Rules and Spirit

[Digging4Truth]

Originally Posted by RevDWW

Huh? You mean if I follow after Jesus' rule to treat others like I wish to be treated I'm walking in the flesh and not the spirit? Unless your definition of "rules" is standards and not the teachings of Jesus. Would you consider any of Jesus' teaching to be rules?

That is a concept. Not a rule. A rule would be... When people do this... you do that... etc

A rule would be where someone stipulated that you should do this or do that to fulfill that concept.

Modesty is a concept... One should live by that concept. A list of do's & don'ts as to how a person should dress are rules.

When one learns to live within the concept without the need for the rules then that is maturity.

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Digging4Truth

That is a concept. Not a rule. A rule would be... When people do this... you do that... etc

A rule would be where someone stipulated that you should do this or do that to fulfill that concept.

Modesty is a concept... One should live by that concept. A list of do's & don'ts as to how a person should dress are rules.

When one learns to live within the concept without the need for the rules then that is maturity.

Right, Digging. Let me further the point of my post. As the Word lays out direction/concepts people are generally accustomed to sitting back and deciding it is good to interpret what that direction or concept is actually saying.

Hence, we have the Jews writing the Mishna, feeling the need to elaborate on the Law.

I believe that scares many individuals as they feel the need to set some sort of perimeter around the people, thereby, keeping some semblance of order.

I can see how it is easy done. Mainly, because God is a God of order. Moses followed order and thus, it's almost an example.

How did Azua street operate with order or did it always have order just following the Spirit? So many people with different mindsets and ideas.

[simplyme]

When one learns to live within the concept without the need for the rules then that is maturity.
__________________

I REALLY like your quote, Digging4Truth, may I use it?

[Digging4Truth]

Originally Posted by simplyme

I REALLY like your quote, Digging4Truth, may I use it?

Sure...

[RandyWayne]

I like the subject of this thread.

"Rules" create loopholes. "Principles" do not.

It is the reason that new laws created by congress are often thousands, to tens of thousands of pages long. Because it is possible to commit a crime and somehow fall between some unseen-when-written crack and not be prosecuted.
For instance, did you know that up until a few short years ago, ANYONE could plant a video camera in your shower and watch (obviously unaware)? What would any guy here do when he found out the guy with the beer belly living next door had been watching your wife?
The law could not do a thing about it because only LISTENING was considered illegal. Video was not covered.

The same is done in the churches. I understand the INTENT of MOST "standards" yet I cannot tell you how often I have been to services and especially camp meetings where the women were done up every bit as much as starlets on the red carpet at the latest Hollywood premier. Every hair hairsprayed in place as much as a bride on her wedding. Wearing their very best cloths. Simply there to be seen.
(Guys are not exempt. It's just not QUITE as obvious with us.)

It could be said that every RULE was being kept to the letter. But the spirit was being completely thrown out the window.

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by mfblume

We read in Galatians and Romans that law came to "keep" Israel until the Lord would come in incarnation. It was temporary! And Paul noted that rules and legislation were ONLY for Israel during their immatuire state before the Lord came. Gal 4 speaks of Israel being children and only heirs during the time of law. But once Christ came, graduation occurred and God knew it was tiome for spiritual maturity to begin. Hence, out with rule books and intrduction to walking after the Spirit with new birth.

We can look at individuals in the same light. Those who CANNOT learn to walk in the Spirit, and seem to WANT rules and codes are simply spiritually immature. It is so easy to live by a set of rules. Our fleshly nature is very accustomed to that. We have rules everywhere, even in secular society. But to learn to be led by the Spirit and walk in that Spirit is far beyond the experience of rule keeping.

Keep in mind that when we walk after the Spirit, we will nto fulfill lusts of the flesh, and we will live the way Law TRIED TO get Israel to live, yet we do it all without resorting to a list of rules!

So many in churches today, apostolics and all, would far sooner live by rules. Folks, we have to mature. It's high time we walk after the Spirit!

Bro Blume,

Are there different types of rules? For instance there is the Law of Moses, and,

Rom 3:27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

1 Cor 9:20-21 To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.

Is there a law or rule we must keep and we do this 'keeping' by walking and being led of the Spirit?

[RevDWW]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

I like the subject of this thread.

"Rules" create loopholes. "Principles" do not.

It is the reason that new laws created by congress are often thousands, to tens of thousands of pages long. Because it is possible to commit a crime and somehow fall between some unseen-when-written crack and not be prosecuted.
For instance, did you know that up until a few short years ago, ANYONE could plant a video camera in your shower and watch (obviously unaware)? What would any guy here do when he found out the guy with the beer belly living next door had been watching your wife?
The law could not do a thing about it because only LISTENING was considered illegal. Video was not covered.

The same is done in the churches. I understand the INTENT of MOST "standards" yet I cannot tell you how often I have been to services and especially camp meetings where the women were done up every bit as much as starlets on the red carpet at the latest Hollywood premier. Every hair hairsprayed in place as much as a bride on her wedding. Wearing their very best cloths. Simply there to be seen.
(Guys are not exempt. It's just not QUITE as obvious with us.)

It could be said that every RULE was being kept to the letter. But the spirit was being completely thrown out the window.

Good comments.
The letter kills, the Spirit gives life.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by RevDWW

Huh? You mean if I follow after Jesus' rule to treat others like I wish to be treated I'm walking in the flesh and not the spirit? Unless your definition of "rules" is standards and not the teachings of Jesus. Would you consider any of Jesus' teaching to be rules?

Good question!

Put it this way: Jesus said that if we love him we will see ourselves keeping his commandments. We just WILL keep them. This is what it means to have His law written in our hearts. We need to cease looking for rules on paper and look inward into our hearts where the Law of God is written on fleshy tables.

In regards to your example of your thought that Christ had a rule in saying we must treat folks the way we wish to be treated, anything Jesus said is something the Spirit must empower us to do. Reading a rule and trying OUR BEST to fulfill it is what I was speaking against. We need God's Spirit empowering us. My point is basically that sinners can read a list of rules and exert their will power to keep them. The New Testament goes beyond that. Sinners cannot do what we can do in the Spirit. So this is one way to determine whether or not we are truly living in the Spirit. If a sinner can do what we're doing, then we're not living after the Spirit.

Pressing On mentioned the idea that there are so many rules in the New Testament. I disagree, sis. I think the error of so many has been to make the New Testament another rule book like the Law of Moses. God never intended that.

For example, the beattitudes cannot be "kept" as rules. They simply describe the STATE OF A PERSON'S HEART. And only God can make our hearts that way. I would say that anything that could appear as a "rule" in the New Testament, which can be accomplished by anyone with or without the Spirit, is something we have mistaken as a rule. Many of the things Jesus described were things that people can only do if they are empowered by the Holy Ghost.

If anything is required of us similar to a rule, it is something that we must actually rely upon the Holy Ghost in us to be able to accomplish it. Without the Spirit, we cannot do the things Jesus said... at least not do them genuinely the way God expects them to be done.

[mizpeh]

What is the law of God?

[Digging4Truth]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

What is the law of God?

The law of God is what He once wrote on tablets of stone and has now written on the fleshy tables of our heart.

The law of God is what He has put in our inward parts and has written in our hearts.