Marbaniang, Domenic

There is an increasing trend towards becoming trendy at church, which is not always bad. We must make a distinction between faith and culture; culture is dynamic and flexible; faith has to be absolute. The problem rises when faith attempts to claim elements of culture in order to sacralize them and render them inflexible. When faith tries to do that, then the result is a legalistic religious system that is very fundamentalistic. These issues were earlier discussed here. However, grace is not lawless either. The New Testaments cautions us against those who attempt to turn the grace of God into license for evil (Jude 1:4, NET). Take the Example of Clothing Let's begin at the pulpit and one immediately notes at least 5 variants: 1. Those who stick to orthodox robes and cassocks or sacralized color definitions (e.g. white) 2. Those who stress on wearing business suits or traditional suits 3. Those who like to wear designer and more trendy clothes 4. Those who like to wear casuals. 5. ...

Few of the Characteristics of the Mosaic Law were as follows: 1. Ground: Love. It was based upon the Great Commandment: the Commandment of Love. (Matt.22:40) 2. Subjects: Sinners. The Law was given for the lawless (1Tim.1:9) 3. Function: To Expose Sin. The Law exposed sin, what it is. (Rom.3:20) 4. Internal Witness: Conscience. The human conscience bore witness to the justness of this Law (Rom.2:15). We must remember that the conscience is not just an effect of social learning. It is a justifier and judge in the epistemics of morality. The apprehension there is not just rational, but apodeitical and intuitive. However, when salt loses its saltness, there is nothing with which to salten it again. 5. Ability/Power: To Condemn. The Law could only condemn humans; it could never justify them. (Gal.3:10) 6. Effect: Death. The Law killed; it could never give life (2Cor.3:6; 1Cor.15:56; Rom.7:9,10)) Note: Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it (Matt.5:17). In fact, the Commandment...

Now, while the debate exists in the philosophy of law about the relationship between political laws and the moral law, attempts to base the laws on anything other than the moral law sooner face problems of justifiability. While it may be the case that reductionism of politics to ethics is not totally feasible, resort to anti reductionism is only self-defeating. And, then authority arguments that try to derive validity of laws from higher laws, which in return try to derive their validity from a much higher one (e.g. Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law ), will have to strike ceiling at some point ( See Marmor, A.  Philosophy of Law , Princeton, 2011). For instance, the judges under Hitler's regime could not be absolved upon the relativist presumption that they were only conforming to some law of a sovereign nation. The question of validity and justice could not be anchored in such "sovereign" authority alone. However, this doesn't mean that authority doesn't count...

The Good Samaritan  (Wikimedia) Citations: The Great Commandment is the essential law of the church; the Great Commission is the missional task of the church. The both cannot be confused. To love is a rule and principle that would never cease to be; to preach is an obligation that will soon cease to be. That is one reason why caring for the poor, the orphans, and the widows is considered to be pure religion (James 1:27). The liberational causes and the cause of justice and mercy are principle causes – things that the church cannot silently ignore when it has the power not to ignore. To love one’s neighbor as oneself is an essential obligation. In most cases, one may not preach but still be a Christian, and draw others through a silent conformity to the essential Christian principle of love (1Peter 3:1). Being precedes manifestation. The ethical rule must not be confused with the ecclesiastical task. To love is not a task; it is an essential principle. Jesus said that His disciple...

One important thing that we must remember about God's grace is that the Grace of God in Jesus Christ has not nullified the Law of God. Grace is not against God's Law. In fact, Jesus said that He came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it (Matt.5:17). The commandments of Grace are tougher and more demanding than the commandments of the Law. The Bible tells us that the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came with Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Jesus ushered in the era of Grace. Not that grace was absent in the Old Testament; but that grace could only be available even in the Old Testament because of the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the earth. And, when Christ came Grace came in reality, for until then everything was only shadows (Col.2:17). Therefore, it says, "Grace and truth came with Jesus Christ". The commandments of Grace, therefore, supersede the commandments of the Law. Grace teaches us true righteousness (Tit.2:11,12; Matt.5:20). Thus,...

CIVIL OBEDIENCE  obligatorily relates to Justice. Civil obedience is mandatory when the laws are just. However, civil obedience is not mandatory when laws are unjust. In fact, civil disobedience is obligatory when laws are unjust. The officers and judges during Hitler's reign might have argued that they were obeying their laws; however, since those laws were not just; therefore, they were guilty of crimes against humanity. Similarly, we find civil disobedience in the Bible when Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego refused to bow before the golden image (Dan. 3:14-16), when Daniel opened the windows and openly prayed in defiance to a law prohibiting the same (Daniel 6:10), and when the Apostles refused the authorities' command to stop preaching the Gospel. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." (Act 4:19-20 NIV) The Formula: Law+Ju...

