Expert: Mel and Guyna Horne - 8/13/2007

Question
Although i have not always lived in god, i am trying now and trying to live in his faith, I follow the bible front to back side to side, i see nothing wrong with this.  But i have met a woman who feels like i feel except that she does not follow the old testament she says nobody uses it anymore. Is this true and can you really follow gods word if you just cast aside the old testament. Is it possible to live in gods word and not follow all his principles or i thought i read it was a sin to take away or add to the bible , so if you don't follow parts would that not be a sin?

Answer
Hi Edward,

     You wrote: ". . . she does not follow the old testament she says nobody uses it anymore. Is this true . . . "

     Yes and no.   Many do not use it at all but that does not prove that they are correct and that others are wrong.

     Christ quoted from the Old Testament extensively.  Every time he referred to "scriptures", he was speaking of the Old Testament.
"But he [Christ] answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Mat. 4:4, Lk. 4:4)
"All the words of God" were written only in the Old Testament at the time that Christ said this. At the time Christ spoke these words, the only scripture was the Old Testament. [Note: all scriptures are quoted from the KJV.]

The four Gospel accounts of Mat, Mk, Lk, and Jn. were not written until after Christ's death and resurrection.  The book of Acts is about events after that time. The letters of Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude were written approximately between 52 and 90 AD.  In most cases (all but two as I recall) throughout all these letters, the word "scripture(s)" is referring to the Old Testament. Much of the New Testament is quoted directly from or refers to statements in the Old Testament.  If your Bible has a center margin with references, this is easy to see. In the Cambridge edition, Mat. 1:1-23 shows references to eight of the OT books.
I took time out to look this up. The word scripture is used 32 times in the NT. In all but two, it clearly refers to the OT while in the other two, it does not exclude the OT. The plural, scriptures, is used 21 times, all of which refer to the OT.

     Many people who call themselves "Christian" generalize about the Old Testament being obsolete, pointing out agricultural laws that only pertained to Israel as a nation living in Canaan or civil and criminal laws that were administered under the Monarchal government of King David and his descendents.  Only citizens living under the authority of that physical monarchy would be subject to or benefit from those civil and criminal laws.   The rest of us are subject to the civil and criminal laws of the nation in which we live, even if we are "spiritual descendents" of Abraham (Gal. 3:29) and consider ourselves "pilgrims" (Rom. 13:1-7).
    Some laws had to do with the Levitical Priesthood and those became obsolete when Christ assumed his current position as our High Priest at God's throne.
    The animal sacrifices were replaced by Christ's one-time sacrifice.

    If a situation changes, that does not always make the law bad or obsolete.
    The Israelites were to offer a lamb as a sacrifice for sin.  We are required to accept Christ's sacrifice for us as "the Lamb" or we cannot have access to eternal life.
    The law changed, but it still involves the death of a "Lamb" who died for every new and future convert.
  
    All of God's laws reflect the nature of God, which is love.  Many of the OT laws which modern "Christians" ridicule have modern equivalents.

    Some may sound strange to us but it takes very little effort to see the modern equivalents.
    Lev. 15:19: Women having their menstrual period were to be isolated and symbolically "purified" by washing   Remember they did not have running water or biohazard waste disposal.  Today there are strict laws about human blood disposal and we know how easily diseases can be transmitted by exposure to blood and how women are at greater risk of infection during their periods. Human blood on any soft tissue (eyes, nose, mouth, cuts) can transmit diseases which is the first reason why medics and doctors wear gloves and masks. They don't want to catch anything from the patient.
   http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/283/10/1291

   Lev. 15:1   Men having a "running discharge".  Today, men (or women) with urinary discharge usually are tested for sexually transmitted diseases and told not to share towels or clothing with others.  There are hundreds of possible infections and diseases associated with urinary discharge.
   http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/sym/urinary_discharge.htm

   Lev. 13: Leprosy victims were isolated in leper colonies until the 1980's in places such as Carville, Louisiana, Mexico, Japan, Australia and some island nations.  Some patients still live in one in Hawaii. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leper_colony

   Lev. 18:  Most states still have laws saying one cannot marry his own mother, or a girl marry her father, or any other combination closer than a 2nd or 3rd cousin because of the chance of birth defects in the offspring.  http://www.justia.com/family/marriage-prenuptial-agreements/docs/what-is-marriag...

