verses it quotes for each commandment and reading the entire chapter it falls in to get a bigger context. I got as far as number 17 ask life for backsliders. Which was under the 'Three Asks'.
1. Ask and you will receive (Matthew 7:7)
2. Ask no return of goods (Luke 6:30)
3. Ask life for backsliders (1 John 5:16)
I am using an old exercise book and going through the article heading by heading.
Numbering the commandments to keep track, the titles they give to each, noting the passage it cites, writing out the entire passage, reading the cited passage and the entire chapter the passage falls in and writing a brief summery of the commandments context so that I can at a later date file them under my own categories or umbrella terms for simplification.
Most reactions to this on this forum so far have been negative. They misunderstand my intentions and are worried I will fall into legalism, which I can understand. However, my main concern is that I get away from liberalism which is just as dangerous in my opinion.
I think this devotion time with God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit will curate in me a balance and joy I have tasted but want to increase in. I seek to know God and of His way and will that I should live my life in. This is not about burying myself under an overwhelming list of guilt ridden legalism to earn merit. Jesus the Messiah is my freedom and my merit. I am doing this out of love and respect to align myself to God's will and how can I truly do that if I do not honest seek all the information out that is available to me and if I pay attention to some of the truth but over emphasising or under emphasising other aspects of truth? I need to be aware of the whole truth that has been revealed in Scripture, my heart's priority is the New Testament right now but I will go back to the Old Testament at some point.
Part of me wonders if the negative response I have received is peoples own fear that looking at what Jesus expects of us in a list format will show their own darkness or something or that they are content in their thinking that all they need is to intellectually believe Christ and do nothing practically which confronted with this makes them feel bad but if that is the case it is not my fault. I am not insisting that they look or follow it or trying to divide people. Maybe they do not fully trust Jesus as much as they profess too. I am not taking what Jesus laid out and building on top of it like the Pharisees then insisting you are not a real Christian if you neglect the list. I am doing it for me because it is what I feel inspired and guided to do. We all have different purposes chosen by Him.
I know myself well enough to be sure that this list will be my slave and not make me a slave to the list. All I can say is if you lack that confidence in yourself follow your own convictions and allow me my own. What I do, I do for the LORD.
God bless.
Being a fan of lists and collating information it had already been in my plans this coming year during my Bible study and devotion time to go through the New Testament compiling lists of 'do's' and 'do not's' and both positive and negative character traits. In an attempt to put in one place using umbrella categories like 'Relationships' 'Finance' 'Self' 'Family' and 'Work' as a bigger picture, of an outline of what a Godly character looks like. Flipping back and forth in Scripture was not helping the information to sink into my mind and heart. And during meditation I would get distracted and forget the passage I chose. I felt the need for an in my face checklist for lack of a better word which will not replace Scripture or Bible study and devotion time but will increase my productivity and intention to please God.
People often compliment me on my memory skills but I find it usually only absorbs irrelevant information like movie scene dialogue, commercials, phone numbers, interesting facts in my special interests... When I apply it to practical things, household chores, shopping in a store with many isles, focusing on a task that does not interest me... it can fail me. It is all well and good to have favourite Bible passages memorised but I tend to forget the bigger context that they fit into. Hence the idea to go through the New Testament and map out my personal character tracker and areas I need to work on by breaking them into smaller category chunks so I can start to see patterns. Similar to what Matthew did in his gospel outlining the 5 blocks of teaching about God's Kingdom.
I knew it would be a mammoth task and likely take longer than a year, more like my life time but it would and will be a labour of love and thankfulness back to God who has shown His light and love to me.
I have been praying and thinking about it a lot ever since Pawson's talk. I even made a preliminary start in Matthew's gospel and this week I came across an article online with a list of 1050 New Testament commandments. It lists them under 69 headings and used a specific Bible translation so it has not exactly done the work for me but is a base off of which I can kick off of what I want to do and seemed like confirmation in a way. It will be interesting at the end to see how many I find compared to the article and Pawson's calculations!
Today I spent several hours going down the article's list finding the 1-2 verses it quotes for each commandment and reading the entire chapter it falls in to get a bigger context. I got as far as number 17 ask life for backsliders. Which was under the 'Three Asks'.
1. Ask and you will receive (Matthew 7:7)
2. Ask no return of goods (Luke 6:30)
3. Ask life for backsliders (1 John 5:16)
I am using an old exercise book and going through the article heading by heading.
Numbering the commandments to keep track, the titles they give to each, noting the passage it cites, writing out the entire passage, reading the cited passage and the entire chapter the passage falls in and writing a brief summery of the commandments context so that I can at a later date file them under my own categories or umbrella terms for simplification.
Most reactions to this on this forum so far have been negative. They misunderstand my intentions and are worried I will fall into legalism, which I can understand. However, my main concern is that I get away from liberalism which is just as dangerous in my opinion.
I think this devotion time with God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit will curate in me a balance and joy I have tasted but want to increase in. I seek to know God and of His way and will that I should live my life in. This is not about burying myself under an overwhelming list of guilt ridden legalism to earn merit. Jesus the Messiah is my freedom and my merit. I am doing this out of love and respect to align myself to God's will and how can I truly do that if I do not honest seek all the information out that is available to me and if I pay attention to some of the truth but over emphasising or under emphasising other aspects of truth? I need to be aware of the whole truth that has been revealed in Scripture, my heart's priority is the New Testament right now but I will go back to the Old Testament at some point.
Part of me wonders if the negative response I have received is peoples own fear that looking at what Jesus expects of us in a list format will show their own darkness or something or that they are content in their thinking that all they need is to intellectually believe Christ and do nothing practically which confronted with this makes them feel bad but if that is the case it is not my fault. I am not insisting that they look or follow it or trying to divide people. Maybe they do not fully trust Jesus as much as they profess too. I am not taking what Jesus laid out and building on top of it like the Pharisees then insisting you are not a real Christian if you neglect the list. I am doing it for me because it is what I feel inspired and guided to do. We all have different purposes chosen by Him.
I know myself well enough to be sure that this list will be my slave and not make me a slave to the list. All I can say is if you lack that confidence in yourself follow your own convictions and allow me my own. What I do, I do for the LORD.
God bless.
