Some Christians treat the entire Bible as equally authoritative law for daily life. Others say the cross made the Mosaic covenant obsolete and we live under grace alone. Where do you actually stand — and how do you decide which parts of the OT to keep and which to ignore?
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Add your commentspent 20 years in a church that enforced OT-style church discipline with no grace and no process. it broke families. including mine. be careful how casually you say 'the OT applies' because some people are living with the consequences of that theology right now.
I grew up being told the OT was basically a prequel with no real application today. Then I actually read it cover to cover as an adult and it wrecked me. The Psalms alone are more emotionally honest about grief and doubt than anything I've ever read. Saying it doesn't 'apply' to us feels like spiritual malpractice.
I'm a pastor and I'll say this plainly: the three-fold division of the law (moral/civil/ceremonial) is a useful teaching tool but it is a post-biblical theological construct. If you use it, own that it's a construct. Don't pretend the text hands it to you on a silver platter.
The whole 'we follow the moral law but not the ceremonial law' distinction sounds neat in a seminary classroom but try explaining it to someone who's never heard of Aquinas. The Bible doesn't come with those labels. WE put those labels on it. That should at least give us pause.
This is honestly the question. People pick and choose based on what they already believe and then find the theological framework to justify it after the fact. I've done it. You've done it. Let's at least be honest about that.
I'm genuinely curious how people who say the OT is 'done' handle the Proverbs. Like are wisdom literature and practical life guidance also just... expired? Or is it only the inconvenient stuff that gets retired?
Here's my challenge to everyone who says the OT is basically done: explain to me why you quote Isaiah in your Christmas sermons, why you sing Psalms on Sunday morning, and why you reference Proverbs 22:6 every time you talk about parenting — but then claim the Old Testament isn't binding. You can't have it both ways without a coherent explanation.
The person above me is making exactly the mistake the guy before them warned against. The Ten Commandments aren't binding because Moses gave them — nine of the ten are RESTATED in the New Testament epistles. That's where Christians get their authority. Not Mount Sinai.
okay but 'fulfill' is doing SO much heavy lifting in that sentence and every denomination has a different definition of what it means lol
I think people get so caught up in the legal framework question that they miss the heart of it. Jesus said ALL the law hangs on two commands — love God, love neighbor. If you're doing those two things seriously, you'll probably land in the right place regardless of whether you're 'under' the law technically.
I think the most honest position is probably: the OT is fully authoritative as WITNESS to God's character, redemptive purposes, and the human condition. It is not a direct legal code for Christians today. Those aren't the same thing and confusing them causes enormous damage — both by ignoring real wisdom AND by importing old covenant penalties into contexts where they destroy people.
The New Covenant is explicitly described in Jeremiah 31 and then quoted in Hebrews 8. It is NOT the same covenant. The Levitical priesthood is done. The sacrificial system is done. If you drag all of Leviticus back into your Christian ethics you are ignoring the entire argument of the book of Hebrews.
Applying and binding are two different things. Poetry applies. Law binds. We can love the Psalms without stoning disobedient children.
Bottom line for me: 2 Timothy 3:16 says ALL Scripture is God-breathed and useful. Not 'some of it' or 'the New Testament parts.' If you're a Christian who barely opens Genesis to Malachi you are voluntarily reading God's story with your hand over half the pages.
Paul says in Galatians 3 that the law was a 'guardian' until Christ came. Guardians are necessary for children. When you're an adult you don't need the guardian anymore. The law served its purpose. We are now sons and daughters, not slaves under a tutor. This seems pretty clear to me.
Jesus literally said 'I did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.' Matthew 5:17. Not complicated.
Thank you for saying this. I was taught that division as if it were Scripture itself and it took me years to realize it wasn't. Reformed tradition is wonderful and also sometimes presents its own theological categories as if they ARE the biblical text.
As a Seventh-day Adventist I'd push back hard on that. Colossians 2:16 is about feast-day sabbaths, not the weekly Sabbath. The weekly Sabbath predates Moses — it goes back to creation in Genesis 2. It was never just a Mosaic ceremonial law.
I'm so sorry. That's real and it matters. And it's also worth saying: abuse of a theological position doesn't automatically make the position wrong, but it does demand that we hold it with tremendous care and accountability.
My grandmother kept a kosher kitchen her whole life after converting to Christianity because she said she couldn't find a verse that told her to stop caring about what she put in her body. Was she wrong? I honestly don't know. She was the holiest person I ever knew.
You can quote Shakespeare without being bound by Elizabethan law. Literature informs without always legislating.
Is it a strawman though? I've sat in churches where the pastor explicitly said Old Testament civil punishments should be reinstated in a Christian nation. That's a real position held by real people with real influence. Dominionism isn't fringe anymore.
Sabbath. The NT never commands Sunday or Saturday sabbath observance for Gentile believers. That's why this is actually complicated.
That's called hermeneutics not hypocrisy. Every reader brings interpretive assumptions. The goal is to develop CONSISTENT and historically grounded ones, not to pretend you have no lens.
That's a beautiful sentiment and also exactly how people justify ignoring specific biblical commands they find inconvenient. 'Love covers it' becomes a blank check.
So you're fine with 'don't murder' being obsolete? Because that's Mosaic law too. If the covenant is just done then we have no grounds to say anything is sin.
The Reformed tradition has spent 500 years engaging these questions more rigorously than almost any other tradition. Some humility toward that work is warranted even if you end up disagreeing.
nobody's out here defending stoning. that's such a tired strawman and you know it.
hermeneutics is just a fancy word people use when they want their cherry-picking to sound academic
Comparing Scripture to Shakespeare just to win an internet argument. This is where we are.
That's genuinely one of the most anti-intellectual things I've ever read on this forum and that is saying something.
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