Here’s what I heard: Invitation to Imitation.

Where do we see Invitation?

Psalm 34:8a, “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!”

Zechariah 3:10 “In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.”

Matthew 22:2, 9 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, … Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.”

Matthew 4:19 “And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’”

Matthew 9:9 “As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed him.”

John 1:35-39 “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, ‘What are you seeking?’ And they said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and you will see.‘”

John 1:43 “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’”

Where do we see Imitation?

John 12:26 “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

1 Corinthians 4:15-16 “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.”

1 Corinthians 11:1 “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

Ephesians 5:1 “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”

2 Timothy 1:13 “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

Hebrews 6:11-12 “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

Hebrews 13:7 “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”

What should we understand from the concept of Invitation?

In order to invite someone, there must be already in existence something to join. There must be a place, or a group, or a way to which you are inviting.

And what should we understand from the concept of Imitation?

One only imitates that which works. The patterns we teach and which we exemplify must be made of “sound words,” it must be patterned after those who have inherited the promises. “Consider the outcome of their way of life…”

Psalm 145:4 “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.”

Psalm 78:4-8 “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.”

I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,
And when my voice is lost in death
Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life and thought and being last,
Or immortality endures.

Through the night that followed till 10 the next morning, when he finally passed to glory, Wesley muttered all he could muster, “I’ll praise–I’ll praise–.” I have no greater hope than to finish this mortal race in like fashion. May it be so, Lord; may it be so; by thy grace.

To this question I have no better answer than that proffered by John Donne, the great Anglican preacher of the 17th century:

To me, to whom God hath revealed his Son, in a Gospel, by a Church, there can be no way of salvation, but by applying that Son of God, by that Gospel, in that Church. Nor is there any other foundation for any, nor any other name by which any can be saved, but the name of Jesus. But how this foundation is presented, and how this name of Jesus is notified to them, amongst whom there is no Gospel preached, no Church established, I am not curious in inquiring. I know God can be as merciful as those tender [Church] Fathers present him to be; and I would be as charitable as they are. And therefore humbly embracing that manifestation of the Son, which he hath afforded me, I leave God, to his unsearchable ways of working upon others, without further inquisition.

- John Donne, Sermons (Ten Volumes), edited by George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, Volume IV. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953–1962, 77-78.

I guess there is one detail on which John Donne and are different; I am curious as to the ways and means of how God reveals Himself to those who lack the established Church and the delineated Gospel-message. However, while curious I am content that this is effectively and justly carried out.

I believe that God is good. I believe He has claimed a people for His own. I believe it is His desire that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I believe that God wants to be close to us; in fact, He seems consumed with it. God came down and fashioned the world, He came down and walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the Garden. He came down and had dinner with Abraham. He spoke to Moses as one does with a friend, He wanted to be so close to Israel that He walked in front of them with one leg of fire and one leg of cloud, and St. Paul tells us that He was the rock that followed them through the wilderness. He couldn’t get close enough to them! So He made His earthly abode smack dab in the center of His people’s encampment. He invited 70 of their elders to dinner with a mountain-top view, and He said let’s eat together often – here’s a “Fellowship Offering” it will be good for your soul!

He assured Joshua of victory, while Joshua grabbed his sandal. He tolerated a doubting Gideon’s multiple fleeces. Because His people were suffering and His heart ached for them, He made a donkey’s jawbone a weapon of mass destruction. I wish I could really convey to you the love this God has for you!

He came down upon His people in Solomon’s Temple, and His presence was so heavy no one was left standing. He washed out Isaiah’s mouth, and gave Him a sneak peak of His throne room. Oh God, open our eyes that we may see!

He couldn’t stand it any longer when His people didn’t listen to His prophets, so He sent His only Son, to walk and talk among us for 33 years. That wasn’t enough so He caught Paul up into the third heaven; and some folks found Paul hard to understand so He met with John on the island of Patmos and promised to come back. Indeed, to send His Son back to make the world right, and if that wasn’t enough to then bring down His entire city upon Earth, because He just can’t get enough of us . . . but really because we can’t get enough of Him!

In fact, it wouldn’t be right, if I didn’t tell you that God just can’t stop talking about being with you. It rings from one end of His love letter to us to the other.

You see, God is quite obsessed, not with taking us up and out of here, but with coming down and being near.

IMAGES

Images evoke and invite; they are windows into which we can gaze. Images provoke and incite; they are doors through which we can walk. They expand our understanding of the multidimensional mysteries of the work of God and His Spirit.

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” said John the Baptizer, bringing to the mind’s eye for his hearers images they knew intimately and saw regularly, to teach them about a person they did not yet know.

