Where do You Draw the Line?

NBB said:

Corinth as far as i know is not a jewish city, so the butcher shop there would have all sorts of stuff, and Paul said they were free to eat them, this is the plain interpretation. Paul did a mistake expressing himself like that then? he should have been more careful then? because, 'you are free to eat corinthians any from the butcher shop' not a jewish city... so?

Click to expand...

Carl Emerson said:

It looks like we agree on some fundamental issues and are poles apart on others.

Apart from some references to keeping the 10 comandments, Jesus did not generally preach from scripture, rather He spoke in parables and presented truth in the context of common life experiences understood by His hearers.

At the end of the day it is about the fruit of obedience.

One can be fully accurate in Law and have no life.

This might seem like a ramble but I am trying to illustrate a point and explain that walking in 'The Way' is a different dynamic altogether than walking in respect to Law and principle.

Here is an example.

I have a friend who is a doctor.

She also loves Jesus.

One day she suddenly felt deeply concerned about a neighbour three doors away. She didn't know why and hadn't spoken to him recently.

She had a strong urge to contact him immediately.

This strong inner urgency would not go away so she prayed about it and knocked on his door.

He was surprised by her visit, she asked him if he was well - he said he was feeling a bit off colour.

The inner urgency increased - she found her self saying "I'm getting you to hospital immediately".

Now being a doctor she is schooled in evidenced based analysis - but in her mind she knew there was no evidence.

But she acted on God's inner voice - got him to hospital immediately and they found a perforated ulcer that would have killed him in hours.

I ask you what Law did she obey?

I tell you that it was Jesus indwelling Spirit that was to be obeyed.

It is sad to see that such a vital aspect of our Christian faith has to be argued for on a Christian forum.

I say that learning to walk in the Spirit - hearing and obeying His voice should be central to our faith.

At the end of the day what ever was not motivated by the Love of Jesus will not survive the fire of judgement.

Jesus said keeping the Law was not enough - He said follow me !

Thus the rich young ruler was missing out on life but keeping the Law.

Another example...

The husband of the Doctor had a painting business.

He was painting a house for an old lady and she run out of money to pay him.

Jesus said keep painting - so He stayed another two weeks and painted the whole house.

At the end of the two weeks he had a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with the owner testifying that Jesus wanted her house painted.

This is life - this is 'the way' with such sacrifices He is well pleased.

So I am trying to encourage brothers and sisters to learn to walk in close relationship with Him to hear his voice and bring Glory to him through obedience to His living Word.

Click to expand...

Soyeong said:

I did not suggest that Corinth was a Jewish city, just that when Paul spoke about food that he was speaking about what he considered to be food, not giving your room to insert what you consider to be food. Throughout chapters 8 and 10, Paul was speaking in regard to the topic of offering food to idols and did not directly say a single word about the topic of eating unclean animals, so he did not make a mistaken in expressing himself, but rather you are making the mistake of ignoring the context and inserting a completely different topic than what Paul was speaking about. Not only that, but by doing so, you are making Paul out to be a false prophet who was speaking against obeying what God has commanded. When God commands not to do something and you think Paul said we are permitted to do that, then they are opposed to each other, and it shouldn't be difficult for you to figure out which one has the higher authority and which one we should follow, though the reality is that Paul never spoke against obeying any of God's commands.

Click to expand...

Carl Emerson said:

I was replying to Soyeong, but also those who seem to be unable to see beyond preaching Law.

Click to expand...

HIM said:

Carl You have bad habit of not responding to people politely and addressing them directly. But that probably does not matter to you.

Click to expand...

Carl Emerson said:

It looks like we agree on some fundamental issues and are poles apart on others.

Apart from some references to keeping the 10 comandments, Jesus did not generally preach from scripture, rather He spoke in parables and presented truth in the context of common life experiences understood by His hearers.

Click to expand...

This might seem like a ramble but I am trying to illustrate a point and explain that walking in 'The Way' is a different dynamic altogether than walking in respect to Law and principle.

Click to expand...

At the end of the day it is about the fruit of obedience.

One can be fully accurate in Law and have no life.

Click to expand...

Here is an example.

I have a friend who is a doctor.

She also loves Jesus.

One day she suddenly felt deeply concerned about a neighbour three doors away. She didn't know why and hadn't spoken to him recently.

She had a strong urge to contact him immediately.

This strong inner urgency would not go away so she prayed about it and knocked on his door.

