Tag: Law of Moses

Foreigners, Neighbors, and Citizens of God’s Kingdom in the United States of America Today

Immigration is one of the most polarizing issues for American Christians today

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“You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born.”

Leviticus 24:22

That single line, given by the Lord to Moses, is often read narrowly: foreigners are subject to the same penalties as citizens. True—but incomplete. Law is not merely punitive; it is protective. If the same law binds the foreigner, the same law also shields the foreigner. Justice, in the biblical sense, is reciprocal.

The rules that apply to foreigners are embedded in the sacred Law God gave to Moses for His people. The Law even applied specific protections to foreigners:

  • Leviticus 19:9–10 — Leave gleanings for the poor and the foreigner.
  • Leviticus 23:22 — Harvest leftovers belong to the foreigner and poor.
  • Deuteronomy 24:19–21 — Leave grain, olives, and grapes for foreigners.
  • Deuteronomy 26:12 — Tithes every third year support foreigners.

The Reciprocity Built into God’s Law

Leviticus develops this principle further. In Leviticus 25, the Lord instructs Israel that if a native-born Israelite loses his land and falls into poverty, he is to be treated as a foreigner among them. Why? Because the law already required Israel to provide for foreigners in their midst. By placing impoverished Israelites into the same category as foreigners, God establishes a profound reciprocity:

The protections of the law given to the Israelites apply to the foreigners living among them. The protections given to outsiders become the safety net for insiders when they fall.

This is not accidental. It reveals something essential about God’s character: His justice is inseparable from His mercy.

Other passages reinforce the pattern of concern for foreigners:

  • Leviticus 19:34 — “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.”
  • Deuteronomy 1:16–17 — Judges must hear cases fairly, whether involving Israelites or foreigners.
  • Deuteronomy 10:18–19 — God “loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”
  • Deuteronomy 24:17 — Do not deprive foreigners of justice.

God’s intentions are reinforced over and over:

  • Exodus 22:21 — “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
  • Exodus 23:9 — Do not oppress a foreigner; you know their experience
  • Leviticus 19:33–34 — Do not mistreat; love them as yourself
  • Deuteronomy 10:19 — Love the foreigner, for you were foreigners

Israel’s memory of its own foreignness was meant to inform Israel’s identity and to shape its ethics. Their past vulnerability became the foundation of their present compassion. They were never to forget who they were and to treat people as they would want to be treated.

Set Apart—But Not Set Against

God was forming a people set apart—a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). Yet their distinctiveness was never meant to become isolation or superiority. From the beginning, God’s promise to Abraham was expansive:

“All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 12:3

Election was never exclusion. The chosen people existed for the sake of the unchosen. We are the benefactors of God’s expansive purpose today.

Jubilee and Land Ownership

Leviticus 25 also introduces the Year of Jubilee – a system of Law that reinforces the design and purpose of God. Under this system, land could not be owned permanently:

“The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.”

Leviticus 25:23

Even in the Promised Land, Israel was reminded: you are tenants, not owners.

This theme echoes throughout Scripture. Humanity has lived in exile since Eden. Abraham lived in tents (Hebrews 11:9–10), because he was waiting for a city “whose architect and builder is God.” The saints of old lived as “foreigners and strangers on earth.” (Hebrews 11:13) This is the hallmark of God’s people – their ingrained identity.

The New Testament continues the theme:

  • Philippians 3:20 — “Our citizenship is in heaven.”
  • 1 Peter 2:11 — “I urge you, as foreigners and exiles…”

The Apostle John saw in vivid detail what Abraham and the saints of old only saw from afar:

“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”

Revelation 21:1-2

Our true home is the New Jerusalem – where Jesus has prepared rooms for all of his people. The Kingdom of God is not of this world. The biblical story reframes our identity: no matter where we are born, God’s people live as resident aliens awaiting a better country and a City the architect and builder of which is God.

The American Tension

The United States is not ancient Israel, and the Mosaic Law is not our civil code. Yet the heart of God revealed in Scripture has not changed. The law written on stone has given way to the law written on hearts (Jeremiah 31:33), but its moral trajectory remains.

Continue reading “Foreigners, Neighbors, and Citizens of God’s Kingdom in the United States of America Today” →

The Importance of Humility, Openness, and Generosity toward the Holy Spirit in Reading Scripture

We need to be ever humble before God and ever humble in our reliance on our own understanding

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In my last blog post, I wrote about the crippled woman Jesus healed in the synagogue, to the synagogue leader’s chagrin (The Danger of Being Too Set in Our Interpretation of What God Requires and What He Is Doing). The synagogue leader thought Jesus shouldn’t be working/healing on the Sabbath, so he instructed the crowd that they could come any other day of the week to be healed, but not on the Sabbath. (Luke 13:10-17)

It seems ridiculous to us, but who knows what doctrines, dogmas, understandings, and ways of thinking we have that get in our way of recognizing God and what He is doing in our present time. If we shrug our shoulders at the seeming insignificance of the Sabbath concern, we will miss the weight of this encounter.

