Some people have already added their comments and I will add mine. I
appreciate most of what Mike says, and I also wish that Alan Keyes was the
republican candidate for president. I'm not sure why he thinks the 10
commandments to be confusing. Several points can be made
1. The 10 commandments were not delivered in an isolated context, and you
have the rest of the law to help see exactly what God meant for society.
The law also talks about the proper engagement in war, and so "killing"
could not be referring to killing in warfare. The law prescribes capital
punishment--again, obviously God is either very confused, the law is not
God's word, or we need to think a little deeper to understand exactly what
God means. I prefer the latter explanation.
2. Christ's sermon on the mount was essential a polemic against the
pharisees not having a clue as to what the 10 commandments really meant.
Christ was not prescribing a social gospel--he was accusing the Pharisees
for neglectful dimsightedness at not grasping the meaning of God's law. An
excellent exposition of this topic is Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones treatise on
the sermon on the mount. It is very much worth reading.
3. Does the law apply to Christians today. I challange that we are as
obliged to obey the moral law of God today and the Israelites were back in
the Sinai Desert. Why should it be different? The moral law describes God's
character as demands for man. Ps 89 makes clear that our terms of the
Covenant (new or old) that God makes with us entails obedience to the law
of God. The development of this theme is adequately done in the ethics text
of John Murray, or in the writings of Greg Bahnsen.
4. Is it not a great fallacy to assume that the instructions of Scripture
are "dated". It presumes that either God's morals change over time, or that
God remains unaware of future circumstances. Scripture gives clear
guidance, and where there is no clear guidance, God gives us the freedom to
act as we please (the adiaphora of Luther).
Kenneth A. Feucht
kenf@kenf.seanet.com
St_Augustine@msn.com
win 95 Beta-tester 176022