Often times we try to describe God and God’s work in theories, the theory of substitutionary atonement, the theory of penal satisfaction; does God give us theories or images in Scripture? Theories circumscribe the limits of what is true. Can we define the limits of what God has done? No, images are better and images are what God uses. Ransom, Redemption, Deliverance from Egypt, Adoption as sons, lambs to the slaughter, face to face like one speaks to a friend, these are all images that cause us to see and understand, but not to define.

Indeed, we ourselves were created in God’s image. Have you ever wondered why?

God is jealous. Have you ever wondered why?

(Exodus 34:10)

And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

Note what comes next:

“Observe (shamar) what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Take care (shamar), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst.

You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is El Qanna (Jealous), is a jealous God,

lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

What is our purpose? Why were we created in His image?

Matthew 5:14-19

(14) “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

(15) Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

How will your light shine?

(16) In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

How will we know how to do “good works”? Well, “good works” was a 1^st Century synonym for God’s commandments. Surprised? Doubtful? Where does Jesus go next?

(17) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

I said to you a couple weeks ago that the Law of God describes His character. We were made in His image so that we could reflect His character. What is the Good News? Paul says it is the Gospel of God.

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.  (Revelation 3:15-16)

Why? Because lukewarmness is confusing. You’re not hot; you don’t look like me, but you claim my name. You’re not cold; you’re not pagans, but you don’t look like me. Pthoah! I spit you out; you confuse my children!

Matt 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

“I desire that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

Jer. 7:23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I instruct you, that it may be well with you.’

… what was the lesson of the first six books of the Bible? Disobedience Hurts. What is the warning to us, not only will disobedience prevent you from fulfilling your purpose here on Earth, but it will cause you harm; you will suffer for it.

Let me paraphrase Deut 30 for you:

Listen, my child, I made you for a purpose, and I’ve given you the instructions on how to live so as to accomplish it. Furthermore, I’ve empowered you by my Spirit so that you can do what I’ve described, “It’s not too difficult for you, it is within your grasp. It is not up in heaven, that you should say, “who could ascend there, and make this earthly so we could actually do these things?” It is not across the sea, that you might ask, “who could journey that far and bring these to us that we might do them?” No, my message is very close it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.

“Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between prosperity and disaster, between life and death. I have enjoined you today to love the LORD your God and to keep his principles, his statutes, and instructions by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and become a great people, and the LORD your God will bless you and your living place.

But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life.

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, that you and your descendants might live! Choose to love the LORD your God and to obey him and commit yourself to him, for he is your life. Then you will live long in your homeland! (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

Where was the Tabernacle of God? At the center of their city. It was that which all their life revolved around.

Who or what are you reflecting? We reflect what we look at.

Let me wrap up by telling you this story: this past winter I drove back from meetings in Indy through blizzard-like conditions; I was surrounded and upheld by grace the entire trip, indeed, I suspect there may even have been angels keeping my wheels on the road from time to time. However, that grace-infused trip was not without considerable effort on my part, and I was guided and protected by the laws of safe driving passed along to me by my father.

Grace is opposed to earning; not to effort! Too many of us think that law and grace are opposed; they’re not, their inseparable companions!

Listen to J.I. Packer:

the love-or-law antithesis is false, just as the down-grading of law is perverse. Love and law are not opponents but allies, forming together the axis of true morality. Law needs love as its drive, else we get the Pharisaism that puts principles before people and says one can be perfectly good without actually loving one’s neighbor…. And love needs law as its eyes, for love … is blind. To want to love someone Christianly does not of itself tell you how to do it. Only as we observe the limits set by God’s law can we really do people good.

Finally, I leave you with the words of John Wesley:

I am afraid this great and important truth is little understood, not only by the world, but even by many whom God hath taken out of the world, who are real children of God by faith. Many of these lay it down as an unquestioned truth, that when we come to Christ, we have done with the law; and that, in this sense, “Christ is the end of the law to every one that believeth.” “The end of the law:” so he is, “for righteousness,” for justification, “to every one that believeth.” Herein the law is at an end. It justifies none, but only brings them to Christ; who is also, in another respect, the end or scope of the law, — the point at which it continually aims. But when it has brought us to him it has yet a farther office, namely, to keep us with him. For it is continually exciting all believers, the more they see of its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, to exhort one another so much the more, —

Closer and closer let us cleave
To his beloved Embrace;
Expect his fullness to receive,
And grace to answer grace.

The Great Commandments (Mt. 22:37-40; Mk. 12:29-31) are the summary of that great description of God’s character which Jesus perfectly embodied—the Law of God—condensed even further by St. Paul, “For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not… and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Romans 13:9). Still at the feet of St. Paul we read in Ephesians 5:1, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” Which prompts us to ask, “To what purpose the “therefore”? Leading us back to chapter 4: that we no longer walk as the Gentiles do, but put off our old selves, and, “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24).

