After a brief break, we're back to revisit the charge of "Calling Christians to obey God is Legalism."

In this episode we first summarized our last 3 episodes on law. We then discuss how Legalism and Antinomianism are two sides of the same ugly coin called "I hate God's Law." We talk about how Legalism and Antinomianism are not only inseparable in their roots but also are often both expressed in the same exact law (using the "Corban" rule from Mark 7:9-13 as a biblical example and tee-totaling abstinence from alcohol as a more modern one). We also discussed how what we believe concerning God's use of the law (which tells us how to love) very much determines our view of our own laws (which are expressions of our own understanding of what love is and what it requires).

At one point we talk about how "If you love me you'll be gracious to me" is abused to turn grace into what can only be described as the secular version of tolerance. I referenced a song from Tangled then, but the words slipped my mind. In case you're wondering about it, that song's called "Friendship Song." These are the lyrics I was referencing:

~And if I should ever slip up

I know that you'll zip your lip up and let it slid

'cause you're on my side.~

We discuss how the only cure for such a false view of the law is a recognition of God's love for us (as revealed specifically in His gospel), how Mosaic Law was given within the framework of an already gracious established relationship ("I am the Lord who brought you out of Egypt") and thus never intended to save, and we discussed (once again) how true love for God enables true obedience by the empowerment of God's Holy Spirit in the lives of His saints.

It's been a while since we posted. We've been covering a lot of groundwork in our own presuppositions with the first few episodes and we're thinking of restarting now that we've had a few practice runs. We'll see what the future holds. Thanks and God bless.

This episode is the 2nd part of a 2 part series concerning negative and positive law. In this episode we focus primarily on the abuses of turning positive law into negative law.

We thoroughly tackle 2 big subjects: "Judge not" and "That's not very loving/Christlike." The simple summary of our discussion is that you are free in Christ to think, do, and feel whatever you want so long as you do not cross the line into sinful territory. If you are in Christ, the norm should be aiming to please Him in every expression as a creature doing what you were created to do. When the line is crossed into sin, repent and get back to it.

Enjoy!

This episode is being uploaded as we fly down the high-way in the strange tortoise on wheels that mankind figured out how to make faster than a cheetah with as much room as a miniature sea-faring vessel. And my hotspot signal is better to boot.

This episode is one of those where we stretched a analogy beyond its usefulness and spent a lot of time thinking about things beside the point we intended to focus on. It's also twice as long as we intend an episode to be. Because of these things, we divided it in two. On this episode we lay out the case for the distinction between Positive and Negative Law. Positive Law is broad and vague ("Love the Lord your God," "Be holy as I am holy," "Honor your father and mother") while negative law is narrow and restrictive in nature ("Do not commit adultery," "do not bear false witness," "Put away all malice and wrath"). We argue that positive law is set in a context where we are allowed to do as we please within that law so long as we don't cross the boundary into what negative law prohibits.

That was the intention anyway. We'll deal with the abuses of turning positive law into negative law next week.

Welcome to Don't Question It!

In this episode my wife and I discuss how there are presuppositions that precede our presuppositions and how we (as Christians) rarely acknowledge our own biases in a way that even recognizes we have biases. We discuss a handful examples (our view of the world, scripture contains its own presuppositions that must be presupposed, wealth, economics and gender roles) giving a general overview of the types of issues that are raised by differing viewpoints with varying degrees of interaction with the actual arguments. We end by discussing Psalm 19 and how we must also seek to reprogram our minds by aligning our thoughts with reality (both creation and God's word) as David prayed at the end of the Psalm. There was also some rambling about Elven bread for some reason.

Enjoy!