This passage was brought to my attention:

"You have heard that the law of Moses says love your neighbor, and hate your enemies! But I say love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust too. If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even corrupt tax payers do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different then anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
Matthew 5:43-48

Now i am not completely informed as to why the law of Moses is indifferent to the law of Jesus. I am hoping someone can explain this to me, and explain what changed. There seems to be a lot of issues raised from this on this forum. (the old law contradicts the new law)

I prefer for this to be a theist only thread since atheists are unable to refrain from the lol gunth posts and God is evil posts, but if you can't help yourself, please post something relevant and meaningful to discussion.

The passage seems to be pretty self-explanatory.

Matthew 19:8 "Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."

One would suppose that a lot of the Law of Moses was written because of the hardness of men's hearts, not only divorce of wives.

Also a theology professor told me one explanation that the law was over 600 laws long because it kept the Jews busy, and those who are busy cannot sin - this is why there was so many of them.

No, this passage does not explain why Moses was to teach differently.

Sounds more like he was being facetious.

So when God tells them to not eat certain foods, it was because of their hardened state, in which otherwise He would of wanted them to eat certain foods?

You're right. I misunderstood your question.

I would say it's because in Moses' time, the Jews were constantly at war and were fighting for survival. Loving their enemies would have resulted in the annihilation or re-enslavement of the Jewish people.

Things had changed by Jesus' time.

Yes, i think i may get it now.

If anyone has anything to add, please do.

A man is not justified by observing the law:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...16&version=NIV

Since you already get it, I don't mind what I think will only be a short derail anyway.

I think you mean "Christian" when you say "theist" because otherwise I can give you a Jew's perspective on this, but I don't think it would really be the answer you're looking for.

It would still give me a Jew's perspective.

Jesus also specifically said he did not come to abolish the law of Moses but to uphold it, and that not one letter of it is to be changed until all has come to pass.

I know Jesus stated that, but i don't know exactly what he meant by that, which is obvious in OP.

Ok then. IMO, the early Christians were perverting their Jewish religion in order to entice other groups of people to join so that they could be powerful. You get rid of a lot of the hard rules and paint rainbows (the straight kind only, ldo) all over the place, your otherwise small movement can more easily sweep across the globe.

That doesn't mean that Christ says it is fine to continue sinning.

Can i ask what your opinion is based on? Is Christ not prophesied in the OT?

Just thought I would toss it in as it seems a necessary part of the conversation.

Cool.

just wondering, what translation is this from?

Perhaps not getting at the root of your question, but quite often, you'll see that Jesus is concerned with thoughts, emotions, motivation, etc.

The law was given to Moses, and the Jews followed it to the letter. This continued and continued until there was a whole host of absurd traditions and caveats around Judaism (such as if your house was burning down on the Sabbath, you couldn't carry anything out, that's "work").

Christ wants people to see the intent of the laws, the spirit of them, and follow those. So while Moses talks about adultery, Jesus talks about lust. While Moses talks murder, Jesus talks about hate, etc. etc.

Kind of like "Okay, so you guys have been doing the right thing on the outside, but you don't see why."

Of course there are other laws that this doesn't cover (shellfish ftw) but my understanding on those types of dietary laws is that the intent is to make Israel holy (meaning: consecrated, seperate, sacred, etc). Since not all Christians were Jews, and Christianity has its own markers of seperate-ness, the old Jewish ones became uncessary.

All the uncircumsized Christians of the world, rest easy.

I thought most of those laws were subject to exceptions for situations like you've described. Ganstaman can correct me if I'm wrong here. (I'm not saying there weren't absurd traditions, only that I didn't think they applied when, for example, someone's life or safety was on the line).

Of course he doesn't.

This is what I pointed out in our thread Gunth. If we hold this to be true and embrace every single little word, then how can you still motivate that you intentionally kept on arguing (even though I pointed it out several times) for "the truth"?

Your reply was that you are not perfect.

Then I wonder, what's the difference between me and you? If your faith can't even make you be a bigger man than me, then what is it worth?

It's worth nothing.

And morally, you're worse off than me because I don't acknowledge God, but you do.

The difference won't be that I will burn in hell and you won't. Why? Because I told you several times what was going on and you couldn't see the error of your ways and used "I'm not perfect" as an excuse for continued warfare.

How would you then be able to repent on the final day?

Tultfill, last discussion had with you was you pretty much flaming me w/ lies the whole time. I am not going to try again. Please do not post in this thread.

But I'm trying to save you Gunth!
Ok ok, I will respect your wish as long as you acknowledge that I'm respecting your wish. I expect the same respect back.