Slavery is the practice of owning slaves. Though God permitted it in the Old Testament (See Permissive Will ), He legislated laws to protect the dignity and individuality of the slave as a human created in God's image. According to the New Testament principle, however, slavery is inhuman, immoral, and evil. People sometimes bemoan the fact that slavery was permitted in the Old Testament; but, what one needs not fail to recognize is that it was permitted for only a liberating purpose and with certain limitations. It was both limited and liberating. Deuteronomy 15:12-18 underscores at least three laws about the practice of slavery: 1. It was to be VOLUNTARY The Law specifies, - If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself.. (Deut.15:12, NIV) It was not to be a forced bond-labor. It had to be voluntary. When a person would be in so much debt that he couldn't pay it back anymore, he usually would prefer selling himself as a slave. In other cultures, such slavery would become...

There are only three instances where casting of lots is mentioned in the New Testament: (1) When Zacharias’ turn came, by lot, to minister in the temple (Luke 1:9), (2) When the soldiers cast lots to divide the garments of Jesus (Matt 27:35), and (3) When Matthias was chosen by lot to take the place of Judas Iscariot as one among the Twelve (Acts 1:26). Following that, there is no mention of casting lots anymore in the Bible. Scholars believe that this is so because we live in the Age of the Holy Spirit and every decision after Pentecost comes from Him. In the Old Testament, however, God did command His people to decide a number of things on the basis of lots. For instance, the Scapegoat on the Day of Atonement had to be chosen by lot (Lev.16:8) and the Promised Land had to be divided among the tribes by lot (Num.26:55). In the book of Jonah we find that lots were cast to determine who the culprit was, and the lot rightly fell on Jonah. Lots were cast in serious matters where human cap...

In the Jerusalem Council, mentioned in Acts 15:20, one of the things that the apostles by the Holy Spirit made mandatory to abstain from was eating of blood. The Old Testament commandment applied even in the New Testament. God gave two reasons for abstaining from blood (Leviticus 17:11): 1. Life is in the blood, so we are prohibited to eat blood. That life is in the blood is a scientific fact that has not changed even today. So, the law applies. 2. God had given it to us upon the altar to make atonement for our souls, for it is blood that makes atonement for the soul, the Bible says. In the New Testament, God did just that, He offered His blood on the Altar. The blood belongs to the altar exclusively, and so we are called to abstain from it.

About four decades ago, the American theologian Harvey Cox , had already defined secularization as an inevitable process. [1] Almost a decade prior to that, Bryan Wilson, in his book Religion in Secular Society (1966) had considered it to be irreversible. [2] However, history has a different tale to say. The scepter of philosophy is hard to cast away. Somewhere or the other it holds its reins and pulls history on. In the 1920s a small group of scientists, mathematicians, sociologists, and economists, (not philosophers) had gathered together in Vienna to develop a unified philosophy that embraced science and attempted to destroy philosophy. [3] Their new philosophy came to be known as Logical Positivism . It, of course, suffered a natural death soon. But, what the empiricists then did not realize was that philosophy may be philosophically denied but not scientifically annihilated. In less than a decade, the world saw the angry reins of philosophies on the chariots of the nations as ...

Ques: The laws of Moses look so hard and inhumane. He allowed social evils such as slavery and revenge. See for instance theses verses: "if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do." (Ex.21:7) "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Ex.21:24) Ans: When Jesus came, He said that He came to bring the Law of Moses to perfection (Matt.5:17). He didn't come to annihilate it but to bring it to perfection. It certainly implies that the Old Testament Law was not in a perfect state. Jesus said that Moses gave that Law because of the hardness of human hearts (Matt.19:8). The Old Testament itself stressed the importance of Mercy as the spirit of the Law; Jesus quoted it when He taught the key to the right practice of the Law: "But if you had known what this means, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice,'you would not have condemned the guiltless." (Matt.12:7) He highlighted the spirit of ...

THE BOOK The passage is taken from the book of Exodus which forms the second book in the Pentateuch. The name “Exodus” comes from the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament and means “exit” or “departure”. This name was also retained by the Vulgate, the Latin version, by the Jewish author Philo, and by the Syriac version. The name of the book in Hebrew is taken from the first words of the text: “And these are the names of” ( We’elleh Shemoth ) or simply Shemoth . The Pentateuch (i.e., “the five books) is in the Hebrew known as Torah, which means “Law”, “instruction”, “teaching”. [1] AUTHOR The traditional belief is that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible (i.e., the Pentateuch). The NT writers believed that to be true (Lk.2:22-23; Jn.7:19; Acts 3:22). [2] DATE AND PLACE OF WRITING The date of writing can be inferred to between Moses’ eightieth birthday and his one hundred and twentieth birthday, when he died, just as the wilderness wandering was drawing to a close ...