Broken_Orange_Juice
You know you messed up when a photographer can take what seems to be a long(ish) exposure shot of a highway.
I find the point you mentioned about slavery being less reprehensible than murder or theft or lying quite interesting, since my understanding of the Bible is that all sin is weighed the same, being that the wages of sin is death. Not entirely sure how the slavery that existed under Mosaic law quite worked, but I don’t think it could be justified in any way. Don’t worry about your previous comments, I certainly didn’t take them that way! Glad to have a respectful back and forth on a topic like this.
Thank you for the quibble. I’m not the most informed on all these topics, and still growing in my faith and knowledge. The reason why I’ll always argue for God despite not having all the answers is because I’ve had a personal experience with him, and as such will always strive to find an answer the aligns with God’s existence, the same God as that in the Bible.
Firstly, animal sacrifice had a purpose, and that purpose was replaced by the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus Christ. With the pork topic, I’m not entirely educated, but I know it’s a debated topic.
To the actual meat of this, how could you take “Jesus didn’t abolish but fulfill the law”, then say that Jesus abolished the law by fulfilling it? I’ve been studying this across Romans 6, 7, 8; and also the entire book of Galatians both discuss the law in full. As I’m studying, I’ve also been writing an essay on the topic. I’ll share when I finish it. Until then, here’s a mini summary. Regardless, we can at least agree that Jesus didn’t contradict himself (assuming you’re coming from a Christian background).
The law (Mosaic laws, Moses’s laws) was created for a few purposes: firstly, to prevent us from sinning aka doing the things that distance us from God; Second, many of the laws were created for the cleanliness and safety of the people, although most of these things are considered common sense today. We’re gonna focus on the former, being closer to God.
Jesus commands that the greatest 2 commandments are to love God, and love others. In loving Jesus, you don’t want to sin, and avoid it as second nature. It’s 2 opposing forces, desires of the flesh vs your love of Christ, as the latter increases the latter will naturally decrease. In doing so, Jesus has fulfilled the purpose of the law, but still hasn’t abolished it. I could add verses if you’d like, but I’d have to double check where they are. The laws have still not been abolished though, since how are we to know what is sin unless the law shows us. Although, we still have the Spirit of discernment which allows us to differentiate the original purpose of the law, the intention of the heart, and allows us to widen our scope and know whether certain things are sin or not regardless of if they’re explicitly mentioned in the Bible. This same spirit allows us to determine whether something is just against the Mosaic law for health/cleanliness reasons (some people will claim pork is under this category, but as I said I’m not entirely sure), for avoiding Pagan traditions (like the mention of tattoos), or whether it’s truly distancing us from God.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
I disagree with the statement mentioned in the original comment, but this isn’t a proper argument against it. In that verse, they’re discussing who Jesus came for. Instead, you can look at Matthew 5, in the sermon on the mount, which says that Christ did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. As such, the laws cannot be disregarded.
The Mosaic laws are really quite interesting. These verses can work in tandem with those in Leviticus 19. There later is the understanding of why we were given the Mosaic laws, just for Jesus to disagree with them a bit later, which is explained in Matthew 19:3-8. "
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."
Many of the things discussed in the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible, where the Mosaic laws lie), are just about how to live their day to day lives, and at the time they had many slaves, something that they wouldn’t be willing to change. Instead of this, God commands how to treat these slaves. The Old Testament is full of confusing stuff, but it certainly isn’t just from “the Jew section of the Bible” as suggested in another comment. It has value, but they must be understood through a specific lens, understanding the lives of the people God is talking to.
If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t let my (future) kids drive a little car. They’d save up enough money to get a shitty little car, and I’d pay the rest to get them a big car. I’ve seen what happens to little cars in crashes, and if people continue driving the way they do, I’d rather my kid be in a big car rather than a little one (not Western nation).
Got me laughing my ass off in class