Have you given thought to the subjectivity of the New Covenant Imperatives?
Love God.
Love your neighbor.
We know, via the Old Covenant, certain parameters relative to “loving God”: 1) He is to be Supreme, 2) We are prohibited from using images to represent Him, and 3) we are to “sanctify” His Name. Those represent the negative side, that is the “thou shalt nots”. But, what of the “shalt” side? Yet, is this not the very side whereby we “judge one another”? He or she doesn’t do…X…therefore, they don’t Love God.
John has been a believer for 40+ years and has never missed church or Sunday School. Yet, in all those years he has never read the Bible through, cover to cover, and couldn’t, for the life of him, recite other than John 11:35. Tom, on the other hand, is grossly infrequent at Sunday service, seldom at Sunday School, yet has read the bible through, cover to cover at least once a year since his conversion; has memorized in excess of 500 verses, and can quite adequately defend The Faith. Which one loves God?
Without beating a horse to death, I suspect you see the point. Evaluating another in terms of the negative aspects of The Faith is quite easy. Yet, when it comes to the positive affirmations, it is an equine of a dissimilar hue.
Might I be permitted to lodge the idea this very aspect is part and parcel the genius of the New Covenant?
Love your neighbor?
If such might be the case on the individual level, what might be the circumstance on the communal level, i.e. “government”?
So soon as I lift my eyes beyond my personal concern, a “neighbor” intrudes.
What is it to “love” this one?
What is “love”?
Again, we are confronted with the subjective.
What is “loving” to John, or to Tom, or to Eileen or Sarah?
Why are we not presented with a definition of Love in the text of scripture? All we have are examples of what seem to be “loving acts”.
Might it not be the case God expects us, you and me, to deduce from these examples and scriptural statements to construct a definition of Love whereby we, individually comport ourselves as Salt, Light, and Leaven?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
New Covenant “Political” conduct
Under the Old Covenant administration, the individual watchword was “obedience”.
God was the nation’s sovereign under the guidance of a Divinely selected King and dynasty, along with a divinely ordained teaching order, explicating a written covenant.
Then, things changed and, radically, with the institution of the New Covenant and promised through Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
Under the tutelage of the Old Covenant, God dealt with Israel as with children whereas with True Israel (Galatians 6:16)
God now deals with spiritual adults.
No longer are we, the members of the New Covenant, provided detailed and specific guidelines for various circumstances; but, in their stead are three adequate guidelines: 1) Love God, 2) Love your neighbor and 3) utilize the former administration as principled examples ( 1Corinthians 10:11 & Romans 15:4).
Such are the parameters for New Covenant believers in any governmental context.
God was the nation’s sovereign under the guidance of a Divinely selected King and dynasty, along with a divinely ordained teaching order, explicating a written covenant.
Then, things changed and, radically, with the institution of the New Covenant and promised through Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
Under the tutelage of the Old Covenant, God dealt with Israel as with children whereas with True Israel (Galatians 6:16)
God now deals with spiritual adults.
No longer are we, the members of the New Covenant, provided detailed and specific guidelines for various circumstances; but, in their stead are three adequate guidelines: 1) Love God, 2) Love your neighbor and 3) utilize the former administration as principled examples ( 1Corinthians 10:11 & Romans 15:4).
Such are the parameters for New Covenant believers in any governmental context.
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