The Rent Veil: How Far Did It Tear?

[brother_dour]

Something has been puzzling me for awhile about the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Every Christian church I have ever been to in the U.S. at least has had plenty of women with short hair and clean-shaven men.  We have fellowship dinners with pork and shellfish.  Yet we still follow the Ten Commandments religiously (

Comments

[gaiman_phile]

Hopefully this will help? click me

I'm not sure how to answer your question. I hope the above link will offer a little bit of information to help. :)

[brother_dour]

Whoops. I think the link is broken- it goes to a Wordpress account but not to a specific entry. Did you mean it to go to a certain place?

[stinky_cupid]

I've wondered the same thing. Like tattoos. Leviticus 19:38 specifically opposes them. But they're growing in popularity. I'm not one to judge on that because I have tats of my own, but in the church where they're supposed to set an example. But some would say that it's an Old Testament rule, and it's no longer required. But the Ten Commandments are an Old Testament set of rules also, but we're still expected to abide by them. I'm confused also.

I guess some would argue that if it's negated in the New Testament, then the Old Testament would be invalid. For example, Moses said in the Old Testament that if one wanted a divorce, they needed only provide a certificate, but Jesus said in the New Testament that the only thing that could end a marriage was death or sexual immorality.

[vesper_evensong]

The answer for the LDS is simple continued revelation. That doesn't help with why the mainstream of Christianity honors some of the OT things but not others. I supposed it depends on what the NT teaches as being different, and the interpretation of the "law" that was fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

I will read others answers with interest on this one.

[muraven]

The general rule is that stuff from the OT that is repeated in the NT is in, and stuff from the OT that is either not repeated or outright contradicted by the NT (like the requirement of keeping kosher, and the absolute prohibition of work on the Sabbath) is out.

[brother_dour]

That seems reasonable to me. But how was that decided? Is it a general rule of thumb that everyone kind of collectively figured out, was it declared by some ecumenical council in the past, what?

[muraven]

I'm not sure if it was ever established definitively, or even if it's official Church teaching. It just seems to fit with how things are, with what we keep and what we don't. It stands to reason that, since Jesus did bring in a new order of things, the stuff that he and the other Scriptural writers like St. Paul corroborated would stay and the stuff that they challenged or ignored wouldn't.

[martiancyclist]

None of the Old Testament law applies, including the 10 Commandments.

[pastorlenny]

We certainly don't do a very good job of following them.

[muraven]

The Ten Commandments don't apply to us today? That's a new one to me.

[kindmemory]

I am thinking that he means the 10 are still correct, but that we obey from love, not from looking at what we should not do. ...Like we don't murder because we care about people, not just because we want to stay out of jail?

Also, seems like the NT says we are not condemned by the Law, but if we are condemned it is because of our words, the goodness or badness of them, that shows the state of our hearts and relationship with God.