He tried to keep 700 rules in one year
“At the beginning of the year, I wrote down every rule, every guideline, every suggestion, every nugget of advice I could find in the Bible. It’s a very long list. It runs 72 pages. More than 700 rules. Some rules were wise, some completely baffling. Some were baffling at first, then wise. Some were wise first then baffling. Here, some of the highlights, broken down by category.
MOST UNEXPECTEDLY WISE AND LIFE-ENHANCING RULES
· Keep the sabbath. As a workaholic (I check my emails in the middle of movies), I learned the beauty of an enforced pause in the week. No cell phones, no messages, no thinking about deadlines. It was a bizarre and glorious feeling. As one famous rabbi called it, the sabbath is a “sanctuary in time.”
· “Let your garments be always white” Ecclesiastes 9:8. I chose to follow this literally – I wore white pants, a white shirt and a white jacket. This was one of the best things I did all year. I felt lighter, happier, purer. Clothes make the man: You can’t be in a bad mood when you’re dressed like you’re about to play the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
· No gossip. When you try to go on a gossip diet, you realize just how much of our conversations involve negative speech about others. But holding your tongue is like the verbal equivalent of wearing white. I felt cleaner and untainted….
· Give thanks. The Bible says to thank the Lord after meals. I did that. Perhaps too much. I got carried away. I gave thanks for everything – for the subway coming on time, for the comfortableness of my couch, etc. It was strange but great. Never have I been so aware of the thousands of little things that go right in our lives….
RULES THAT I SUCCESSFULLY KEPT THE ENTIRE YEAR WITHOUT VIOLATING EVEN ONCE
· You shall not marry your wife’s sister (Leviticus 18:18) It helps that my wife doesn’t have a sister….
· You shall not eat eagles, vultures, black vultures, red kites, black kites, ravens, horned or screech owl, gull or any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.
· Do not become a shrine prostitute (Deuteronomy 23:17) I didn’t become any kind of prostitute.
MOST DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW
· You shall not trim the corners of your beard (Leviticus 19:27) My rabbinical beard became wildly uncomfortable, plus I was subjected to every beard joke in the history of facial hair,…
· Put to death men and women who commit adultery. Though I did manage to figure out a way to stone adulterers. One adulterer in particular. A grumpy seventysomething man I met in the park. I used pebbles.
RULES VIOLATED AT LEAST ONE TIME PER DAY
· You shall not covet. This is like asking someone not to breathe. Especially in New York. New York is a city that runs on coveting. …
· You shall not lie. Once I started keeping track, the number of lies was astounding. I lie to everyone – strangers, my wife, my three-year-old son (“No, we can’t watch TV. It’s broken.”)
· You shall not utter the name of another God. English is filled with the names of pagan gods – even the days of the week are named for them: Thursday, for the Norse god of thunder Thor….”
His conclusion after the year was that people who claim to believe and apply the whole Bible only pick and choose which laws to keep. This is a valid observation, but it belies the misunderstanding that most people have about Bible interpretation. The Bible is clearly written for some parts to apply to certain people, at certain times in history, but not at other times.
If you grasp this, you can legitimately strive, by God’s grace, to obey every one of his laws as stipulated in the law code that you are under.
A) LAWFUL USE OF THE LAW
1 Timothy 1:8-11 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
The law Paul is talking about is the Law of Moses. Not the law of the land, not Roman law, rules of your school, or rules your parents make for you.
He means the Ten Commandments and the 613 rules in the Pentateuch. All Jews, from Moses to Jesus, had to obey every single rule in the Law of Moses because this is the law code that they were under.
A law code is a set of rules issued by God to a specific group of people for a specific time, based on the character of God. To violate the law code at the time in which it is in effect is to sin.
But neither previous nor future law codes are binding. For example, Adam didn’t celebrate communion, but that did not sin. Adam didn’t circumcise his sons, but that didn’t sin. Adam’s sons could marry their sisters. Moses did circumcise his sons, but didn’t take communion, but could eat any fruit.
