Consciously or not, we move through life with guidelines about how to be in the world. Spend enough time in a family\u2019s home, and you get a sense of what matters to them. Move to a new country (or even a new state), and you\u2019ll pick up on local values. Whether you bristle a bit at rules or desperately want to know them, they are essential to defining a culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the same with God\u2019s kingdom. Long before Jesus\u2019s birth and life on earth, the first foundation of God\u2019s cultural expectations were laid by stone tablets on a wilderness mountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Ten Commandments are God\u2019s law in broad strokes, less about punitive rules and more about the ways of relating to God and each other. Then comes the rest of the Law (or Torah), which might feel strange to the modern, Western perspective. Many Christians even say it doesn\u2019t matter because Jesus released us from all that, right? Mix fabrics all you want! Eat some bacon! Why are there so many rules? Who could keep them all anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, Jesus also said, \u201cDon\u2019t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill\u201d (Matthew 5:17). As a rabbi, living according to the law and teaching his disciples the same was essential to His religion. Even when He expanded, clarified, or outright contradicted everything people thought\u2014\u201cYou heard it said, but I say to you\u201d\u2014He never lost His deep respect for this part of His community\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what if the law never was about arbitrary rules? When Moses and his band of wanderers came out of Egypt, they were taught to \u201clisten to the statutes and ordinances….Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples\u201d (Deuteronomy 4:1,6). The law was not just a bunch of rules to make life harder. It was God\u2019s way of showing His people and all their neighbors what He values. They\u2019re like \u201chouse rules\u201d for God\u2019s family, all about honoring one God, taking a Sabbath rest, and treating their neighbors with dignity and respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During Advent, we reflect on how Jesus came to inaugurate a new kingdom, one not bound by tribal affiliation. This new kingdom needed a new relationship to the law. Jesus didn\u2019t throw out what God began centuries before, but instead honored, challenged, and expanded on it. And even today, when we find ourselves struggling to live out kingdom values, we can trust the Holy Spirit to help us. After all, \u201cthere is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death\u201d (Romans 8:1\u20132).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The law was given to show what it\u2019s like when people walk with God, but Jesus shows us what happens when God walks among us. And with His Spirit, we can keep walking together until He comes to walk with us again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Consciously or not, we move through life with guidelines about how to be in the world. Spend enough time in a family\u2019s home, and you get a sense of what matters to them. Move to a new country (or even a new state), and you\u2019ll pick up on local values. Whether you bristle a bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":72668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[307],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advent25"],"acf":{"hero_background_image":false,"related_plans":[72991],"weekly_truth":false,"grace_day":false,"share_text":"#SheReadsTruth","devotional_text":"THE FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW WILL COME<\/b>
\r\nby Jen Yokel<\/i>
\r\n
Consciously or not, we move through life with guidelines about how to be in the world. Spend enough time in a family\u2019s home, and you get a sense of what matters to them. Move to a new country (or even a new state), and you\u2019ll pick up on local values. Whether you bristle a bit at rules or desperately want to know them, they are essential to defining a culture.<\/p>
\r\n
It\u2019s the same with God\u2019s kingdom. Long before Jesus\u2019s birth and life on earth, the first foundation of God\u2019s cultural expectations were laid by stone tablets on a wilderness mountain.<\/p>
\r\n
The Ten Commandments are God\u2019s law in broad strokes, less about punitive rules and more about the ways of relating to God and each other. Then comes the rest of the Law (or Torah), which might feel strange to the modern, Western perspective. Many Christians even say it doesn\u2019t matter because Jesus released us from all that, right? Mix fabrics all you want! Eat some bacon! Why are there so many rules? Who could keep them all anyway?<\/p>
\r\n
And yet, Jesus also said, \u201cDon\u2019t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill\u201d (Matthew 5:17). As a rabbi, living according to the law and teaching his disciples the same was essential to His religion. Even when He expanded, clarified, or outright contradicted everything people thought\u2014\u201cYou heard it said, but I say to you\u201d\u2014He never lost His deep respect for this part of His community\u2019s story.<\/p>
\r\n
So what if the law never was about arbitrary rules? When Moses and his band of wanderers came out of Egypt, they were taught to \u201clisten to the statutes and ordinances....Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples\u201d (Deuteronomy 4:1,6). The law was not just a bunch of rules to make life harder. It was God\u2019s way of showing His people and all their neighbors what He values. They\u2019re like \u201chouse rules\u201d for God\u2019s family, all about honoring one God, taking a Sabbath rest, and treating their neighbors with dignity and respect.<\/p>
\r\n
During Advent, we reflect on how Jesus came to inaugurate a new kingdom, one not bound by tribal affiliation. This new kingdom needed a new relationship to the law. Jesus didn\u2019t throw out what God began centuries before, but instead honored, challenged, and expanded on it. And even today, when we find ourselves struggling to live out kingdom values, we can trust the Holy Spirit to help us. After all, \u201cthere is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death\u201d (Romans 8:1\u20132).<\/p>
\r\n
The law was given to show what it\u2019s like when people walk with God, but Jesus shows us what happens when God walks among us. And with His Spirit, we can keep walking together until He comes to walk with us again.<\/p>","share_image_height":"640","day_number":"6","scripture":"Exodus 20:1-17, Deuteronomy 4:1-2, Deuteronomy 4:6-9, Matthew 5:17-19, Romans 8:1-4","available":true,"ad_banner_name":"","ad_banner_image":false,"ad_banner_url":"","songs":"","key_verse":"","key_verse_reference":"","background_image":false,"background_color":"#FBF7F3","scripture_references":false,"share_image":false,"author_name":"","author_bio":"","guest_social_media":false,"show_ad":true,"ad_override":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shereadstruth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}