Welcome Bird,
I think you have a good idea where I’m coming from. I too, appreciated your words.
Hey Auggy! Warning: Just kind of laying it out there.
Could you give me your working definition of “love”? To me it is many things but, primarily it means we are right with God and our neighbor. That it is our heart’s desire to reach out to God and others as outlined in the commandments and that this active - doing love creates also a feeling in us and others of well being. This feeling is what most people define as “love”.
I do not think it is these feelings some call love that give wisdom or prudence. Deut 4:6 says keeping and doing God’s statutes and judgments is wisdom and understanding. Proverbs are the sayings of the wise. Wisdom and prudence from God is the same now because God is the same, He doesn’t change. And, as Bird said, the law is written on our hearts.
I find the idea “Follow love and you’ll be just fine.” is too obscure and means nothing to someone outside of christian culture. It comes off as, “always have warm fuzzy feelings and everything will fall into place”. I think your words are a bit confusing to me because I stand on the solid rock foundation of Yeshua, keeping Torah and “feelings” of love come from that, not the other way around. God has written the Torah on my heart, I see it confirmed in scripture, I keep and do Torah (as Yeshua did) and feelings of love come.
I do not deny any ability of human intuition. But, human intuition can be wrong and go unchecked. Frankly, and I’m not trying to be snotty here, when I hear someone proclaim they are a christian, I step back and just watch to see what kind of christian they are. Too many people claim Christ and think He sanctions any action that comes into their head. I’ve seen some bad stuff come out of people and they claimed it was from “the spirit”. If they also believed the scriptures were a credible source, they could have checked “the spirit” given behavior to see if it really were from God.
God’s Torah was given from the beginning. God is love, do you believe He shoved the human race into a hostile environment without giving them some wisdom? Written or no, the patriarchs kept Yehovah’s statutes and judgments. It may or may not have been “written down” but, it is clear when people were following God’s ways and instructions.
Romans 1 actually says the opposite of your use of it. People do not retain God in their knowledge. They continually go astray. Indeed the just shall live by faith but, you will have to reconcile that with the “old testament” because it is a quote from there.
That’s cool but, I think you can understand why I would rather do what God says (and what Yeshua did) than go with your intuition. I do agree with you that eating foods may not be about being good or bad. It may be about obedience, it may be a shadow picture of what should or shouldn’t go into the temple (which is now us as a shadow picture - 1 Corinthians), it may be a good many things we don’t yet understand or discern. I think you can also understand that saying people back then didn’t know how to cook pork but, now we do so it’s ok to eat means nothing to me. For me, it is not a matter of health.
I don’t follow you on the correlation between Catholic transubstantiation and not eating pork. Further, I still don’t know exactly what you are labeling me in the term “literalist” so, the two may fit together somehow but, it doesn’t in my thinking.
I think most people get that. Well, except I think Jesus meant the yeast that leavens bread instead of an infectious disease.
This is kind of weird for me because I hear you saying we can throw off some scriptures, interpret the written any way we want, and you can just go with “human intuition” and that’s enough because that is love but, you still use the “written” scripture to try to validate the point you want to make. This is my main point . .
" . . . and because from a babe the Holy Writings thou hast known, which are able to make thee wise–to salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus; every Writing is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for setting aright, for instruction that is in righteousness, that the man of God may be fitted–for every good work having been completed."
(2Ti 3:15-17)
The “Holy Writings” spoken of here is the “old testament”. If the “Holy Writings” are good enough for Timothy, operating in the Holy Spirit and in a “new testament” church, why should they not be for us also?
Matt and I don’t have exactly the same views, Auggy. I could care less if pork is healthy or not. I obey God because He is just, right, true, holy and He says not to eat pork (among other things). God never says anything about “health laws”. Not to say that health is not worth considering. Simply put, He is my Creator, He created this earth, the animals, He has said this is food for you, this is not. Thus, I obey. He knows a whole lot more than I do.
Already went over this but, hand washing according to the elders is not Torah. Simply: elders=man made laws added to or taken from Torah many times.
You want to focus on punishment for sin. I have no idea why or what it has to do with my not eating pork or keeping the Sabbath. I have no authority or great wisdom for you in this area, as this authority has been given to others, including governing authorities, as it says in Romans. It would be nice if every person on earth followed the higher path but, as long as we are in the flesh, sadly - it’s not going to happen. God commands us for our own good to give up wrongs, not rights. His system always results in Liberty and freedom. American law, includes “freedom”. The idea of freedom and law fit together in our minds when we speak of American law. Why not God’s law? The fathers said that the whole “freedom experiment” hinged on the people’s commitment to keep and do the commandments of God. Thus, we have enjoyed great freedom here. Sadly for a very short time - and I think we all know why. We don’t keep or do the commandments anymore and it is the christian institutional religion that is leading the rebellion and forging our chains of slavery to harsh, unjust law. We are on the edge of a knife - thanks to “human intuition” leading us away from God’s law (just, holy, good) and into what we call “love”. It’s easy to say we don’t need the law - especially God’s “old ways” (“The Ancient Principles” as Jefferson put it) and that we know better. We’ll see how we feel about that when we finally do away with justice in America. We’ll see what “freedom” is all about when what remains of God’s law is gone from this country. When it finally really effects you. When all is not theoretical talk - then we will know how great God’s law really is - how “easy His yoke and how light His burden”. Even those who profited by eliminating God’s law will grieve. Oh yeah, it will all work out in the end but . . .
Unchecked power is the foundation of tyranny. God’s just law checks the powers, it protects the weak against the strong.
He who has ears and all that . . . lol.
Just some thoughts.