He was surprised by her visit, she asked him if he was well - he said he was feeling a bit off colour.

The inner urgency increased - she found her self saying "I'm getting you to hospital immediately".

Now being a doctor she is schooled in evidenced based analysis - but in her mind she knew there was no evidence.

But she acted on God's inner voice - got him to hospital immediately and they found a perforated ulcer that would have killed him in hours.

I ask you what Law did she obey?

I tell you that it was Jesus indwelling Spirit that was to be obeyed.

It is sad to see that such a vital aspect of our Christian faith has to be argued for on a Christian forum.

I say that learning to walk in the Spirit - hearing and obeying His voice should be central to our faith.

At the end of the day what ever was not motivated by the Love of Jesus will not survive the fire of judgement.

Jesus said keeping the Law was not enough - He said follow me !

Thus the rich young ruler was missing out on life but keeping the Law.

Click to expand...

Another example...

The husband of the Doctor had a painting business.

He was painting a house for an old lady and she run out of money to pay him.

Jesus said keep painting - so He stayed another two weeks and painted the whole house.

At the end of the two weeks he had a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with the owner testifying that Jesus wanted her house painted.

This is life - this is 'the way' with such sacrifices He is well pleased.

So I am trying to encourage brothers and sisters to learn to walk in close relationship with Him to hear his voice and bring Glory to him through obedience to His living Word.

Click to expand...

Soyeong said:

Jesus set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so he would have taught full obedience to it by example even if he had said nothing, and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22). Furthermore, Jesus also taught obedience to mire than just the Ten commandments, such as with the greatest two commandments, or when he instructed those those he had cleansed to present themselves to the priest (Luke 17:14). In addition, practically everything he taught was so firmly rooted in the OT that we should be taking key words from his parables and plugging them into a search engine to try to determine what he was referencing, such as when Jesus spoke about wine, spoke about a bride groom, or when he talked about different types of soils in the parable of the soils. Or when Jesus was sleeping on a boat during a storm while heading towards Gentiles, we should look up who else in the OT was sleeping on a boat during a storm when he should have been heading towards Gentiles. In short, there has never been someone who has more thoroughly referenced OT Scripture than Jesus.



God's way or ways are described as being righteous, blameless, merciful, pure, humble, light, perfect, true, liberty, and gentleness (2 Samuel 22:21-37), delightful (Psalms 37:23), and everlasting (Habakkuk 3:6), merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving, just (Exodus 34:6-7), love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). So God's ways are how He expresses aspects of His nature and there are many verses that describe the Mosaic Law as being instructions for how to walk in God's ways, such as Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Isaiah 2:2-3, Joshua 22:5, Psalms 103:7, and many others. So "The Way" is God's nature and those who walk in it are dedicated to testifying about God's nature through our obedience to His law in accordance with how Jesus expressed God's nature through the leading of the Spirit.



In Deuteronomy 30:15-16, obedience to the law brings life and a blessing. In Deuteronomy 32:47, the law is our very life. In Proverbs 3:18, she is a tree of life for all who take hold of her. In Leviticus 18:5, Galatians 3:12, and Romans 10:5, the one who obeys the law will attain life by it. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that if we want to enter into eternal life, then obey the commandments. So if one is fully accurate in law, then they will have life, but one will have no life if they inaccurately miss the goal of obeying the law.



Yes, she obeyed the law to love her neighbor. She was following God's inner voice, but what she was doing was not something other than loving her neighbor. I agree that we should listen to the Spirit and the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey God's law (Ezekiel 36:26-27). All of the laws that God has given are examples of what it looks like to love God and our neighbor, which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 that those are the greatest two commandments and that all of the other commandments hang on them, so they are all connected, but if someone tries to obey the law apart from the love of Jesus, then they are missing the whole goal of the law. In Romans 10:4, it is speaking about a relationship with Jesus being the goal of the law for righteousness for everyone who has faith. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are worker of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so God's law is His instructions for how to know Christ, or in other words, how to have a relationship with him. In 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Christ, but don't obey His commandments are liars and the truth is not in them, and in 1 John 3:4-6, sin is the transgression of God's law and those who continue to practice sin have neither seen nor known him. In order to love who Christ is, we need to recognize who he is, namely that he is the exact expression of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so when we testify about God's nature through our obedience to His law, we are expressing our love for who Christ is, which is why there are many verses in both the OT and the NT that associate our love for God with our obedience to His commandments.

