Ignore the Biblical ‘laws’

Jason Michael asks some pertinent questions about some biblical “laws”. Speaking as a Christian, this is my answer: Ignore them! Old Testament “rules” were written for national solidarity – to keep a tight grip on the Israelites. There’s no way that we should be expected to obey such nonsensical commands as Mr Michael focuses on, nowadays. Mind you, there are some sensible rules/ideas as well. Take a look.

A different age. Different regulations. A different “world-view”.

The New Testament fares better. Jesus laid down no “laws” except to summarise the essence of the OT. “Love God and love your neighbour as yourself”. He also made it clear that the most important thing for us all is to keep our eyes and ears open! “Be wise as serpents and as innocent as doves” “The Holy Spirit will guide you what to say” when confronted with opposition or apathy. “Your Heavenly Father will give his Holy Spirit to those who ask”. That is, God will guide us, if we ask him to. I firmly believe this.

So it’s not writings (which date) that we should regard as being perfect. I feel absolutely free to criticize all writings, religious or secular, ancient or modern. There’s a lot of good in them and also a lot of bad. Yet I’m glad that we have records of the sort of mindset that our forebears had, concerning “laws of behaviour” as well as “laws of Nature”. They got the latter badly wrong, and it is only modern enquiring minds who have sorted out the Earth’s place in the solar system & galaxy, atoms, genetics and lots of other truths in this Universe of Time and Space. Ancient writings have given us no help whatsoever!

So, Mr Michael, please don’t stone anyone, enslave anyone or worry overmuch about sexual orientation. There are certainly things which we need to worry about, viz, the viability of life on this planet – if we continue to treat it the way we are doing right now. Yes, we all need to pray urgently to God about that. Who knows? – like the people of Nineveh - we might just manage to escape our imminent extinction, by employing a combination of humility and also downright commonsense…..

David Colquhoun

Marley Gardens, Battle