The keeping of the Sabbath was a sacred tradition that goes all the way back to Genesis, when God rested after the six (6) days of creation. (Gen. 2:2-3) Moses passed on the commandment directly from God when the Hebrews were delivered out of Egypt: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work….” (Ex. 20:9-10)

The Sabbath was reinforced by Moses as part of the covenant relationship established by God with the Israelites. Many centuries before Jesus, God told Moses:

“Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy. Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people.” (Ex. 31:13-14)

Can you see why the first century Hebrews held so tightly to their Sabbath doctrine? It was a commandment; it was sacred; it was an intimate sign of their covenant with God going back many centuries; and the penalty of violating the Sabbath in the Mosaic law was death (or being cut off from the people).

For that reason, the Jewish leaders added strict protocols to the observance of the Sabbath to be sure that no one violated it, even inadvertently. Thus, when Jesus did something highly irregular, like calling a crippled woman forward in the synagogue in the first place, and then healing her, the synagogue leader was legitimately concerned, in his mind, about a violation of that sacred commandment.

Yet, in his concern for not offending God and for observing law, he failed to recognize God in the flesh standing right before him! Ironically, the Law that was intended to point the Hebrews to God got in the way of the him recognizing God.

God commanded them to keep the Sabbath at the risk of death and exile! Thus, they believed they couldn’t be too careful! What are we to make of this?

One clue is in the details of the response by Jesus. He called the religious leaders hypocrites because they untied their livestock and took them out to get water on the Sabbath. (Luke 13:13) If they believed that caring for their animals on the Sabbath was ok on the Sabbath, they should have recognized that healing a person was ok also.

“Yes, but God commanded!”, the synagogue leader might have said. I suppose Jesus might have asked in return, “Commanded what?” The synagogue leader might have protested further, “But we cannot be too careful! These things are not to be taken lightly. We need to err on the side of caution, lest we step over the line!”

These things should not be taken lightly, no doubt, but the synagogue leader obviously missed something of essential importance. What he missed, I think is better understood in the context of some global criticisms Jesus expressed toward the religious leaders of his day (which likely are as applicable today as they were then):

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matt. 23:23-24)

The Law and all of its rules were not meant to be the end all be all. Paul says the law was a guardian or tutor to lead us to Christ. (Gal. 2:24) Perhaps partially, to help us recognize our need for Christ in our inability to keep the Law. Perhaps, partially, to provide rituals by and through which a relationship could be established with God. Perhaps, in other ways as well.

The point is that the Law was never meant to define the totality of God’s relationship with people. What God wanted, which is what the Law was intended to teach, was for the Hebrews to love Him and for them to love each other.

Jesus said as much when he said the Law can be summed up succinctly in two phrases: Love God, and love your neighbor.

This was not a new concept when Jesus spoke those words, though. Jesus was once asked, “What is greatest commandment?”, by a teacher of the Law. When Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor, the teacher commended Jesus for the answer, demonstrating that the teacher of the Law knew the answer, himself. (Mark 12:28-34)

When the teacher of the law commended Jesus for the answer, Jesus told the teacher that he answered “wisely” and, therefore, is “not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mk. 12:34) In other words, the key to unlocking the “mystery” of the Law is to understand that it is meant to teach us to love God and love our neighbors. If we fail to see that, we are missing the boat

When we hold too tightly to our doctrinal constructs to the point that we miss the ultimate point, like the synagogue leader did, we fail to understand God; we fail to recognize God when He is acting in our midst; and we risk being on the “outside” with God, though we may be good, religious people in every other way.

Jesus said,

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Matthew 6:22-23

How do we apply this? How do we make sense of the things God has commanded us without missing the forest for the trees? How do we take a lesson from the synagogue ruler? I am no theologian, but I have some thoughts.

Continue reading “The Importance of Humility, Openness, and Generosity toward the Holy Spirit in Reading Scripture” →

What Laws Must a Christian Follow?

The tension between the Law and the Gospel and how they relate to each other is the key to understanding Christianity.

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The themes of law and grace are central to Christianity. Sorting them out gets to the very heart of the gospel message. Yet, many people inside and outside of the Christian community are unclear on what laws Christians must follow, what laws are no longer applicable, and why.

Someone recently posted the following question to a group to which I belong on social media:

I get the message of we are not under the law but under grace. But if we live through Christ we will follow the law. How do we know what law to follow? Does this go as far back as to not mix fabrics? 

