The apostles did not go so far as to state that the old laws were dead, but they did make a point that Gentiles were not required to become Jewish before becoming Christian. So either the apostles were wrong, or much of the Old Law was no longer hard and fast.
I appreciate your argument, but if the Old Covenant is to be followed in full, I would wager you are going to have to make some serious changes in your life:
This one is a bit personal (sorry no offense intended):
“And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the evening.” —Leviticus 15:19, additionally, no church for 66 days after giving birth.
Did this one really come from God, or was it an interpretation of God's will by the elders to ensure a visible difference between Jews and pagans? Were linen and wool blends the only abominatable cloth? What of silk (from unclean animals) and polyester or cotton blends that didn't exist then? :
“Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee.” — Leviticus 19:19
Here is one for men and women who sin with barbers:
“Ye shall not round the corners of your heads.” — Leviticus 19:27
This is a good one to remember for all parties involved:
“When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand.” — Deuteronomy 25:11-12
In reference to many, many sins, and clearly violated by Christ:
“They shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them.” — Leviticus 20:27
Reaping to the very edges of a field is wrong, but would leaving grain in the the field really help the poor today? —Leviticus (19:9)
And according to Leviticus (19:13), anything but day labor is a sin.
So, my point is, not to say the Old Testament doesn't matter at all, but to point out that there is an awful lot of very specific day to day actions put out in Leviticus and none of them appear in red letters. I tend to think the New Covenant came along when the old one had devolved into a book of wickets.
You stated in your post that cutting oneself for the dead was not prohibited by God.
I posted two verses showing that it was.
No one said anything about making doctrine or anything else out of it.
It was simply to show that your statement was incorrect.
That's not true:
(KJV)Leviticus 19:13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him : the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.
So in context it has to do with withholding wages, not nighttime labor.
As to the larger issue, the goodness of the law in its principles has not ceased. But we are in a new relationship with the law. It no longer has power to condemn us, and is fulfilled by Christ. But that does not mean the goodness and holiness of God reflected in those laws has gone away, or in any way diminished by age. Therefore they are perfectly valid in considering areas of moral or theological inquiry where the NT doesn't address the specific question.
For example, the NT mentions sexual sin generally, but never, to my knowledge, addresses beastiality. One would hope there would not be excuses made for such sin, simply because its not mentioned in the NT. But then you must acknowledge that some NT principles of Christian conduct may be derived from moral prohibitions stated generally in the NT but spelled out in some detail in the OT.
And if that is the case, then this passage is relevant:
(KJV)Acts 19:19 Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men : and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
The "curious arts" here are occult practices, and we can see from the passage that one of the effects of the Gospel is the repudiation of all such activities. In the OT the rejection of occult practices included various forms of communication with the dead, necromancy among them. See Deut. 18:10-11. It is thus reasonable to ask whether this prohibition has been lifted for communication with departed believers.
And in the absence of some new permission for this activity (which I do not think you can find), the question becomes why? In general, the occult arts were forbidden for several reasons. For one thing, they facilitate contact with familiar spirits. People grieving over lost loved ones are sorely tempted to reach them however they can. I have seen this first hand. But the will of God cannot be thwarted. They have moved on. We must do the same, and not tempt God, or risk contact with demonic deceivers pretending to be departed spirits.
But there is an even darker motive for such breaches between this world and the other side, the gaining of power over difficult circumstances, inviting the familiar spirit to give us aid for which we do not think we can approach God. In classic occultism this takes the form of spells and other rituals designed to give the participant that coveted sense of control.
And yet God has given His children the Holy Spirit, infinitely more powerful, and more sympathetic to the believer's needs, than any familiar spirit or departed loved one could ever be. What need does this believer have for phantasmal intercessors? None. We pray for each other, and perhaps our family in Heaven is praying for us, but we have all we need to address every need, and have nothing to gain by crossing a line He Himself set up to protect us from the Devil, and from our own tendency as sinners to not look to God directly for our deepest needs.
Remember, the reason Jesus did "work" on the Sabbath was not because God didn't care about the violation of His law, but because the purpose of the law is our benefit, and doing good on the Sabbath was a fulfilment, not a violation, of the heart of the law.
Likewise, we have been told, many times, look not to the departed, faithful or otherwise, for some edge in resolving our problems. Look instead to Jesus, who has authored and will bring our faith to its destination, without failure, not as some distant deistic deity we must approach through intermediary spirits, but as our loving Dad, whom we may approach boldly, directly, at any time, day or night, and he will listen to us with his full and undistracted attention.
Peace,
SR
>> “I don’t ignore the Old Testament, but as a general rule I think any Christian should start worrying if they are building cornerstones on verses outside of the New Testament.” <<
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Everything Yeshua presented to us is from the ancient scriptures.
There is nothing given in the NT that is not simply a repeat of the OT.
Paul stated in Hebrews 4 that the gospel that he preached is the gospel that Moses preached.
Is everything that you think to be true of the NT possibly completely false?
Becoming Jewish, and following Torah are two completely different and essentially opposite propositions.
Judaism does not follow Torah in any significant way.
Judaism is Phariseeism , which Yeshua completely denounced in Matthew 15, and 23. It is following the false commandments of men, just like the catholic ‘church.’
Yeshua stated in Matthew 5 that Torah remains his way as long as the Earth and heavens exist.
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