This post is a very rough sketch of ideas and may include unfinished, incomplete, or erroneous ideas that will later be corrected. This post will be part of a series that will form the basis of a new book I’m writing following on the themes of my last book, Thoughts From Reconstruction. All of these themes center around the New Covenant. You can find everything published so far in this series on the Highlights page under the My Most Important section.
Warming Up
We’ll begin with some hopefully easy moral choices to ensure that we are rightly oriented to set off in the right direction. In each of the Ten Commandments, it is trivially seen how we fulfill Love God and neighbour, as we are obeying God’s command and treating our neighbour as we would like to be treated.
No other gods. No idols. No misuse of God’s Name. Keep the Sabbath Day. Honour your parents. No murder. No adultery. No stealing. No perjury. No coveting. -Exodus 20
It becomes more abstract but simple, still, when we think of Preach the Gospel and Make Disciple. It is quite possible, and quite a bit more likely, that our actions will preach the gospel far more than our words ever will. And, while we may not be explicitly making disciples, by our example we are implicitly teaching those around us how to follow Christ, that is, to be a disciple.
And, certainly we can see how Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment is upheld when we do not kill, even though we feel justified, or when we do not steal even if “white theft”, like “white lies”, becomes just as common.
But we’ve discussed before how some of these commandments have become enablers of evil and thus, there are some situations in which following them may not be loving of God or neighbour, preaching the Gospel or making disciples, or showing mercy over judgment.
Take, for example, no murder, which we feel is uncomfortably close to killing in war and, yet, if some had not defended themselves, their families, their friends, and the neighbours in war by killing, then other families, friends, and neighbours may have suffered greater evil.
Another example, no perjury, sounds like “always tell the truth” to us but do you tell the truth to someone who will abuse that truth and hurt others? That doesn’t sound like we are loving our neighbours and we instinctively feel it is unjust and counter to God’s character and will for us.
While these moral choices may have been relatively easy, some of them are also very uncomfortable. Most everyone can easily work their way through the easy dilemmas. It is to the hard dilemmas to which we now go, those choices that have caused great anguish across the centuries, those questions that seem outside of the prescriptive moral order.
Outside of the Old Covenant Law prescriptions, there are countless variations on moral choices which are not precisely identified by scripture, some not even named. Only under the greater moral law of the New Covenant, of Love God and Neighbour, do we have a descriptive response to questions that gives us confidence we are in Christ’s mercy and grace. This is where we begin to enter the true margin, the space of chaos which is also the space of potential, the kind of potential that can lead us toward the truth that sets us free.
This series will continue. Please check back from time to time, if you’re interested in reading new parts as they become available. The entire series will be made available on the Highlights page under the My Most Important section as each part is published.
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