In approx. 46 states it is illegal to have sex with an animal.

   Other laws about not stealing, not committing fraud, not moving property boundary markers, not accidentally or purposely causing personal injury have nearly identical modern equivalents.
One law required building a parapet wall on flat topped houses where people used the roof for activities, to prevent accidental falls (Deu. 22:8).

   None of these laws were "bad" or we would not still be observing them today as national and local laws.
   If people are against observing any of these laws, all of which showed love for others, then they must also be against their modern equivalents.

   If they are not against the modern equivalent, then why are they so emotionally insistent about saying the Old Testament laws were bad and are "done away".

   Are they interested or in favor of sex with animals, marrying close relatives, murder, unsafe buildings, close contact with people having disease, worshipping idols, eating roadkill, harrassing or discriminating against the handicapped, sacrificing children in a fire, eating meat that has been left out for three days or more, cheating others by false weights and measures, cursing parents, or not replacing property or livestock of others that they lose or destroy?  Which of these OT crimes are they wanting to declare legal and why?
  There are some laws which are only understood within the context of the cultures of that time.  Some prohibitions had to do with being different from the pagan peoples that occupied Canaan and the surrounding nations. A law of God doesn't have to make sense to us to be valid although they all do make sense in the plan of God.  For instance, consider the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.  Scripture says it was "pleasant to the sight (looked delicious) and good for food" (Gen. 2:9). It was not forbidden because it was poisonous, but because God said it was forbidden.  It was a test of simple obedience and Eve and Adam both failed. Obeying God means putting his will above our own, acknowledging him as God, as a loving parent to whom we owe respectful obedience.
  
   This is a huge subject and we cannot cover all the aspects of it here, but the point is simple to make and simple to understand.

   Every reference to "the law" in the Old Testament, and there are hundreds, all say that the law is "good", "perfect", and good for us.
   In the New Testament, Christ condemned the "traditions" of the Jews which made the "law of God of no effect" (Mk. 7:1-13).
   Christ never condemned the law of God, only the "traditions" which the Jews had added to the law, a violation to which you correctly made reference ". . .  i thought i read it was a sin to take away or add to the bible , so if you don't follow parts would that not be a sin?"

    The prohibition to which you refer is found in Deu. 4:2, 12:32, Rev. 22:18 and Pro. 30:5,6.

    Paul tried to help the Jews who were converting from "Judaism" (a legalistic and ritualistic religion different from what was given through Moses at Mt. Sinai) to be followers of Christ, to understand that the law was more than just the letter, that it also involved the "spirit" of the law as Christ had explained (Mat. 5:17-22).  Protestants still hold Catholic opinions that take Paul's meaning to be that all the laws of God were somehow bad and no longer in effect.  In Peter's general epistle (to everyone rather than to a single congregation), in the context of false teachers and their followers, he warned about people who did not understand Paul's writings or who deliberately twisted them for their own purposes:
  "As also in all his [Paul's] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." (2Pet. 3:16).


    Most "Christian" traditions today come to us through the Catholic Church, such as Sunday observance in place of the Seventh Day Sabbath, Easter in place of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, and Pentecost.  Christ's mass (Xmas) and St. Patrick's Days were "added".  Observance of the Feast of Tabernacles was ignored.  In the early days of the Catholic Church (the 3rd cent. AD), it was trying to adopt the Jewish rituals and symbolism while distancing themselves from Judaism and while allowing pagan "converts" to keep their own customs "in the name of Christ".  Protestants later rejected the Pope's authority but kept many of the "adopted" rituals and traditions.

