Matthew 5:17-20

[Guest]

Hello, JC,

Please pardon the untimely response.

From these passages we learn that Paul wanted to remove any offense from his message so he acted as a Jew under the law, only to later explain (to those same Jews) that he wasn't bound by it. Likewise, at the Jerusalem Council, James instructs the Gentiles not to practice certain offensive acts because Moses has been preached everywhere and people were aware of the law. My view on this, and I could be wrong, is that Paul and James simply wanted to remove unnecessary offense to the Jews since they already viewed Gentiles are "unclean." This sort of thing probably wasn't ideal, but it may have been necessary at such a time in church history.

If this is so:
should not the church even still "remove offense from [its] message" by validating the keeping of Torah by Jewish believers? If and when a new sanctuary is built, should not Gentile Christians join their Jewish brethren in sacrificial rites, like Paul did?
does this not contravene the popular idea that the law has been done away with or abolished, since it is tolerated in the lives of Jewish believers? Abolished and rejected things are not tolerated, are they?


Shlamaa,
Emmet

[Guest]

Hello, Steve,

Jesus likened the OT law to "old wineskins" which are no longer useful for holding new wine. New wine has to be in new wineskins which are flexible and breath and can receive the new wine which is Jesus's commands. The old wineskins still exist, they are not destroyed but their usefiulness has passed. The old wineskins were a picture of the new wineskins , but it's time to use the new.

Back at it with the wineskins again, eh?

But we've already gone over that canard:

http://www.wvss.com/forumc/viewtopic.ph ... ght=#17331

http://www.wvss.com/forumc/viewtopic.ph ... ght=#17394


Shlamaa,
Emmet

P.S.: edited once to add another link...