Welcome to this weeks blog which is based on the third chapter (God’s Laws: Evasive and Fidgety Little Buggers) of Pete Enns book (How the Bible Actually Works).
Rules or laws are complicated, they shouldn’t be but they are.
Let us take a look at some everyday simple rules and laws that shouldn’t be difficult to follow but some people find a way to complicate. How about one from the pandemic! “Two or more people from different households are banned from meeting indoors, unless “reasonably necessary” for work purposes. Seems simple enough but there are definitely some areas of ambiguity in this rule. What counts as a household? What counts as indoors? What does reasonably necessary mean? What is work? If we meet for work because it is “reasonably necessary” are we allowed to drink beer and have a Christmas quiz? Just asking for a friend…
Let’s move away from this slightly controversial topic and tackle another law.
Since 2003, it has been a “specific offence to use a hand-held mobile telephone or other hand-held device for the purpose of any interactive communication (such as messaging, making or receiving calls or accessing the internet) while driving or while supervising a learner driver. “
Seems straight forward and simple but is it really?
If someone rings you and you use your hands free system to answer the call are you breaking the law? You are using a hand held device to communicate so surely it falls under its remit. If that is the case, it begs the question why we put hands free kits in cars in the first place. Then there are those specific situations that might arise. There is an emergency and you have to dial 999 to get hold of an emergency service, you can’t stop the car (you are being chased by a crazed individual) but should you break the law to make the call? What happens if you stop the car yet the engine is still running. Is that still classed as driving? You can’t call someone on your hand-held device but can you watch the football on it whilst driving? It isn’t using the device for interactive communication but surely it isn’t allowed.
These though are human laws, so we should expect them to be imperfect and open to interpretation. The Bible on the other hand offers us God’s laws (around 613 of them in the Old Testament) and we may expect these to be simple and straightforward and to the point. So let us tackle some of them.
“Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.” So here we have the 3rd or 4th commandment (depends which version/translation you use). But is remembering it is the sabbath enough or do we have to act upon that remembering to keep it Holy? How do we actually keep the sabbath Holy? When is the Sabbath? Saturday or Sunday? If I remember to keep the sabbath Holy on a Sunday but not on a Saturday, do I break the commandment? Let us try something that should be simpler, Pete Enns suggests – “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. Great, no others gods before GOD. Simple. Can I have other gods alongside GOD but of equal stature? or how about behind God. Like Zeus and and all the other gods who sit in the Greek Pantheon. God would be first but all the others can line up behind.
So not that straightforward then.
Laws, even laws we have in the Bible are not straightforward and they can’t just be taken at face value. In fact very few people have taken them at face value throughout the centuries. That is why we have lawyers and in Jesus day and in many other cultures these were the religious leaders or ‘teachers of the Law’ as noted in the New Testament. These are people who spent hours studying and interpreting laws and rules so they could then be applied to real life situations. When the people heard the command to remember the sabbath they began to ask what that meant and what it looked like, practically in their everyday life. The lawyers then began to set out interpretations of what could and couldn’t be done on the Sabbath and between what hours. This interpretation sometimes was a benefit and other times it wasn’t. Some people agreed and others disagreed and reinterpreted what the Law meant. Jesus reinterpreted many of the laws in the Sermon on the Mount telling people that ‘you have heard it said but now I say’. Paul does it in his letters as he tries to help direct and steer the new faith communities that sprung up in this new way of life and how their new faith impacted the rules they followed and didn’t.
It is why none of us have slaves!
Slavery is rife in the Bible and at times the way the Bible talks about slaves is shocking and not many people would stand by its statements. Why! Because we understand that context, continuing revelation (God is still teaching us new things), and our experience and the experience of others means we understand the Bible differently. We have interpreted what the Bible says and come to an understanding that slavery is inhumane, unjust and oppressive. This isn’t mishandling the Bible or disrespecting what it says but approaching the Bible as God intended us to. We read the laws and rules and understand that it isn’t black and white that God hasn’t given us a rule book but instead an ambiguous, ancient and diverse collection of books and letters what we need to interpret together. We need to enter into the ancient tradition of interpreting what has been written in light of what God is saying now. Through the Bible, through our context and through our experience.
Questions
Which of these is not a law/rule? (No googling – I will bring the answers on Sunday)
- It is an offence to handle a salmon while looking ‘suspicious’.
- It is illegal to be drunk in a pub.
- You can be fined for vacuuming after the hours of 1pm on a Sunday
Have you ever broken a law? If so which one?
Do you have an example of a time you have found it difficult to understand a law/rule?
Can a law/rule become obsolete?
Which of the 10 commandments do you find most difficult to understand?
How should we approach the laws and commands in the Bible?
How can we interpret these laws and commands as a community?
We are meeting at the Crescent Club at 7:30pm for those that want to join us.
Photo by CQF-Avocat from Pexels
Has been a part of BeachcomberFX since his arrival in the North East in 2014. He is well travelled (at least in the UK) having lived in Manchester, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Southport, Doncaster, Berwick and Edinburgh. Supporter of Newcastle United, will watch any sport.
