Why is it that many Christians

[1John2:4]

I think I understand Paul's teaching quite well. Can you show me this misinterpretation you think I'm making? How are you sure you're not the one misinterpreting Paul?

Selah.

Dear friend I cannot, I may very well be wrong, I just have a hard time believing Paul contradicts the rest of the Bible including himself. God always desired obedience from His servants and He does not change. To keep His statutes commandments and charge is His will for us. If I read Galatians and decide that the law has been abolished it contradicts what Yeshua(Jesus) spoke in Matthew 5:17 -20.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

When Adam was created man didn't comprehend letters, numbers, days of the week, etc. All those things were developed over time. So I don't see how we can know for sure.

Adam was so far superior to anyone we know today, physically and mentally .... plus ....
no one likely comprehends it.
He decided on the names, and named, every animal .... remember ?
He had conversatons with God .... few men today do....
One mistake he made, God knew he would make....
But men today make the same mistake, day after day after day, ....... "on purpose !"

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

If I read Galatians

No worry. Galatians is perfect, not contrary to God's Law.
See Wuest Study Expanded Greek (free pdf) on Galatians (a difficult, time consuming read , although plain and straight forward (no twisting words nor language); just not easy for people today to grasp, how totally evil society is )

 

[aiki]

I will show it to you when you show me that everything we believe must come from the Bible alone. The fact of the matter is that the Christian disciples of the second century were writing that the Eucharist is the very Body and Blood of the Lord. These were men who were discipled by the Apostles, therefore, we know that the only place they could have gotten such a belief is from the Apostles themselves.

Ah. That's sort of what I thought you'd say. So, there isn't any irresistible biblical reason for not taking Christ's words as spiritual and figurative rather than literal? And you can't cite any place in the New Testament where an apostle says he has literally eaten the flesh of Christ and has drunk his actual blood? Seems like those "heretical" Anabaptists were just being faithful to Scripture...

Selah.

 

[Hank77]

Saying that we are no longer under an teacher is not at all the same thing as saying that we are disregard everything they taught us. For example, after someone learns what their first-grade teacher has to teach them, they are no longer under that teacher and move on to a new second-grade teacher. In the process, they aren't to forget everything they were taught by their previous teacher, but rather their second-grade teacher incorporates what they learned and builds upon that. For instance, a student can not moved on to more advanced math classes by disregarding what they were taught about math in previous classes. In the same way, we have a better teacher who can teach us more advanced lessons, but these lessons build off of what we have previously been taught rather than invalidating it.

The translation into the English word 'tutor' probably isn't the best translation. A closer word would be 'guardian'. Children were always accompanied by a chaperone or guardian when they left home. Even when they were at home this person was there, we call them nannies or companions today. This person was responsible for keeping them safe, away from harm. That is what I believe the Law was for, to keep the Israelites away from harm, safe from the influences of pagan ways and idol worship. It set them apart from the pagan nations. The ceremonies and rituals were types and shadows of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. So the Law prepared the way for them to recognize Him and His sacrifice for them as their Redeemer.

 

[pat34lee]

There are many laws from God, and they change.

Example: upon creation, God gave man plants to eat (and presumably, milk).
After the flood, he gave man all animals to eat, but they had to be killed first (or, their blood was not to be eaten).

Start with the first. I agree with the part creation to the flood.

You know that Noah knew the difference between clean and
unclean animals, don't you? (Genesis 7:2) Why was that?

 

[pat34lee]

The translation into the English word 'tutor' probably isn't the best translation. A closer word would be 'guardian'. Children were always accompanied by a chaperone or guardian when they left home. Even when they were at home this person was there, we call them nannies or companions today. This person was responsible for keeping them safe, away from harm. That is what I believe the Law was for, to keep the Israelites away from harm, safe from the influences of pagan ways and idol worship. It set them apart from the pagan nations. The ceremonies and rituals were types and shadows of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. So the Law prepared the way for them to recognize Him and His sacrifice for them as their Redeemer.

Look up the milk and meat in Romans and 1 Corinthians.
I believe this is where most Christians are stuck. They
believe they are eating meat, when they are still on milk,
and understand nothing of the basis for all scripture: Torah.