Obviously everyone says we’re no longer under the law, but ”faith without works is dead” so I am confused. 

How do we know which laws to follow?

Human tendency is to want a list of rules to follow so we can check them off. The rich young ruler demonstrates that human tendency when he came to Jesus one day and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16)

We also have a tendency to want to quantify rules, and to simplify them to make them easier to follow. Perhaps, that is what motivated someone to ask Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matt. 22:36)

Or we go the other direction: we add rules on top of rules on top of rules to make sure that we don’t miss anything. The Pharisees demonstrated this approach in how they handled the commandment to observe the Sabbath. The created a list of “work” that was forbidden including, among other things: sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, selecting, grinding, sifting, kneading, and baking bread; twelve similar activities related to the preparation of clothing, from shearing sheep to sewing; and seven activities related to preparing the carcass of a deer for food or leather. (See What are some Sabbath Observance rules that the Pharisees made?)

Moses started with ten commandments. By the time the books of Moses were completed, there were 613 commandments! (Though not everyone agrees on exactly what they are.)

The Torah (the Five Books of Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy) focused on laws. That focus carries through the entire Old Testament. Though the laws are often more prominent in the breach, than in the observance thereof!

The same focus continued into the New Testament. We see it in the question asked by the rich young ruler and the Pharisees’ questions to Jesus. We see it in the tension between Paul and Peter that threatened to divide the early church over whether believing Jews must follow the Law and what laws believing Gentiles must follow.

This is the tension between the Law and the Gospel. If we understand only one thing about the Gospel message, the relationship of the Law to the Gospel might be the most important thing! I have written about it often, including How the Moorings of the Gospel Were Secured.

For the sake of brevity, I won’t summarize everything here. You can click in the links in the last two paragraphs to get an overview from the articles linked there. Understanding what Jesus meant when he said he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it is critical.

If you are not a Christian, or you are a Christian, but you are not sure you understand these things, please do not just gloss over them. The tension between the Law and the Gospel and how they relate to each other is the key to Christianity.

It was the focus of almost all of Paul’s writings. It is the major theme in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Hebrews and the other epistles. Take some time now to wrestle with it. Don’t stop until it makes sense to you!

Hopefully, the rest of my thoughts in this piece will help.

Continue reading “What Laws Must a Christian Follow?” →

Digging into the Accuracy and Inspiration of the Bible

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I wrote recently on the character of Scripture, prompted by a statement made by Marty Solomon in Episode #82 of the BEMA Podcast, picking up on a statement he made that inspiration doesn’t necessarily mean accuracy. (See Does inspiration mean accuracy?) This topic gets into what it means that Scripture is the inspired word (or revelation) of God.

The idea that Scripture is inspired by God comes from 2 Timothy 3:16:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness….” 

2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

Paul’s statement in his second letter to young Timothy is one of the few comments on the character of Scripture in the Bible. In this article, I want to focus on other comments on Scripture that can be found in the New Testament.

You might be surprised to know that Peter references Paul authoritatively, expressly characterizing Paul’s letters as “scripture” (sacred writings). (2 Peter 3:15-16 ESV) The recognition by Peter that Paul’s writings are scripture is highly significant because Jesus said Peter was the “rock” on which Jesus would build his church. (Matt. 16:18) If Peter considered Paul’s writings “scripture”, we should too.

Paul, likewise, references Luke in his first letter to Timothy. Paul quotes from “the Scripture”, saying: “’Do not keep an ox from eating as it treads out the grain.’ And in another place, ‘Those who work deserve their pay!’” (1 Timothy 5:18 NLT) The first quotation is from Deuteronomy 25:4. The second is from Luke 10:7 (NRSV). Thus, Paul quotes Luke’s Gospel, as scripture in the same vein as the Torah.

This discussion, though, begs the question: what is scripture? Obviously Peter thought Paul’s letters were scripture, and Paul thought Luke was scripture. Most of scripture in that time would have been what we call the Old Testament. There was no “New Testament”, so what else is scripture?

Many misconceptions abound. People claim that books were removed from the Bible. People claim that a group of “church fathers” got together and determined what should be in the New Testament.

These claims are false. They have no basis in the historical record.

The truth is more complicated, and the NT canon developed more organically than what is popularly believed. The writings of the NT developed from the texts that were considered authoritative throughout the scattered regions of the early church, long before the Christianity became the official religion of Rome in the late 4th century and the Holy Roman Empire emerged in the 9th Century (See Encyclopedia Britannica).

We may think of Christianity being controlled centrally from Rome, but that didn’t happen until after the 4th Century. Before that, churches were scattered all over the Roman Empire and beyond. Various centers of influence existed, including Rome, Alexandria (Northern Africa), Jerusalem and Caesarea (the Levant), Antioch (Syria), Lyons (France) and other places. The top down authority of Rome (and Constantinople) developed much later.

