Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: gdm7238@venus.tamu.edu (MCBRIDE, GARY DEAN) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Biblical Sexual Morality Message-ID: Date: 25 Mar 91 08:27:43 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Academic Computing Services, Texas A&M University Lines: 105 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , bgsuvax!kutz@cis.ohio-state.edu (Kenneth J. Kutz) writes... ]In article , tblake@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Thomas Blake) writes: ] ]Tom sites the following passage our lack of obedience to this command ]as a reason to (perhaps) believe that commands against homosexuality ]may not apply to this age: ] ]] The Bible is full of injuctions that we choose to ignore... ]] Leviticus 19:19 ]] "Obey my commands. Do not crossbreed domestic animals. Do not plant ]] two kinds of seed in the same field. Do not wear clothes made of two ]] kinds of material." (TEV) ] ]Tom I believe that God gave the nation of Israel many commands to ]separate them from the surrounding nations. Israel was to be ]different, set apart to God as a light for the nations. You'll ]find in this book that these commands were given to the *nation* ]Israel. This statement is incorrect. The Law of the Prophets was indeed given to the nation of Israel, but it was intended to mark the people as the people of God. The Jews believed that anyone who practiced the law of the Prophets be he of Jewish ancestry or not was set apart as one of God's people. Jesus said quite bluntly in Matthew and Luke that not the tiniest part of the law of the Prophets will change or be forgotten. So, if Jesus did not want to change the law of the Prophets, why are Christians doing so? ]The church had not been built yet (Jesus said "I will ]build my church" - future tense). ] ]Therefore, the reason we plant two kinds of seed in the same field ]is because our seperation unto God is no longer national (outward) ]but international (Jews and Gentiles) and internal (of the heart). ]The Body of Christ (a mystery revealed by Paul) is made up of believers ]who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit forever. This is what sets us ]apart - the fruit of the Spirit. ] What scripture tells you that the Old Testament injunctions were to be abandoned? Where does it say that the Old Law should not be practiced by Christians? And if it does say that, how does this mesh with what Jesus said about not changing the law? I think it needs to be said that Paul and Jesus did not agree about the disposition of the Old Law. Paul said we are dead to the Law yet Jesus said it would never change or be nullified. He even went so far as to quote the Pharisee proverb, "I have come not to change the law but to fulfill it." Which means, at least the Jews understood it to mean, I have not come to tinker with God's eternal ordinances but to teach them how they apply in this situation. The situation he was talking about was of course his claim to the traditional Jewish role of Messiah. ] Kenneth J. Kutz Internet kutz@andy.bgsu.edu ] Systems Programmer BITNET KUTZ@ANDY ] University Computer Services UUCP ...!osu-cis!bgsuvax!kutz ] Bowling Green State Univ. US Mail 238 Math Science, BG OH 43403 Sensei "If Jesus was so opposed to the Pharisees, why did he quote traditional Phariseic wisdom over forty times?" [There seem to be a number of things that have to be reconciled: - Jesus' statment that he did not come to abolish the law - Jesus' way of dealing with the Law, which tended to radicalize and internalize it, and in some cases (e.g. "harvesting" on the Sabbath) did not call for literal obedience, at least as it was then interpreted - Acts 15, which says that Gentile Christians need not be circumcized, and probably need not obey the rest of the Law, except for a few commandments that seem to have been based on the convenant with Noah (in the form in which it was presented by 1st Cent. rabbis). - Paul's views, in Rom and Gal particularly, which saw the Law as at best a temporary schoolmaster until Christ should appear, and characterized Christians' relationship with God as modelled after Abraham's. (Abraham was before the Law.) - Paul's opposition to "antinomians", which indicates that whatever he thought about the Law, he also didn't think that "anything goes". There are a number of ways to reconcile these things. The most common is probably to say that the Law combines ethical contents, which are eternal, with specific ceremonies and ordinances that set off the Jews as a people. Christians are bound by the first, but not the second. The more radical approach is to say that the Law does not apply at all, and Christian ethics must be reconstructed based on love and not Law. Note that Christ's comment about fulfilling the Law is not necessarily as simple as it looks. First, he was speaking to a Jewish audience. If you adopt the point of view suggested by Acts 15, the Law is still binding for Jewish Christians. It's Gentiles who are not expected to be circumcized or to follow the full Law. Thus the Law is not abolished. It is simply not applied to Gentiles, which is after all consistent with 1st Cent. Jewish practice. Second, the word translated "fulfill" can have several meanings. One of them is "to end, conclude, make complete". Some interpreters have said that Christ (particularly by his death) ended the Law in this sense. I'm not advocating any specific solution here, but pointing out that the issue is a complex one, which will not be settled by citing any one passage. --clh]