In John 5:39-40, Jesus said that they search the Scriptures because they think that in them they will have eternal life, and they testify about him, yet they refuse to come to him that they might have life. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that if we want to have eternal life, the obey the commandments, so eternal life can be found in Scriptures and the Pharisees were correct to search for it there, but they needed to recognize that the goal of everything in Scriptures is to testify about how to have a relationship with Christ and that they needed to enter into a relationship with him for eternal life. In Philippians 3:8, Paul was in the same boat as the Pharisees, where he had been keeping the law, but without having a focus on knowing Christ, so he had been missing the whole goal of the law and counted it all as rubbish. This was also what the rich young ruler needed to do.



Likewise, he was not doing something other than loving his neighbor.

Click to expand...

Carl Emerson said:

If you are correct why was the rich young ruler not accepted by Jesus when He has fully kept the Law?

He was rejected because He would not follow Him...

Click to expand...

NBB said:

What you understand by him saying: eat any meat that is sold?
ANY, did Paul knew all the butcher shops in corinth? or he was allowing them to eat anything sold there?

Click to expand...

honey badger said:

in early Hebrew and Egyptian pictograph two crossed sticks had the meaning of a mark, sign, signal or monument, which is interesting because when we eat of our own tree (labor by thought to be) we receive this mark which is a signature/identity as in a husband not our own, and in the same manner to pick up our cross is to keep the law and the only means of putting off this old man ....

Click to expand...

Noxot said:

If we kept the law we would be stoning all the sinners in us as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God. destruction of evil is just another way of saying purification in the consuming fire that is God. That cross is for the purpose of making a fire. Anything that is alive the fire shall not consume, just like when Moses saw the burning bush.

Click to expand...

Soyeong said:

The law does not instruct us to go around sinning anyone that we see sinning, but rather that would be acting in violation of the law. A Sanhedrin that executed someone once every 7 years or even 70 years was considered to be murderous.

View attachment 289690

Click to expand...

Noxot said:

I was reducing the truth into a small expression. The biblical law is there to contemplate spiritual life in many forms, expressions and details. it's very nice that the Jews wangle the strict literalism of the law because if they didn't they surely would be a bunch of heathens.

But some literalist won't even say plainly the evils that they have in their heart because they think it's righteousness that they profess and believe in.

Click to expand...

Soyeong said:

If the Israelites went around stoning everyone who sinned, then it wouldn't take long for them to wipe themselves out, so that is that is absurd. The law does not instruct us to do that either figuratively or literally. For example, the law required there to be due process with a judge doing a thorough investigation, with no one being put to death without two or three witnesses, and with false witnesses receiving the same penalty for which they gave false testimony.

Click to expand...

Soyeong said:

In Romans 9:30-10:4, they Israelites had a zeal for God, but it was not based on knowledge because they did not understand that a relationship with Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness for everyone who has faith, so they failed to attain righteousness because they pursued the law as through righteousness were by works in an effort to establish their own instead of pursuing the law as through righteousness were by faith in Christ. So the problem is that people can obey the law while not understanding that the goal of the law is experientially knowing Christ, who is the exact expression of Gods nature (Hebrews 1:3), which is what happened with the Pharisees in John 5:39-40, with Paul in Philippians 3:8, and with the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16. The goal of the law was standing in front of the rich young ruler and he needed to follow Jesus. To give another example, in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that tithing was something that they ought to be doing, while not neglecting weightier matters of the law of justice, mercy, and faithfulness, so they were obeying the law while missing its weightier matters, which are the goal of the law, and which are aspects of God's nature.

In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6, they did not experientially know God and refused to know Him, because in 9:13, they had forsaken God's law, while in 9:24, those who experientially know God know that He delights in practicing steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all of the earth, so delighting in expressing those and other aspects of God's nature is the way to experientially know God. In John 6:40, those who believe in Jesus will have eternal life, in John 17:3, eternal life is knowing God and Jesus

in Romans 6:23, the gift of God is eternal life of Christ, and in Matthew 19:16-17, Jesus said that if we want to enter eternal life, then obey the commandments, so expressing God's nature through our obedience to the commandments is what it looks like to believe in Jesus, to experientially know him, and to receive the gift of God. So while the rich young ruler was obeying the commandments, he was missing the goal of having a relationship with Christ. The commandments that Jesus didn't list in Matthew 19:18-19 are the ones that are only in regard to our relationship with God.

Click to expand...