The writings that make up the existing New Testament were shared and circulated throughout a wide area, wherever churches took root. Opinions were shared, and a consensus grew based primarily on the authorship (apostolic connection) and message (consistency with the teachings of Jesus).

Many of those writings were accepted very early by a majority of people, and others gained acceptance later by the same organic method of consensus. (See The Formation of the New Testament Canon) Many other writings were considered helpful, but not scriptural, and some writings were considered heretical. Late writings generated after the apostles had all died were categorically excluded. These writings date from the second century and later.

Eusebius of Caesarea was one of the first people to attempt a summary of authoritative writings. The 22 “books” he identified in the 3rd Century are nearly identical to the canon we have today, minus a few and plus a few. The consensus was close to settled at that time.

The first person to name all 27 writings exactly as they are known today was Athanasius in Northern Africa in his Festal Letter written A.D. 367. The same canon was accepted by the rest of Christendom at the African synods of Hippo Regius (A.D. 393) and Carthage (A.D. 397 and 419). (Not the Council of Nicaea as the popular myth goes!)

In between the 1st Century and the early 5th Century when the canon was officially settled, other lists were offered by various sources. Bruce Metzger, the Princeton Theologian, says, “The slowness of determining the final limits of the canon is testimony to the care and vigilance of early Christians in receiving books purporting to be apostolic.”

Metzger notes that “the chief criterion for acceptance of particular writings as sacred, authoritative, and worthy of being read in services of worship was apostolic authorship”. The early church focused on the source or authority – connection to the apostles who knew Jesus. They also measured them by the known message of Jesus, as preserved by those same apostles.

Keep in mind that the apostles lived on after Jesus. Peter died in 64 AD during the reign of Nero in Rome according to contemporary, extra-biblical sources. John, the Apostle, died in approximately 100 AD according to reports preserved from multiple sources.

Thus, the apostles, the closest people to Jesus, lived on 30 to 70 years after Jesus died. They were the standard by which the authority of contemporary writings were judged.

Determining (or accepting) what is Scripture is only a beginning, though. How we view Scripture and interact with it is where the real rubber meets the road. In my last article, I wrestled with what it means that Scripture is inspired, suggesting that accuracy is not necessarily the key component. I will dig a little deeper into that vein in the rest of this article.

Continue reading “Digging into the Accuracy and Inspiration of the Bible” →

Coming Out of the Shadow of the Law and the Mystery of Parables into the Light of the Gospel

What does it mean that the Law is only a shadow of things to come?

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I just posted an article imagining a modern parable: The Kingdom of God Is Like an Autostereogram. Today, I am going to write about actual parables that Jesus told. Matthew 13 contains a bunch of them, and they individually and collectively tell a story about the kingdom of God.

Interestingly, Jesus ties the teaching of the law into becoming a disciple of the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 13:52) We don’t normally associate the precision of a code of laws with the imprecision of parables. It’s almost like a left brain/right brain kind of association.

We tend to categorize and distill things down into neat packages, like a code of laws, but parables don’t seem to fit into our neat packages. Laws and parables seem, at first blush, to be polar opposites, but they aren’t. In fact, the Mosaic Law, which informs the Judeo-Christian tradition, isn’t (perhaps) what we think it is.

We think of the Law of Moses as a code of laws, a list of prescriptions, of do’s and don’ts that must be followed precisely. The Pharisees in Jesus’s day also viewed the Law that way, but Jesus took them to task for it:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You tithe mint and dill and cumin, but have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone (Matt. 23:23)

Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone. (Luke 11:42)

The Mosaic Law wasn’t (isn’t) simply about following a prescription or recipe to achieve eternal life. The Law was meant to point to something, to point beyond it to God and His purposes.

Jesus said the Law (and the Prophets) “testify” about him! (John 5:39) On the road to Emmaus after he rose from dead, Jesus explained to some of his followers how Moses (the Law) and Prophets were written about him. (Luke 24:27) (Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on that wall?!)

Wait a minute! Does that mean we don’t need to follow the Law? What about the Ten Commandments? Why did God get so angry at the Israelites for not following the Law?

Jesus told the Pharisees they should do both: follow the Law and not neglect the “weightier matters” of the Law (justice and mercy and the love of God). What does that even mean? Why would he say that?

I will give you “my” answer – the way I understand it – informed by the totality of Scripture. In the process, we will see that the Law and the parables Jesus used are really more similar than dissimilar.

Continue reading “Coming Out of the Shadow of the Law and the Mystery of Parables into the Light of the Gospel” →