Oct 7, 2024
Q&A:
Before we start, I want to say that full disclosure is that I
consider you a friend and we attend the same congregation. I
also wanted to say up front that we’re going to talk about a book
You wrote called “Apologia for thee Law and the Sabbath”. And in
that book you often refer to Christ as the Master. One
advantage of this is that we avoid turning off one group or another
by referring to Him as either Jesus or Yeshua, so if it’s alright
I’ll try to refer to Him during our interview in a similar way,
either as the Master or as simply Christ.
You begin that book by stating that the book is not for
someone who has already made up their mind that the law has been
done away with. I guess we could say the same thing to our
listeners, that if they’ve already up their mind on this topic this
interview is not for them. Why do you say that and how would you
describe the mindset of the listener who is well suited to hear our
discussion today?
You use an analogy of 3 TV sets for sale to describe the
acceptable doctrine of Christianity today. Share that analog
with us to help set the table, so to speak, for our talk
today.
I don’t want to spend a lot of time on your testimony in this
discussion in order to save time for all the arguments from your
book, but you talk about how your faith journey included a time
spent with what you call other’s centered legalism. Since
legalism is often a knee-jerk reaction or description to what we’re
going to talk about today, define for us others-centered legalism
as you experienced it and how it differs from the inner cultivation
of the spirit.
You start out by asking a question, can we sin without the
law, and to make your point you enlist a stop sign analogy.
So what is the answer to this question and explain it to us using
that stop sign analogy.
There are many scriptures that challenge us “not to sin” or to
be righteous, and yet as Christians we believe Christ’s sacrifice
was needed. How do we rectify these two seemingly incongruous
ideas?
Your chapter titled “dead to the law” starts out with a quote
from Peter where he states that Paul’s writings are hard to
understand, to which I think we can all say “Amen”. This a
big deal since 2/3 of the NT was written by Paul, and many
Christian doctrines are based wholly or at least in part on his
writings. So let’s address this concept of being dead to the law
and what seem to be contradictions in Paul’s writings. You
make the point that when there are apparent contradictions with
Paul or anywhere in scripture we need to look beyond the
superficial meaning. So let me ask you the question, did
Christ cancel or nullify the law, and how does the Sermon on the
Mount help answer this question?
You state that the law is not an obstacle for salvation but
its indispensable platform. What do you mean by that?
Another twist on this same argument is that Christ gave us a
new law and it’s called love. Is this true?
Let’s talk about he concept of a bond servant as described in
both the OT and in the NT most notably in an often ignored short
book called Philemon. What can this tell us about our
relationship to the law?
So the concept of a bond servant can help us better understand
our relationship to the law, but you say that the concept of a
school master can help us understand the reverse, the relationship
of the law to us. Talk to us about this.
Now with the concepts of bondservant and schoolmaster as a
background, how can we better understand what Paul means when he
talks about the law of liberty?