Soyeong said:

Jesus set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so he would have taught full obedience to it by example even if he had said nothing, and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22). Furthermore, Jesus also taught obedience to mire than just the Ten commandments, such as with the greatest two commandments, or when he instructed those those he had cleansed to present themselves to the priest (Luke 17:14). In addition, practically everything he taught was so firmly rooted in the OT that we should be taking key words from his parables and plugging them into a search engine to try to determine what he was referencing, such as when Jesus spoke about wine, spoke about a bride groom, or when he talked about different types of soils in the parable of the soils. Or when Jesus was sleeping on a boat during a storm while heading towards Gentiles, we should look up who else in the OT was sleeping on a boat during a storm when he should have been heading towards Gentiles. In short, there has never been someone who has more thoroughly referenced OT Scripture than Jesus.



God's way or ways are described as being righteous, blameless, merciful, pure, humble, light, perfect, true, liberty, and gentleness (2 Samuel 22:21-37), delightful (Psalms 37:23), and everlasting (Habakkuk 3:6), merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving, just (Exodus 34:6-7), love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). So God's ways are how He expresses aspects of His nature and there are many verses that describe the Mosaic Law as being instructions for how to walk in God's ways, such as Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Isaiah 2:2-3, Joshua 22:5, Psalms 103:7, and many others. So "The Way" is God's nature and those who walk in it are dedicated to testifying about God's nature through our obedience to His law in accordance with how Jesus expressed God's nature through the leading of the Spirit.



In Deuteronomy 30:15-16, obedience to the law brings life and a blessing. In Deuteronomy 32:47, the law is our very life. In Proverbs 3:18, she is a tree of life for all who take hold of her. In Leviticus 18:5, Galatians 3:12, and Romans 10:5, the one who obeys the law will attain life by it. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that if we want to enter into eternal life, then obey the commandments. So if one is fully accurate in law, then they will have life, but one will have no life if they inaccurately miss the goal of obeying the law.



Yes, she obeyed the law to love her neighbor. She was following God's inner voice, but what she was doing was not something other than loving her neighbor. I agree that we should listen to the Spirit and the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey God's law (Ezekiel 36:26-27). All of the laws that God has given are examples of what it looks like to love God and our neighbor, which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 that those are the greatest two commandments and that all of the other commandments hang on them, so they are all connected, but if someone tries to obey the law apart from the love of Jesus, then they are missing the whole goal of the law. In Romans 10:4, it is speaking about a relationship with Jesus being the goal of the law for righteousness for everyone who has faith. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are worker of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so God's law is His instructions for how to know Christ, or in other words, how to have a relationship with him. In 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Christ, but don't obey His commandments are liars and the truth is not in them, and in 1 John 3:4-6, sin is the transgression of God's law and those who continue to practice sin have neither seen nor known him. In order to love who Christ is, we need to recognize who he is, namely that he is the exact expression of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so when we testify about God's nature through our obedience to His law, we are expressing our love for who Christ is, which is why there are many verses in both the OT and the NT that associate our love for God with our obedience to His commandments.

In John 5:39-40, Jesus said that they search the Scriptures because they think that in them they will have eternal life, and they testify about him, yet they refuse to come to him that they might have life. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that if we want to have eternal life, the obey the commandments, so eternal life can be found in Scriptures and the Pharisees were correct to search for it there, but they needed to recognize that the goal of everything in Scriptures is to testify about how to have a relationship with Christ and that they needed to enter into a relationship with him for eternal life. In Philippians 3:8, Paul was in the same boat as the Pharisees, where he had been keeping the law, but without having a focus on knowing Christ, so he had been missing the whole goal of the law and counted it all as rubbish. This was also what the rich young ruler needed to do.



Likewise, he was not doing something other than loving his neighbor.

Click to expand...

Carl Emerson said:

While this all sounds good, it doesn't align with the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. as follows...

Acts 15
1Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. 3Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. 4When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. 5But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.”

6The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. 7After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8“And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; 9and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. 10“Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11“But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”

And this was the written letter that was sent back to the believers...

it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials:
29that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.”

There was clearly no directive to observe the Law of Moses in the written reply.

It is agreed however that He indwells the believer and the Law of the Spirit is active in our hearts.

This demands more specific obedience to Jesus in the details of life - much more than studying a written Law would ever do.

So the bar has been raised - we will have to agree to disagree.

Click to expand...

NBB said:

I don't see how people say we need to do the whole law after reading this part of the bible.

Click to expand...