 

[Hank77]

I really do appreciate your ideas. I have thought about it too I just wonder why the commandment starts with the Word remember Exodus 20:8? I wonder why the calendar still has Saturday as the 7th day of the week even though the Gregorian calendar origionated from Pope Gregory in the 1500s, just a thought, could God be preserving the Shabbat?

Hmm...I never thought of that as meaning 'remember' as remembering something from the past, but more like saying something like, 'Remember to do something.'
Exo 20:8 `Remember the Sabbath-day to sanctify it;
Exo 20:9 six days thou dost labour, and hast done all thy work,
Exo 20:10 and the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yehovah thy God; thou dost not do any work,...

Maybe God is preserving the Shabbat. It is important to fellowship and worship together.

 

[Hank77]

Look up the milk and meat in Romans and 1 Corinthians.
I believe this is where most Christians are stuck. They
believe they are eating meat, when they are still on milk,
and understand nothing of the basis for all scripture: Torah.

Did you answer my question about the Sabbath? Maybe I missed it.

 

[Hank77]

You know that Noah knew the difference between clean and
unclean animals, don't you? (Genesis 7:2) Why was that?

Nice easy question, how does a man know anything about God, because God told/tells him. But we don't know when God told him. We do know that Noah made sacrifices before the flood, as Abel and Job did. Those would have been clean but it doesn't explain the others, does it. But if the scripture where God tells Noah that the animals would now fear him and that he could eat all the moving things then maybe that is the explanation.
In other scriptures it says cattle, birds, and moving things. What these moving things were may have meant the other clean animals.

 

[Soyeong]

The translation into the English word 'tutor' probably isn't the best translation. A closer word would be 'guardian'. Children were always accompanied by a chaperone or guardian when they left home. Even when they were at home this person was there, we call them nannies or companions today. This person was responsible for keeping them safe, away from harm. That is what I believe the Law was for, to keep the Israelites away from harm, safe from the influences of pagan ways and idol worship. It set them apart from the pagan nations. The ceremonies and rituals were types and shadows of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. So the Law prepared the way for them to recognize Him and His sacrifice for them as their Redeemer.

I've also seen it translated as "guardian", but I think a guardian who keeps us safe from sin by teaching us about what sin is and how to do what is holy, righteous, and good, is a similar enough concept that I think it works either way. God's people now have the indwelling of the Spirit to keep us safe from sin and to teach us to obey God's law (Ezekiel 36:26-27), so we have a superior guardian, but either way it has not changed that we still need to be kept from doing what God has revealed as sin and do what He has revealed as being holy, righteous, and good. It's not just Israel needs to be set apart from pagan nations, but all of God's people, and all Gentiles are now included as part of this holy nation (1 Peter 2:9-10) and told to have a holy conduct (1 Peter 1:14-16). The ceremonial laws are God's instructions for how to have a holy conduct and 1 Peter 1:16 quotes from where God was giving those laws.

The Torah is the revelation of the Messiah and Messiah is the goal of the Torah (Romans 10:4), so if you read the Torah and miss the Messiah, then you've missed the whole point. It is all about him and full of shadows/rehearsals that teach about him and about what we will be doing during his reign. The law points to him because he is the one who can save us from our sin of transgressing it, both by paying the penalty of our transgression and by causing us to obey it so that we might meet its righteous requirement (Romans 8:4). He is not our redeemer from the law, but our redeemer from lawlessness so that we will be free to obey it by grace through faith (Titus 2:11-14).

 

[Hank77]

Adam was so far superior to anyone we know today, physically and mentally .... plus ....
no one likely comprehends it.
He decided on the names, and named, every animal .... remember ?
He had conversatons with God .... few men today do....

Because numbers, letters, calendars had not been developed yet doesn't in anyway have any bearing on the intelligence of Adam or the spiritual relationship he had with God.
Einstein was a genius but he couldn't have used a computer and the internet, they hadn't been developed yet. Are you suggesting the Adam developed a number system and a calendar?

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Because numbers, letters, calendars had not been developed yet doesn't in anyway have any bearing on the intelligence of Adam or the spiritual relationship he had with God.
Einstein was a genius but he couldn't have used a computer and the internet, they hadn't been developed yet. Are you suggesting the Adam developed a number system and a calendar?

