Faith Venture

There are people who try to make a rule to proscribe every possible way to live a life. Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with not only the 10 Commandments but a total of 613 laws. Many of those made a lot of sense to a huge group of recent slaves now loose and on their own in the desert. Raising pigs would have destroyed their way of life. Eating shellfish would have killed them.

First Century Jewish teachers added many more rules trying to keep up with changing times. Jesus often talked about the burdens the Pharisees were laying o the people with all these additional laws.

Then Jesus came. During his final instructions to his followers, he said that he would leave them with one new commandment. Not 614, but 1. Love one another as I have loved you. Do this and people will know you are my followers.

The Apostle Paul explained this in his letter to the Galatians calling it freedom from the law. (He explained it in many other places, too.)

We humans try to make it hard by over-thinking. It’s a simple concept just hard to live:

Love one another as Jesus loved his followers (and us). The extension of the love was giving up his life for them (us).

This entry was posted on June 19, 2023 at 7:07 am and is filed under Freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.