How much of the Old testament applies to Christians?

Jesus does strike me as someone who would rather people follow the spirit of the law than the letter. The Neutral Good to some other Jews' Lawful Good.

Or, as has been said, maybe the Old Testament is the Star Trek TOS to the New Testament's Star Trek. (I'm sorry if that's offensive.)

If one can argue that the OT laws were Lawful Good. The impression I get from the gospel accounts is that the religious authorities at the time ranged from Lawful Neutral to outright Lawful Evil.

The gospels record Jesus as having "fulfilled" the law. Matthew 5:17-20. There are multiple ways to interpret that. Most important is "What is the Law?" The gospels say that Jesus was heavily critical of the Pharisees and "teachers of the law", and exhorted his followers to be more righteous than they were. The accounts also say that Jesus violated laws regarding work in the Sabbath, touching the sick, dining with outcasts. I suggest that the lesson is that The Law is more than a code of rituals, behaviors and restrictions.

Jesus is recorded as saying that the two greatest commandments are "Love the Lord your God with all of your mind, soul, heart and strength," and "Love your neighbor as yourself". Those, in my opinion, are the highest Laws. Everything else is a distant second.

But then, I'm not a Christian. I just think Jesus had a lot of good things to say and that people should maybe listen to him and not be dicks to each other.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it tells that once Jesus's disciples harvested some grain to eat on the sabbath. When the Pharisees pointed out this breaking of the Law, Jesus answered:

In saying this, Jesus is implicitly condoning what David did, even though it was clearly against the Law.

And again:

And yet again:

All of this is coming straight from The Final Authority on Christianity, Christ himself.

The general principle seen again and again in the New Testament is that Christianity is about doing the right thing, not about following the rules.

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True. It's when Christians disagree on what "the right thing" is that's the trouble.

"I thought that that might be it, but they didn't believe that the Old Testament was Satanic, they believed that the god depicted in it was evil."

And, further, they saw the Satan figure, i.e. the serpent, as benevolent and liberating.

And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?

So there's some factual basis to the book-burning librarian from Moral Orel who burns the Bible as well, but "only the Jewish parts"? Neat.

Although, doesn't a lot of this stuff depend on which books you consider canon? I mean, the Old and New Testaments, as popularly defined, leave out a lot of religious documents from both the pre- and post-Jesus eras.

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

There's Bibles that have fifteen additional books in the New Testament, or as few as five in the Old Testament.

Some particular translations are even considered to be divinely inspired, and thus MORE reputable than others.

They pick and choose what to keep what not to keep?

Place your past in a book burn the pages let them cook.

Depends on the sect, but depending on how one interprets the New Testament, all too rather selective parts are rejected. Church doctrine almost always explains this with a bunch of NT verses and reasons for their specific interpretation.

It’s definitely not arbitrary from the point of view of the practitioner. *

edited 9th Jun '11 6:02:49 PM by Justice4243

Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.

If you closely examine much of the old law, you'll find certain things such as certain laws being in place to keep us healthy, as opposed to holy (you have to pick up on the syntax a few times). Likewise, many of the laws involving things like blood no longer apply because they were only there to represent Jesus, who has taken care of that - hence we don't have to worry about them.

Other laws are still in full effect, however. Many of the sexual things, for example, such as sleeping with both a mother and her daughter, and stuff like that are "abhorrent", or any number of other negative things. Items like stoning people and whatnot no longer apply as Christ has shown up, so we don't have to do that anymore.

Food laws have been entirely repealed (I don't think that's the right word, but oh well), as seen in Acts. Other than that, we should try to follow most of the laws, both from the New and Old Testament, as doing so enables a better life*

.

Pretty much everything in the OT that still applies is reiterated in the NT, I think.

And lastly, following the law won't add onto your salvation, as is stated, and breaking it won't make you lose it. However, we should follow it nonetheless for a bunch of reasons that I won't bother listing because it is an entirely different subject and an ugly wall of text.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

I'm not allowed to sleep with my mother-in-law, since when?

hashtagsarestupid

funny and most of ya'll troppers do realize that ya'll are using cicular reasoning and vast generalizations.

Place your past in a book burn the pages let them cook.

Probably because most tropers in this thread that are trying to honestly answer the question are trying to do it concisely without generating the wall-o-text fests that tend to run rampant in religious threads on the fora.

This topic is potentially huge, and even The Other Wiki page there doesn’t cover EVERY sect and view regarding Christian position on the OT.

As I mentioned briefly. The old Mosaic Law isn’t addressed in a few lines in the NT, it’s addressed differently by different portions of the NT, and not everyone is in agreement on what those verses actually mean for the OT. You could possibly earn a degree just on this subject, or at least write a thesis on it.

edited 9th Jun '11 10:23:59 PM by Justice4243

Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.

Back in the early days, Christianity was a subsect of Judaism but, unlike mainstream Judaism, it also sought converts. St. Paul seemed to be of the belief that a Christian Jew should observe the old Mosaic laws. Christian Gentiles on the other hand were not bound by Mosaic laws because they were not participants in the original covenant. The Old Testament laws therefore didn't apply to them.

Therefore it seems fairly clear to me. If you are a Jew who converted to Christianity, then you should still follow Jewish law. If you are a convert from another religion, then you need only follow the gospel tradition.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

@TMA:

Question: does this imply that, before the birth of Christ, it was proper and morally justified to stone people who committed what (from our modern perspective) were minor misdeeds or even wholly innocent actions?

I don't really think that, for example, 500 years before Christ it was right to stone a woman for sleeping around — from my point of view, moral truths are absolute, and something like that was a horrific injustice then just as it would be now.

