Thoughts on the Law

Whoops it has been a month since I last posted…my bad. I’ll try and make up for it in the future by post much more often. In the mean time I hope that your break from reading my rants and raves has been enjoyable.

Since I last posted I have been dealing with a few questions. One big question is ‘how are we supposed to understand the Law of God?’ Is it a big weight that we are to carry around our necks? Is it the magical formula to please God? Are we blessed for following the Law?

There seems to be this very negative stereotype surrounding the whole conversation. It seems to be a burden that nobody can master. It is a duty to follow God’s law, an unpleasant duty that Christians seem to cringe at following. This seems way of thinking seems to arise out of Paul’s letters where he is talking about how we all mess up and break the law.

People say following the Law is boring, and in fact the first five books of the Bible are often those that are ignored and read the least. I guess even I have portrayed this concept when I am helping somebody read the Bible I suggest them to steer away from Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy.

I have begun to rethink my view on the Law recently. The more I come back to this issue, it seems that it is the Law that God gives Moses that describes how we should live. It is the proper way that we should live. We are designed to live by the Law. Therefore when we break the Law, not only are we sinning against God, but we are harming ourselves.

Think about it, when a husband cheats on his wife, he has broken a sacred trust with her-thus hurting their relationship. Studies have shown that the relationships that are the happiest and most fulfilling are those where both partners are faithful to each other. Everything works best when it operates like it was designed to.

I think that Paul’s point was that we all mess up; its part of the make up of being human. It doesn’t make sense to just bail on following the Law just because you mess up. It is like saying that when playing basketball you quit playing because you’re going to break the rules. It would be preposterous to do that.

This whole thought process started for me as I heard a pastor in Indy preaching that when we follow God’s law, he sees us and blesses us. I guess my reaction was that if we are designed to follow the Law it would make sense that everything would work better that way. In the same way that it makes sense to put gasoline in a car when you want to drive it somewhere, it is how it is designed to work. It is not God blessing you; it is living like you were meant to live.

Think about it…