    Many churches reject the OT but still use it to support certain doctrines that they want to maintain, such as tithing. Christ mentioned one time that the Pharisees paid tithes (Mat. 23:23). He used the word in describing the "unjustified" Pharisee (Lk. 18:12) and it was mentioned once by Paul in describing the Levites (Heb. 7). Otherwise it is never mentioned in the New Testament. Judas is described as having "the bag", which apparently had the money used to pay for expenses. If it had contained tithes, the Pharisees could have had them all crucified for breaking the law that the tithes were to go to the Levites.  Christ never received tithes and neither did any of the apostles.  This is why churches resort to OT scriptures to prove that tithing is a law that is still in force.

 "The earliest positive legislation on the subject seems to be contained in the letter of the bishops assembled at Tours in 567 and the canons of the Council of Maçon in 585. In course of time, we find the payment of tithes made obligatory by ecclesiastical enactments in all the countries of christendom."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14741b.htm
  Any Protestant church that claims authority to collect tithes has to acknowledge the authority of the Catholic Church to make the rules as there is no scriptural basis for ministers or any priest after the resurrection of Christ and the destruction of the Temple, to collect the tithes.

 Even believers in Judaism know that tithes were only calculated on the agricultural "increase" within the land of Canaan.  No Jewish person tithes on any income from outside Israel. They pay a Temple tax and make contributions but do not pay tithes. They do not pay tithes at or to any synagogue.  It would violate the OT laws.
 http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/06-Jewish-Thought/section-32.html
   Interesting that Judaism teaches that tithing is only on "crops", while Lev. 27:32 specifies every tenth animal that is counted in the herd or flock is also part of the tithe that belongs to God.

    God has one law, "love", which is expressed by two laws, "love God", and "love others as you would have them love you".  These two laws are further explained by the Ten Commandments. The first four show love toward God, the rest show love toward others.  All the laws, statutes, ordinances and judgments shown in the Bible reflect either love toward God or toward others and often they show both. (Mat. 22:37-39, Deu. 10:12, 19).
   Some will disagree saying for example that "stoning" for some crimes is cruel (thereby judging and condemning God), while saying that locking a criminal in a cage with other criminals for years or for life is somehow "less cruel".  These same people will feel guilty for using cages and want to turn the criminals loose where the majority of them commit new crimes against other people.  At this point we have to ask, isn't the person who turned the criminal loose, just as guilty as the released criminal who kills another person.  If you help an inmate escape and he kills someone, you are considered an accessory, but if you do it "legally", you are only considered a "humanitarian".  If you imprison someone on your own authority, it is considered kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, but if you do it "legally", you are considered a Judge or a prison official.  The more laws we make to protect ourselves from one another, the more our laws resemble the laws of the OT.
  Condemning God's laws while justifying our modern laws is one that we lie to ourselves to make ourselves to be more righteous than God. (The book of Job is a lesson in why we should not do that.)

  If one wants to "discard" the Old Testament, then one should also "discard" all of God's words in the Old Testament (the same ones that Christ said we must live by), and also "discard" all the quotations from the OT by Christ and by all of the Apostles.  There would not be much left of what we call the Bible.



  Christ prophecied that there would be “many” people doing “many wonderful works” in his name, in other words, calling themselves Christians.  He also said that he will reject the “many” who have done “many wonderful works” and not allow them into his Kingdom (Mat. 7:21-23), while there would be only a “few” that would be accepted by him (v.13-14).  

“Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity [reject my laws].” – Christ  (Mat. 7:21-23).

According to Christ, it is possible for people to call on his name (saying “Lord, Lord”) calling themselves Christians, and to prophecy, to do exorcisms and even do miracles (“many wonderful works” = Gk. “dunamis”, also trans. as “power for performing miracles”, Mk. 9:39) and still be rejected from being in Christ’s Kingdom because these “wonderful works” do not fulfill all that God wants us to do.

“And why call you me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Lk. 6:46).

  These last few paragraphs are from an article we hope to have up on our web page soon discussing how Christians define themselves in contrast to how Christ describes those whom he will accept into his kingdom.  For more answers to questions visit us at:
http://www.geocities.com/changes1611/index.html
  
   We hope that this has been of help.
   Sincerely,
   Mel and Guyna