(Updated 8/10/2024)
Jew, Gentile, and the Law
Those familiar with the Bible may recall a narrative in the Book of Acts wherein the elders of the Judeo-Christian congregation in Jerusalem debated the responsibility of Gentile Christians with respect to observing Mosaic Law. After hearing the reports of Barnabas and Paul about the signs, wonders, and conversions among the Gentiles, and after hearing Peter’s testimony about his experience in Joppa and with Cornelius, James convinced the elders with a statement invoking the Holy Spirit to exempt Gentiles from the requirements to observe the Law of Moses with the caveat that they “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from sexual immorality [emphasis added]” (Acts 15:29 ESV).
By this action, the Spirit-led Judeo-Christian elders (whom we today would call “Messianic Jews”) exempted Gentile Christians from the Mosaic requirements of circumcision and observing the feast days laid down through Moses. The dictate laid on Christian Gentiles by the early church in its abstention from idolatrous affiliations and sexual immorality was about Godly behavior in the face of ungodly cultural practices.
Backstory: The Old Testament and the Law
God, through Moses and other Old Testament prophets, warned the people of Israel to eschew practices abominable to God: Idolatry, murder, sexual immorality, duplicity, and concupiscence. All the abominable practices expressly violate the commandments given by God on Sinai through the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20: 2-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21).
The ten commandments are not dictates imposed by a capricious or arbitrary God. They are the boundaries which delineate the healthy relational environment within which people and cultures prosper. Violating the boundaries set by a loving God harm us, both individually and collectively.
Idolatry
Idolatry, the worship and service to “other” gods, only serves to bring destruction on the idolater.
Murder
Murder ends life artificially. It abridges a being’s potential unnaturally, and forces an insular shell upon the perpetrator in order to defend his or her action, thereby destroying the dignity and well-being of the perpetrator as well as the victim.
Equally detestable to God is the sacrifice of children to satiate one’s idols; an act he calls “abominable” (e.g., Jeremiah 32:35).
Sexual Immorality
Sexual immorality dishonors God’s creation that was “made in our image,” and mocks the Creator by placing human desire for pleasure over and above God’s provision for the dignity and well being of his creation.
Duplicity
Duplicity bears with it the potential to harm two souls: The victim, and most certainly the perpetrator. Duplicity is an affront to the truthfulness of God’s character.
Concupiscence
Concupiscence is the desire to possess something so strongly it warps one’s perception and decision processes, and thereby warps the divine intent for the well being of the desirer.
The New Testament, Gentiles, and the Law
Every one of the five categories bequeathed to us through the Ten Commandments was reiterated in the New Testament. When questioned how one obtained eternal life, Jesus directly responded with do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, and do not bear false witness (Matthew 19:18-19). Paul and James bore the same message in the books of Romans and James.
Jesus also reminded his followers the greatest commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37 and Mark 12:30 [who also added “with all your strength”], NASB). Jesus further admonished, “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31, NASB). To underscore the primacy of these two commandments, Jesus added, “All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40, TNIV). Every writing in the New Testament bears these two commandments either directly or as a premise under-girding it.
The Advent of Modern Paganism
Throughout the Old Testament, ancient Israel is warned to avoid assimilation of the pagan religions of the territory given to them by God. In the New Testament, Gentile Christians are given a similar warning to avoid that which is sacrificed to idols and to avoid other practices of the pagan religions surrounding them. Paganism is a punishable affront to God.
One of the outcomes of the Age of Reason was the relegation of the supernatural to myth and fairy tale. Thus, angels, their ungodly counterparts, and even God were consciously removed from being real and effectual in the physical world to simply being moral feelings or states of the soul. Christianity itself was not immune to the Age of Reason as the narratives of the Bible were “de-mythologized.”
The Return to a House Unoccupied
We were warned. Finding a house unoccupied, unclean spirits will bring unclean brethren more evil than themselves, making the last state worse than it was at first (Matthew 12:45; Luke 11:26; 2 Peter 2:20).
In its penchant to be “inclusive” and “diverse,” the United States and the President officially announced its (and their) return to paganism with the Defense of Marriage Act.
In caricatures of the costume movies of the 1950’s we see pagan priestesses-in-drag prance in bars and private parties enticing children to embrace their practices under the guise of “acceptance.” Perverse activists initiate lawsuits to advance and defend the sexual grooming of minors in their own image.
Women bow to the idols of “success,” “individuality,” “being my own person,” and “my body, my choice” and sacrifice their unborn children to their idols. In a scene reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah, woman championing the rights of the unborn in New York City were physically threatened by inclusive-touting activists. “Love your neighbor” has been perverted into accepting that which is abominable to God, or suffer the consequence of being a social pariah with the very real threat of arrest, or of being unemployable.
Climate change priests admonish us to replace “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul” with “love nature at any cost.” Primitive cultures worshiped nature, and the climate priests would have us do so again. The difference is that we now call it “climate,” and strive to change it, even at the risk of impoverishing humanity.
The Danger and the Promise
God will not be mocked. Replacing God with idols and practicing that which God considers abomination leads to ruin, individually and collectively.
In the short term, there is a bright spot amid the gloom. Second Kings and Chronicles portray a rediscovery of “the book of the law” by temple scribes, and the monarch-led awakening that followed. A re-awakening by our leadership could lead us to experience a national re-awakening.
In the long term, God-fearers are promised a new heaven and a new earth in his presence.
God is not mocked. One mocks God at one’s own peril, individually and collectively.