Wait a minute now...
Do I as a gentile follow the Torah...
Customs,cicumcision,feasts,holidays,laws,moons..
You get the picture...
Please tell me what externals to follow..
Give me a the WHOLE list,of all the Torah things for this gentile to follow.
And what makes you think what Paul said 2 times,is not just what he meant.?
I thought we were all one in Christ..
Read the context of how Paul used them in,it is quite clear.
Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:11
Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
first and foremost, the most important commandments are the ones you should follow... love the lord your god and love your neighbour as yourself... Jesus said the law and the prophets hang of these two commandment... so all the other laws derive from these....
think of it like a tree with two main branches.... branch number one 'love the lord your god has a set of associated commands which branch of and subdivide, branch two, 'love your neighbour as yourself' has sets of commandments which branch off from it. The passage does not mean there are only two commandments, but that all the rest find their source in these two.
Micah says, what does the Lord require of you....To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
These can be seen just like Jesus' comments. Micah is not saying following Torah is unimportant, just that some bits are ore important than others. And this is what Jesus said.
Look what he said to the separatists, when debating about the tithing of common household plants.... Jesus said, you should not overlook the heavy commands at the expense of the lighter ones. He did not teach the light ones were unimportant, but that there is a pecking order within them (but any orthodox Jew could tell you this.)
Tell me is Love the Lord your God not an external command. Should we not be able to see Love the Lord your God in action.
Is love your neighbour as yourself only an internal command.... no it is an external command. James says, faith without works is dead, Jesus says let your lamp (good deeds rabbinic parlance for torah deeds) shine before mine... no one hides their good deeds under a basket. Paul says the sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden forever.
there are no internal commands really. They are all external, they are all designed to be done (not simply thought about.)
You like Paul, what did Paul say about Passover.... He said, keep the feast. What did he say about another feast, i hurried to get there (why would he do that).
if Paul's teachings are so simple, why would another apostle say they contain things which are hard to understand which people distort.
Steve
p.s. so if you claim to be observing 'love your neighbour as yourself' and you see an old granny struggling under the weight of her shopping and fail to help, are you really loving your neighbour as yourself?