The natural question for us is, what law did Christ fulfil? This question is often dealt with by saying that the Law of Moses can be divided into three parts—moral, ceremonial, and civil—and that Christ fulfilled the ceremonial and civil, but not the moral parts of the law, leaving these still binding on New Testament Christians.
The problem is that…
1) The Bible doesn’t make that distinction at all; in fact, it mixes all the laws indiscriminately. So people end up deciding arbitrarily which category tattoos, Sabbath-keeping, and tithing fall into.
2) That understanding leaves a part of the Law of Moses unfulfilled by Christ’s death on the cross, but the New Testament explicitly says Jesus fulfilled the whole Law.
So, what is our relationship, as New Testament believers, to the Law of Moses?
Galatians 3: 24-25 So then, the law was our guardian [tutor] until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
The law was there for the Jews, but since Christ came to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17), we are no longer under the authority of the Mosaic Law at all, but under the authority of a new law code, the law of Christ.
1 Corinthians 9:21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.
Galatians 6:2 Bear one another burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
The Mosaic Law is applicable to us because “all Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” and it is based on God’s character. BUT the Mosaic Law is not binding on New Testament believers at all.
We are under a new law, the Law of Christ.
Yes, the Law of Christ looks similar in many, many places, for example: do not murder, lie, steal, dishonour your parents, commit adultery, or covet, etc. In fact, nine of the Ten Commandments are restated explicitly in the New Testament. But many of the 613 Levitical laws are no longer part of the Law of Christ and therefore, they are no longer binding on God’s people.
So, the reason I don’t steal isn’t that Moses says not to do so, in Exodus 20:15, but rather because Paul says so in Ephesians 4:28. The reason I honour my mother and father is that Ephesians 6:2 says to do so, which Paul restated directly from Exodus 20:12.
So, what about tattoos, shaving your beard, mixing fabrics, eating lobster? They were all permitted from Adam to Moses, they were outlawed from Moses to Jesus, and then they were permitted from Jesus til now.
The one commandment that is not repeated in the New Testament is the Sabbath commandment. In fact, Paul specifically says that you may not tell a Christian to keep the Sabbath or any Old Testament holiday or feast day in the same way those under Moses were told to (Colossians 2:16-17).
B) LAWFUL USE OF THE LAW
So, how do we use the Law of Moses? You can use it to show the character of God to those who don’t know him: unbelievers.
Jesus used the Law this way to show the Rich Young ruler who asked how he could inherit eternal life. Jesus said…Luke 18: 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’
Ray Comfort is famous for using this with people who say they will go to heaven because they are good enough. He asks them if they have you ever stolen, told a white lie, been disrespectful of their parents, lusted after someone they’re not married to, or ever wanted something they couldn’t have? When they inevitably admit to sinning, he tells them that they are, by their own admission, a thief a liar, sexually immoral, and a coveter, and therefore have not loved God with all their heart and mind, and so have broken at least half the Ten Commandments.
That is an acceptable use of the Law of Moses: to show sinners of any time period who God is and what he is like. He pays attention to detail, he is interested in our being separate from anything that might hinder our devotion to him, and he is even concerned about what people eat and wear and how they care for each other.
CONCLUSION
If AJ Jacobs asked me, I can honestly say that I try to keep every single command in the Bible that God intends me to keep. I don’t do this to earn favour with God, but out of love for Jesus and his will. But of course, my daily experience is that I fall woefully short. Not because the standard is too high but because of my commitment, my affections for Christ, and my resolve ebbs too low at times.
And yet, every time I fall short it only serves as a way to draw me closer to my Savior because he saves me from that shortcoming. He kept every Law of Moses and in every thought, word, and deed reflected perfectly the will and character and nature of the perfect holy Father. And then he chose to be treated like a lawbreaker, a sinner, an accursed outcast, on my behalf.
That is the good news, that we have a holy God but we have a loving God, a saving God, a sacrificial God, who gave his Son so we can have eternal life.
And in response to that salvation, it is my joy to learn his law, and keep his law and teach his law to others…
And that is the lawful use of the law.
Author: Cripplegate