Or do you mean instead that these very laws were imperfect, but that the OT (and the NT too!) is the story of how, through various misunderstandings and filtered by the perceptions of the physical writers, the message of Christianity arrived to humankind?

Or do you mean something else entirely?

Also:

Actually, the blood prohibition is restated in Acts 15:28-29. I cited it in another thread, but here it is: From my perspective, this does not pose a particular problem — the New Testament is divinely inspired, just as the Old Testament is, but this does not mean that any rule of the Old or of the New Testament should be followed blindly: after all, the divine inspiration was filtered through the concerns and the mindsets of the time — for instance, in that case, from the necessity to avoid offending the Hebrews too much.

But I wonder what is your interpretation of this matter.

EDIT: Rereading, it seems that this post sounds more polemic than I meant it to be. I am not trying to attack your position, I am just trying to understand it and raising some concerns about a possible way of interpreting your previous post (which I am not sure was the one you meant).

edited 10th Jun '11 8:42:21 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

@Lawyerdude

Judaism at least the pharisees were seeking converts during the first century.

I also find that asking this questions is a little bit like asking a muslim how much does the rules of christianity appiles to them.

edited 10th Jun '11 9:50:57 AM by warrior93

Place your past in a book burn the pages let them cook.

I do not think that this comparison works. Christianity considers itself the natural successor of Judaism — or, to be more precise, what Judaism became after the fulfillment of a number of prophecies of the OT.

Islam, instead — please correct me if I am wrong — considers itself a renewal, through a literal Act Of God (well, Act of Gabriel at least ) of the ancient, divinely given religion of which both Judaism and Christianity are imperfect, time-corrupted copies.

So Islam does not need to explain continuity problems between its revelation and that of Christianity or Judaism, because it can just say that whenever they contradict Islam it's them that are wrong.

Christianity, instead, claims to be the natural continuation of Judaism. Whenever the NT contradicts the OT, it can be safely stated that the new revelation trumps the old one; but whenever a rule of the OT is not explicitly contradicted by the NT, we have to either accept it or find some reason why it does not apply to us.

edited 10th Jun '11 10:38:34 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

The law as it was in the OT was meant to demonstrate exactly what mankind had to live up to in order to be holy, and a few other things. One such thing would be wrath poured out upon the unholy, which is what we see in stonings. Symbolism ahoy. To this effect, the laws still apply 100%.

However, with Jesus in the picture, much of this can be avoided in that we are spared from the wrath of a holy God upon that which is unholy, and so on.

That said, the wrath of a holy God upon that which is unholy is not a moral issue at all. It has everything to do with God's nature. There are several things which are in fact, beyond God's power. One of those things is that he is absolutely unable to coexist with anything unholy. To elaborate, "Holy" means to be "cut away", or "different". It gives the sense that if anything unholy enters the picture, it will be cut off.

That's bad news for us, because we are all unholy. God however, "loopholes" this with Christ.

It isn't about right and wrong so much as it is about how if you touch a downed power-line without any protection, it may very well kill you on the spot.

-

Hence many of the weirder laws pertaining to stuff like tattoos, and why violators of the law are to make sacrifices, be exiled, or stoned.

tldr: The law in its entirety still applies, but its application is completely different because of the coming of Jesus Christ.

As for how it has been changed... that is a matter of much debate. Obviously.

Interesting; as it stands I certainly cannot claim to have all the answers. In this case, at the very least, the most I can say is the fact that as before, the law still fully applies.

Following the law in such ways can be beneficial to the follower. For example, fasting may not win me brownie points with God or anything, but I would still be inclined to do so as it would strengthen me spiritually, and act out discipline.

I'd go on, but I think I've rattled off enough. I hope that my answer was more or less satisfactory.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Thanks. It's a very interesting perspective — one I am not very familiar with, so I will refrain from commenting on it for now.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your denomination? I do not think I have ever encountered this interpretation before, but I do not know much about the theologies of Reformed churches.

edited 10th Jun '11 11:37:00 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Koran seems to imply that it is a continuation aswell and my by point still stand cause we are talking about differents religions. Cause the tanakh is mainly for Judaism like the N.T is for the Christians so they pick and choose reaaly. Also all the answers have came from a N.T standpoint cause nothing from the tanakh supports everything that the N.T says just ask a rabbi.

Place your past in a book burn the pages let them cook.

I always found Matthew 5:18 odd for this reason.

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. (English Standard Version)

Jesus seemed like a man who, if given the choice between following the Law to the letter and being a jerk or not following the Law/following its spirit rather than letter and being kind, would always choose 'following its spirit'. He was by no means a Rules Lawyer. Why would he say that/Mark choose to attribute that quote to him?

I would still say they treat it very differently as Carciofus mentioned.

The Old Testament is actually part of Christian scripture. Whatever aspects of Christian and Jewish scripture Islam uses are incorporated directly into the Qur’an. Muslims are supposed to have something of a “healthy respect” for Christian and Jewish scripture, but they don’t need to concern themselves with the laws outside the Qur’an or Hadiths

edited 10th Jun '11 1:58:33 PM by Justice4243

Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.

Officially I'm baptist, although I like to think that God is above denominations. :)

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Thanks!

Well, I agree, up to a point.

But for example, it is apparent that our interpretations of the nature of Christ's sacrifice, or of the nature of the Law, or of a number of other matters is somewhat different. It does not mean that anyone of us is a bad person, or is going to hell, or whatever; but it does mean that at least one of us is wrong.

But then again, I believe it likely that no single human being has an entirely correct understanding about these matters... :)

edited 11th Jun '11 9:15:08 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.