| Author | Message | ||
| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 543 Registered: 6-2006  |
Hi Friends! It just dawned on me and I'm sure it's hit many of you over the years - when exactly did we (gentiles/Americans) take on the law of Moses for ourselves? As we all know the "Law of Moses" was given to the Jews for a specific amount of time. I am not a Jew nor have I ever been one. The law (the whole thing, including the 10 C's) died on the cross long before we were ever here. If I lived in Jesus' time, and was a gentile, I would be starting my life as a Christian without those laws, wouldn't I? I would meet my Christian brothers and sisters on the days we could meet, we would eat what we normally ate and just live and believe in Christ. Am I way off here? So that leads me back to these generations - when did it become the norm to assume the Jewish laws when we aren't Jewish, or ever have been? It seems that the SDA church/EGW would have people believe that you have to become a Jew in order to be a "real" Christian. Is this a Victorian era notion? Do any of you history buffs out there know? Thanks! Just pondering ~  Leigh Anne | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 3662 Registered: 3-2004  |
I was born into adventism and raised with the idea that the SDA are now the spiritual Jews. Thank God, I do not believe that any more and have only Christ. Diana | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 5892 Registered: 12-2003  |
Leigh Anne, great question. The tendency to return to the law and to require it for Gentile believers is as old as Christianity. The entire book of Galatians was written to counter this movement. Acts 15 also specifically addressed this issue. The fear of antinomianism is strong—it's hard for people to believe that Someone as intangible as the Holy Spirit could keep believers obedient and repentant. The natural state of man is to work hard to be good; to know the "requirements" and DO them. If you haven't read it, there is a very interesting (rather in depth but really historically informative) about the ways the church interpreted and applied the law during the very early (3-5th) centuries of the church, and how it established a traditional way of understanding the law rather than a strictly biblical way of understanding it. The article is by R.K. McGregor Wright, and it's at this web address: http://lifeassuranceministries.org/Proclamation2005_JulAug.pdf The article is on page 6 and is called, "the Unity of the Law: What Was Nailed to the Cross?" This notion is old--it's been around since the inception of the church in one quarter or another. Colleen | ||
| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 545 Registered: 6-2006 |
Thanks Colleen! You're right! I realize (especially with the book of Galatians) that this has been going on forever. I don't know - maybe I think about this as a modern day American. You see the 10Cs up in courthouses, and how people get so offended and upset if there's an order to take them down - as if the 10Cs were God himself. I just wonder how long in our culture this has been an issue. It's so true that the natural state of man is to work hard and "be good". It's an "Up to me" attitude. Leigh Anne |