If you walk daily with God, the Creator,
I guarantee you won't ever think about those things.
(EVERYTHING ELSE pales in LIGHT OF HIS GRACE is what I mean -
In the Life with Him so full, the things of the world lose all interest, we die to the world , and the world dies to us....)

 

[Hank77]

t's not just Israel needs to be set apart from pagan nations, but all of God's people, and all Gentiles are now included as part of this holy nation (1 Peter 2:9-10) and told to have a holy conduct (1 Peter 1:14-16). The ceremonial laws are God's instructions for how to have a holy conduct and 1 Peter 1:16 quotes from where God was giving those laws.

I was speaking of the nation of Israel in the OT as the people who were set apart at that time, this would have included the gentiles proselytes that had converted and turn away from the pagan nations, such as Ruth and the man who, with his soldiers, was circumcised and then could participate in the Passover.
The whole of 1 Peter 1 is a beautiful and wonderful picture of the people of God finding their hope in the unblemished and spotless Redeemer.

I agree with everything you have stated in this post, if I have understood you correctly.

 

[Hank77]

If you walk daily with God, the Creator,
I guarantee you won't ever think about those things.
(EVERYTHING ELSE pales in LIGHT OF HIS GRACE is what I mean -
In the Life with Him so full, the things of the world lose all interest, we die to the world , and the world dies to us....)

Well, when one witnesses and speaks the Gospel to others very often we are asked these types of questions. Our own children and grandchildren ask these types of questions. It's a good thing to have an answer ready, if there is an answer in God's Word. Don't you think so?
God doesn't expect us to leave our brain on a shelf, He expects us to use it to glorify Him.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Well, when one witnesses and speaks the Gospel to others very often we are asked these types of questions. Our own children and grandchildren ask these types of questions. It's a good thing to have an answer ready, if there is an answer in God's Word. Don't you think so?
God doesn't expect us to leave our brain on a shelf, He expects us to use it to glorify Him.

Mostly, as Jesus says, Learn from Jesus, Speak of Jesus, and as Jesus told in the NT, go and tell others what Jesus has done for you.
As for the brain.... let it be perfectly as Jesus says in the Bible - and the heart also, and also the spirit.
The things of the spirit that God teaches us, He also says we will learn gradually to have words for in our minds, from what the Spirit teaches us... (i.e. so much true and right and harmonious with all of God's Word; and not speculations nor fables nor things that came from defiled sources)....
What God is able to teach us, to train us in, is the same things as He taught the disciples, and trained them in, and just as holy (set apart), just as consecrated, just as righteous as they learned it from Him....
"From Him" as a source is crucial. Critical even.
Yes, then we will and do have an answer ready for our FAITH in HIM. ....
Not necessarily for all things in the world or of the world,
or even not nearly all things in His Word (it takes a lifetime and then some ! with God's HELP all along ! )

With God's Help. step by step. Learning from Him .... Always in line and in harmony with all of His Word (this is critical test of anything).

 

[Sketcher]

Why would the 4th Commandment be an exception then?
God hallowed the sabbath already in Genesis 2.

He rested. But he didn't command anyone to keep Sabbath until he commanded the nation of Israel to do so.

God has always been holy, righteous, and good, so He has always had such a conduct, and His law is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12) because it is based on His character and it is His instructions for how have such a conduct. So the way to do what his holy, righteous, and good existed from the beginning independently of any covenant and would exist even if God had made no covenants with man, so having such a conduct is about identifying with God, not a specific group of people. Anyone who identifies as one of God's chosen people through faith in Messiah, who has faith in Him for how they should live, and seeks to do what is holy, righteous, and good should follow the instructions that God has given to His people for how to do so. According to Deuteronomy 7:6, Israel is God's chosen people, a holy nation, and a treasure of God's own possession and according to 1 Peter 2:9-10, Gentiles are included as being part of that, so it is not just Israel that is to be set apart. Jesus always kept the Sabbath, and all who identify as his followers who abide in him should follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22), should walk in the same way that he walk (1 John 2:4-6), imitate him (1 Corinthians 11:1), and be like him (Philippians 2:5), not leave all that for just the Jews to do.

Jesus kept the Law but the Spirit explicitly guided the church to say that Gentiles not be required to do so (Acts 15). Jesus was circumcised, should all Christian men be circumcised?

