There seems to be a lot of confusion concerning what Christians believe about the Bible, specifically what to do with the all the rules and commandments. This often leads those outside the faith to accuse Christians of a hypocritical inconsistency in which we pick and choose which passages to obey and which ones we deem irrelevant: “Sure, Tim Tebow seems like a nice guy, but isn’t he disobeying the Bible by working on Sunday?” “Why do Christians who condemn homosexuality wear clothes with mixed fabrics? Doesn’t Leviticus say that’s a sin too?”

 

This kind of misunderstanding by those outside the Christian faith is understandable, but it seems there is almost as much confusion among Christians. I spent much of my life wondering why we obey some Old Testament laws but not others…the picking and choosing really did seem arbitrary. 

 

Unfortunately, a lot of Christian preaching and teaching, rather than explaining things, contributed even more to my confusion. I grew up in Sunday School, where I was taught to obey the Ten Commandments and learned to look up to heroes of the Old Testament. I went to a Christian University where I was taught the difference between God’s “moral” laws, which apply to us today, and the “cultural/ceremonial” laws which we can apparently ignore. At the same time, I was reading verses like II Tim 3:16, which says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable…” which is confusing when the same writer says that “we are released from the Law” (Rom. 7:6) and are “not under the Law” (Gal. 5:18). Which is it?? Eventually, I just threw up my hands and went along with the cultural majority, trusting that someone had a good explanation for why it was not ok for me to make idols, but was perfectly acceptable to eat pork. 

 

I did eventually find the answers I was looking for and came to an understanding that now seems so obvious I wonder how I was ever confused. I’ll admit that not every Christian shares this view, and some would actively argue against it, but I think the vast majority of believers already take this approach. Most people seem to intuitively apply this approach to their Bible study, but many haven’t thought about why it makes the most sense. It’s a bit complicated and nuanced in places, but I’ll share the gist of it in hopes that you will mull it over and consider the implications and applications in your own life. 

 

The main problem here seems to be the misconception that the Bible is a book of rules. People think we read the Bible so that we can know what God commands us to do, and then we try to obey his holy laws. This just isn’t accurate at all. For one thing, the Bible is not primarily a book of rules. You could perhaps make the argument that the book of Leviticus is a book of rules, but the vast majority of biblical books do not fit into that “rule book” category. Most of the Bible is narrative, an epic story of God’s interactions with humanity, but there are plenty of other genres as well. 

 

The second problem with that approach is that, not only is the Bible not a book of rules, but the parts that are commandments are usually not commandments for us. This is the simplest and easiest answer to the accusation, “Why don’t Christians obey such and such a verse?”…“Because the Bible never tells us to!”

 

This is the main point that so many Christians forget. In their eagerness to extract some sort of practical life-lesson that they can apply or obey, many Christians fail to read biblical passages in their narrative context. Why don’t Christians follow the prohibition against mixing fabrics in Deut 22:11? For the same reason we don’t untie and take people’s donkeys (see Luke 19:30). Because those commandments were not given to us! When we read that God told Noah to build an ark, we don’t immediately think, “Welp, I better start saving up for lumber.” We understand that God gave different commandments to different people at different times for different purposes. This is basic common sense. 

 

The problem arises because people forget the narrative context of what they’re reading. This is especially true of the Law of Moses. When biblical narrative sections are long (e.g., the whole story of Noah) and the commandments are short (e.g., “Build an ark.”), it's easy to see why that command doesn’t apply to us today. But when the commandment sections are long (e.g., most of Leviticus), people tend to forget the narrative context (God’s establishment of a legal system specifically for the nation of Israel). God told Moses to: “Go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go”. We recognize this as a commandment given to Moses, and we don’t try to obey it. But the same applies to the entire Law of Moses. God told Israel to: “do all the statutes and commandments and rules I gave you through Moses.” 

 

When we read the Law of Moses in its proper narrative context, it becomes clear that it’s not a list of rules for us to follow because it was a legal system for Israel. But here’s where there’s some confusion due to another misconception: Doesn’t the Law also have a lot of things for us to do and avoid? Aren’t we also commanded to not make idols or commit adultery? Doesn’t the Law of Moses command us not to steal or murder? At least the Ten Commandments are still laws for us, right?

 

Believe it or not…no. The Law of Moses doesn’t command us to do or not do anything, because it was never for us. God was clear about whom the Law was for: 

“And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. (Ex 34:27,28).

 

None of the Mosaic Law, including the Ten Commandments, applies to us as Law. Now, of course, I’m not advocating idolatry and adultery. We’ll come back to how to properly use and apply the Mosaic Law in a minute, but what I am saying is that it is not a law we are under. The Apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear in his writings:

 

“Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ…we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.  (Rom 7:4,6)

 “The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, (Gal 3:24,25)

 

The author of Hebrews also explicitly says that the New Covenant “makes the first one obsolete” (Heb 8:13) because it was “but a shadow of the good things to come” (Heb 10:1) and that Christ “abolishes the first in order to establish the second.” (Heb 10:9).  

 

In summary, none of the Old Testament Law, including the Ten Commandments, applies to you as Law. First, because it wasn’t given to you in the first place, and second, because it’s been completed and replaced by Jesus’ finished work on the cross. So the final question remains: why read the Old Testament at all? If the Mosaic laws don’t apply to us, what’s their purpose?

 

Again, this question reflects the misunderstanding that we read the Bible in order to find rules to obey. Instead, we should read the Bible in order to come to know God. In this sense, the Law is incredibly profitable because it reveals to us things about God’s character. In it, we see God’s jealousy and hatred of idolatry, his love of justice and integrity, his concern for the poor and the powerless. When believers learn these things about God’s character, they will, of course, seek to live in line with this revelation. However, this is not because they are commanded to by the Law, but because they are “in the new life of the Spirit.” (Rom 7:6). This is what it looks like when “the righteous requirement of the Law” is “fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Rom 8:4) 

 

The Law also serves to point people to Jesus as the one who fulfills it perfectly. The entire sacrificial system and all the festivals and feasts are prophetic signposts pointing to the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. 

 

Those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and walk in the power of the Spirit don’t need an external list of do’s and don’ts imposed on them, because they have the Law written on their hearts (Rom 2:15). These people honor God with their lives, not because they are seeking to be justified by their obedience to God’s commandments, but because they have tasted the amazing love of God. If we want to live like this, we need to recognize that we are utterly incapable of perfectly obeying God’s commandments and must rely wholly on God’s grace through the finished work of Christ. This is the great mystery of God’s character that is revealed to us in the Word: “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”  (Rom 3:20-22)

 

The Bible is not primarily a book of rules.

Most of the rules are not commandments for you anyway.

Read the Bible in its narrative context.

Study the Bible in order to know God.

The God revealed in the Bible is the God of grace.

 

The Bible is about God. We learn about God’s excellent and praiseworthy character when we read about how he acts in history, in narrative sections like Genesis, in Law sections like Leviticus, in the worshipful Psalms, etc. The best and fullest picture we have of God comes from his son, Jesus—the “visible image of the invisible God.” (Hebrews 1:1, Col 1:15) It is only by God’s gracious self-revelation in Scripture and ultimately through the Living Word himself, that anyone could hope to know him. And yet, this hope of meeting the Almighty is exactly what is offered to us!

 

What a small and pitiful thing it is to go to the Bible looking for rules when the infinite God of the universe is there waiting to be known.