Rules or Principles? - Some thoughts about moral judgments

"This man is not from God for he does not keep the sabbath" (John 8,16). So who were the Pharisees that showed such disapproval of Jesus and why did they want Him dead? In the time of Nehemiah the Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon became aware that they were not keeping the Law. Such a problem had led to the captivity by Nebuchadnezzar. Nehemiah ruled that Jews must keep the Law. Later some felt compelled to separate themselves from fellow Jews so that they could keep the Law more strictly. In the several centuries that followed these 'separated ones' developed into the sect of the Pharisees and regarded ordinary Jews as sinners who did not keep the Law (as carefully as they did). They were strict in obedience to the Moses' Law; so what was wrong with that?

Conditions change and rules that are important during one period may not be so applicable a hundred or a thousand years later. What was important for two million Israelites who left Egypt and walked through the desert, may not be so appropriate to their children who settled to an agricultural way of life. Perhaps they were even less appropriate fourteen centuries later. There may be a difference between the great principles enshrined in the Ten Commandments and lot of explanatory notes appropriate to immediate needs.

In the days of the wanderings through the wilderness under Moses it was considered right to stone a man for gathering fire wood on the Sabbath. God told His people, through Jeremiah, that they must not bear burdens on the Sabbath (Jer.17.21). Israel regarded the Sabbath as having been given by God at Creation because the Second Commandment told them to remember the Sabbath to keep it holy and do no work because God rested, blessed and hallowed the Sabbath. Why did Jesus not keep the Sabbath in the same way as the Pharisees? He had a part in Creation for "..all things were created through him and for him." (Col 1.15). The Son must have shared the first Sabbath with His Father. So He was able to say that He was 'Lord of the Sabbath' and that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." But what did He mean by saying that "my Father is working still and I am working" (Mark 2.27; Luke 6.5; John 5.17)?

When His disciples walked through the cornfield grinding corn in their hands on the Sabbath and eating it He quoted the story of David who went to the high priest and requested 'show bread' to eat.

God gives rules that are good and right and necessary particularly in a large society of people. Rules enable us to anticipate what other people are going to do and how they will act. In Britain a green traffic light tells road users to 'go' ‑ until an emergency services siren tells every one to stop. Good and useful as rules may be, they tend to be localised ‑ suitable for a particular environment and social mix. It is much easier to obey exact rules than it is to make moral judgments.

Time and places alter things but God has given wonderful, eternal, spiritual‑moral principles. The Pharisees forgot the most important thing that God said through Moses ‑ that He was a God of compassion (Exodus 34.6). That is more important than anything else because it describes God's character of love, the kind of love that Jesus spent three and a half years demonstrating and describing. Times have changed and we do not live in the world of 2000 years ago so how do we know how to behave in a modern world? Firstly, we must do everything we can to obey the Word of God. A brother or sister in Christ may sincerely believe God's Word literally yet interpret certain parts differently from ourselves. We may find, some day, that they were correct. In his letters, Paul dealt with a number of local problems which had arisen in the Church, some of which were conflicting attitudes to the Jewish Law. Paul's answers to questions raised were often appropriate at the time and place in they were then living. His comments about slaves might be different today from what they were then, although even in that matter he gave us a principle ‑ there are no slaves in Christ, except where Jesus is Master, for we are all one in Him (Gal.3.29). The churches in Galatia had all kinds of trouble because some believers had come from Judea and told them they must keep the Law. Circumcision of the heart is all that is required in Christ ‑ and that principle goes way back into the Old Testament (Deut.30.6) Choosing the right foods was a matter of conscience and that referred back to something the Lord had said about keeping the traditions of the Law (Mark 7.19).. We may well interpret Paul's comments about keeping certain days as special in Roman 14 to mean that every day is special ‑ every day a Sabbath, holy unto the Lord.

We live in a democratic, technocratic society. Does being respectful to rulers mean we ought to vote? Does being charitable mean that we should support lotteries? Making moral judgments is much more difficult than most people realise.

God speaks directly to our hearts, if we spend time with Him and if we walk and talk with Him, every day. When our understanding of the Bible is challenged, we must take it to the Lord in prayer. When a community of God's people find that there is a difference of interpretation of the Bible among themselves that affects their communal behaviour, they must take it to the Lord in united prayer ‑ and pray meaningfully. Many of God's saints testify that God speaks to their hearts telling them what they must do. God will forgive us if we fail to hear correctly but what if we forget to seek His wisdom?

There is nothing more important than spending time with the Lord and His Word. The Quiet Time each days is not for academic analysis of God's Word ‑ but for meditation so that it speaks to our hearts and if need be, corrects our earlier interpretation.