There are 1,050 commands in the NT, so if you think that the four laws in Acts 15 as an exclusive list, then that would exclude over 99% of the commands in the NT including the teachings of Jesus, but if you think that those four laws were clearly never intended to be an exhaustive list, that I'd agree with you. In the same way that an employer does require a new employed to learn everything they will ever need to know about how to do their jobs, those four laws were a starting point with the excuse that they would continue to learn the rest every Sabbath in the synagogues (Acts 15:21), which implies that Gentiles were already keeping God's Sabbath in obedience to His commands.

Yet there is no explicit command in the NT for Gentiles to keep Sabbath. In their letters to the churches, the Apostles touched on murder, theft, greed, idolatry, adultery, fornication, coveting, and honoring your parents when giving commands to the general church, but not Sabbath.

In 1 Peter 1:14-16, we are told to have a holy conduct, and then verse 16 references Leviticus 11:44-45 where God was giving instructions for how to have a holy conduct, which include God's dietary laws. It should also be straightforward that keeping God's holy days is also part of how to have a holy conduct (Leviticus 19:2-3).

Peter wasn't telling Gentiles to keep kosher - he surely remembered Paul's public rebuke for implicitly doing so (Galatians 2:11-19). For the same reason, this is not evidence that Christians are to keep the Jewish high holy days - Paul preached against that practice for Gentiles (Galatians 4:9-11, Colossians 2:16-17).

If you enter a strange culture, how long would it take
you to learn all the rules? Months, perhaps years? It
is the same with learning God's laws. He gives us the
time we need to learn, as long as we are responsible
to keep learning and applying those laws to our lives.
Acts 15 was a place they could start. Easy to remember
and put into action in their lives.

Yet there is no evidence in any of the letters that it was expected that the Gentile Christians follow the whole Law. Those letters are dated years after that event would have taken place.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Yet there is no explicit command in the NT for Gentiles to keep Sabbath. In their letters to the churches, the Apostles touched on murder, theft, greed, idolatry, adultery, fornication, coveting, and honoring your parents when giving commands to the general church, but not Sabbath.

For research later. (learned decades ago, just believed God and His Word and the references at that time; thought EVERYBODY would be delighted ! to honor God's Word and thought EVERYBODY, in all the churches, would be ecstatic and rejoicing in His Word , like I think happened in Nehemiah) .....
In the Torah, OT, and in the NT times, gentiles who wanted to approach Yhwh (God), had only one option - to learn from the Jews. And all the gentiles who became righteous, willingly without any question, honored the sabbath and all of God's commandments. Otherwise, they were not considered righteous.
There's even indications of this , clearly, about Cornelius, in the NT.
Remember also, out of all the nations in the world, God only chose the Hebrews/Israel to be His, and "all the gentile nations were without God, and without hope in the world"...
ie.
there weren't ever, any , good gentile nations. they never even sought Yhwh.

 

[Sketcher]

For research later. (learned decades ago, just believed God and His Word and the references at that time; thought EVERYBODY would be delighted ! to honor God's Word and thought EVERYBODY, in all the churches, would be ecstatic and rejoicing in His Word , like I think happened in Nehemiah) .....
In the Torah, OT, and in the NT times, gentiles who wanted to approach Yhwh (God), had only one option - to learn from the Jews. And all the gentiles who became righteous, willingly without any question, honored the sabbath and all of God's commandments. Otherwise, they were not considered righteous.
There's even indications of this , clearly, about Cornelius, in the NT.
Remember also, out of all the nations in the world, God only chose the Hebrews/Israel to be His, and "all the gentile nations were without God, and without hope in the world"...
ie.
there weren't ever, any , good gentile nations. they never even sought Yhwh.

Can you list such Gentiles from the OT? There was very high praise of Cyrus, but he was Zorastrian.
Cornelius didn't keep all of God's commandments, he wasn't circumcised. Nor was keeping Sabbath listed among his virtues when the angel came to visit him.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Can you list such Gentiles from the OT? There was very high praise of Cyrus, but he was Zorastrian.
Cornelius didn't keep all of God's commandments, he wasn't circumcised. Nor was keeping Sabbath listed among his virtues when the angel came to visit him.

Before God teaches anyone,
so likewise before I would even attempt it,
they have to love the truth first, and want to learn from God,
and seek it from Him and His Word.

That's partly why I posted "for research" see ?