Newsweek has reported on the story of A. J. Jacobs (previously famous for reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in one year), who has spent the past year trying to follow every rule written in the Bible. So as well as the nice obvious ones like not lying or coveting, he was growing a beard, observing the sabbath and not blending his clothing fibres. From the article:
“The Bible project was a lot more difficult than the encyclopedia project. The Bible affected every single part of my life, it affected the way I walked, the way I dressed, the way I hugged my wife, the way I ate. The year was the most extreme makeover of my life.”
It’s a fun read. But the following quote triggered something in me:
“One of the lessons of the book is, there is some picking and choosing in following the Bible, and I think that’s OK. Some people call that cafeteria religion, which is supposed to be a disparaging term, but I think there’s nothing wrong with cafeterias, I’ve had some delicious meals in cafeterias. I’ve also had some terrible meals in cafeterias. It’s all about picking the right parts. You want to take a heaping serving of the parts about compassion, mercy and gratefulness—instead of the parts about hatred and intolerance.”
Everything in me cringes at that. It’s the stuff that makes it easy to take pot-shots at post-moderns. And yet, looking at the list of rules this guy has followed in the year: I struggle to be able to tell you which of those should be part of living as a Christian under the new covenant, and which are just part of the religious Jewish law. It feels a lot like I’m doing the same thing? Because at times that line can seem pretty arbritrary. How do we decide what parts of the old testament law are still valuable today, and which are a religious absurdity.
But then maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to grow a beard…
9 Comments
darn it - I was about to propose a similar topic for discussion.
Mine was going to be along the lines of:
we all have a hermeneutic where we take on parts of the Old Testament law and practice and we reject other parts (this is also true of the NT). my question is how do we decide what parts go and what stays?
the classic example of this the 10 commandments. Tithing and the sabbath day are other examples.
I read a post on this at and despite my post-modern leanings, I think the teacher is wrong on 2 counts.
First - we need to be able to say that a particular reading is not as true as another because some readings are inaccurate.
Secondly, there is the dimension of integrity with a reading - does someone apply a hermeneutic with consistency?
With regard to the second, for me the classic on this is tithing. I hear people say that it is a Biblical commandment that we give the first 10% of our money to the local church. The idea of the first 10% “clearly” comes from Lev 27.30. The part of local church comes from Mal 3.10.
Questions:
(1) why pick this law to observe?
(2) deut 14.23 clearly states that you are to EAT the tithe, or (vv24-27) go to the temple, buy whatever you want and EAT the tithe - are we to ignore that?
(3) most tithes and offerings presented in the temple are BURNT by the priests - are we doing that in our services?
(4) those adhering to the law actually ended up with 3 tithes totaling 23.3% of their income - we don’t talk about that part much.
(5) From my reading, the Malachi passage is addressed to the priests, not the general populace. Yet the “priests” in our congregations preach this message to the public.
I don’t want to get sidetracked by tithing as an issue - I am not saying that tithing or giving to God is wrong, I am suggesting that the hermeneutic employed by those who teach on it is not consistent.
The opposite extreme on the usage of the OT is to say that none of it applies - we are made right by faith and the law no longer stands. But I think this misreads Jesus and Paul who both saw use in/for the law.
I’ve said enough for this round…
Hmmm - the comments show up on the right, but not above… Geoff can you let me know what’s up and if I need to try something else?
thanks.
“But then maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to grow a beard…”
Having visions of Geoff with a moustache a while back. :o)
I am of the opinion that applying a certain method of interpretation to any passage in the whole Bible will lead to the correct interpretation. Firstly the interpretation must be consistent with all parts of the Bible. Saying, “You must tithe because it so says in Leviticus,” and in the same breath saying, “We are not under law,” clearly involves some cognitive dissonance. Choosing between Old Covenant laws that are applicable today and those that aren’t might seem a mammoth task but I don’t think it need be so difficult. we can with relative safety discount the sacrificial law - that has found full fulfilment in the New Covenant. As can we omit elements of the old civil law as seems fit to lawmakers in keeping with the Moral Law (not that we can’t learn from it).
The Ten Commandments (AKA Moral Law) cannot be picked and chosen. You must accept all or none, since they are given together. Inspection will attest that they deal with important facets of our relationship to God, and also our relationship to others. These are the full spectrum of human relationships - man to God, and man to man (substitute woman etc). Moreover all the other nine flow from the first naturally - if you have fully kept the first, you must neccessarily have kept the others.
I think the reality is that everyone pics certain elephants to focus on and neglects the others to some degree.
The question is not whether or not we all pick and choose from the bible, because we all do, but in fact how aware we are of the choices we are making in this regard.
and if you think my grammar is bad, how about my timing! 1:36am
But yeah, some of us choose to try and focus on all the little pictures in the hope they make a big picture… others of us try and head for the big picture in the hope that the little ones will fall in line. Sounds like herecy to a conservative… but Jesus big-picture was about grace, and if we keep trying to fulfil the law I think we significantly miss the point!
But I think I’m only echoing what others have allready said