Why is God so jealous for us to accurately reflect His character? Because He has no other Body, but us; it is we whom He tasked to reflect His nature to the world. The mission of God—to which we are adjoined by virtue of being baptized with Christ in his death, and raised with Him in His resurrection—is that phrase which echoes from Genesis to Revelation, “I will be your God, and you shall be my people, and I will dwell among you.” (Ex 6:7; 29:45-46; Jer. 7:23; 30:22; Ezek. 36:28; Rev. 21:3).

In whose Image were you created?

Whose image are you reflecting?

Who or what do you spend most of your time looking at?

“First, Christian readers in particular should note, as the preamble to the Decalogue points out, that, although the requirements of obedience to the covenant as expressed in the Ten Commandments are central to Israel’s identity as God’s people, they hold neither chronological nor theological priority. YHWH gave Israel the Decalogue, and its extension in the Torah as a whole, only after YHWH had redeemed and delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage in fulfillment of an unconditional promise made to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This commentary will return to this fundamental observation repeatedly because it is essential as a corrective against Christian misunderstandings and caricatures of the Torah and of the Old Testament as a whole.”

- Mark Biddle, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, p. 103

A critical element of the faithful reading of Scripture is a due regard for its unity and coherence. The practice of comparing Scripture with Scripture guards against fragmentary readings which frequently misuse individual texts. Biblical theology – the study of the unfolding nature of God’s revelation in salvation history, which highlights the relationship of each part of the Bible to its centre in the person, words and work of Jesus Christ – is immensely valuable in this regard. It expresses the conviction that Scripture is its own interpreter, that one of the most important resources God has given us to understand any part of the bible is the whole Bible. Faithful Christian doctrine and ethics rely upon both an explicit appeal to biblical texts, and an understanding of how those texts fit within the message of the Bible as a whole. This is also the commitment which lies behind the statement in Article XX of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion: ‘And yet is is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another’.  – Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p 127

Answer: Before the foundation of the world.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ…. Eph. 1:3-5a

Question: Who did God choose before the foundation of the world? Jew only, Gentile only, or Jew and Gentile alike?

Answer: Jew and Gentile alike.

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh … remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Eph. 2:11-12

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel….This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord…. Eph. 3:6-11

Question: How were the Gentiles to participate in salvation?

Answer: By participating in the covenants of promise made to Israel; by being united to the commonwealth of Israel. By being “brought near.”

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, …remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Eph 2:11-13

Question: Does God have one people or two?

Answer: “Christ’s reconciliation entails uniting all people, whether Jew or Gentile, into his one body, the church, as a new creation.”^[1]

“There is one body and one Spirit–just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call– one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Eph. 4:4-6

Question: What are the two main themes of the book of Ephesians?

Answer:

1) Christ has reconciled all creation to himself and to God, and

2) Christ has united people from all nations to himself and to one another in his church. ^[2]

Question: In light of having been saved, what kind of lives ought we to live?

Answer: Live of holiness and blamelessness, striving to imitate Christ in all that we do.

I therefore…urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called…. [Y]ou must no longer walk as the Gentiles do…. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.…

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires… Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. … Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise…. Eph. 4:1 – 5:15

Question: Where do we find the way of light?

Answer: It is portrayed in the laws of God and in the life of Jesus who lived out those laws perfectly.

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life. Proverbs 6:23

Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your rules.

Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.

I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.

Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God.” Psalm 119:97-115

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Question: Does God have one way of life for the Gentile and a different way of life for the Jew?

Answer: There is one law which condemns all, whether Jew or Gentile, if they do not follow it; likewise there is one law which instructs all, whether Jew or Gentile, once they become children of God.

There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you. Ex. 12:49

One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you. Num. 15:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. … Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. Rom. 1:16-18, 32

Question: Where is the decree of God that Paul refers to in Romans 1:32?

Answer: In the Torah.  e.g., Lev 19:11; Lev. 18:22; Lev 20:13…

Question: What is sin?

Answer: Sin is lawlessness.

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 1 John 3:4

A quote from John Wesley:

I am afraid this great and important truth is little understood, not only by the world, but even by many whom God has taken out of the world, who are real children of God by faith.

Many of these lay it down as an unquestioned truth, that when we come to Christ, we have done with the law; and that, in this sense, “Christ is the end of the law to everyone that believeth.”

The “end of the law:” so he is, “for righteousness,” for justification, “to everyone that believeth.” Herein the law is at an end. It justifies none, but only brings them to Christ; who is also, in another respect, the end or scope of the law, — the point at which it continually aims.

But when it has brought us to him it has yet a farther office, namely, to keep us with him. For it is continually exciting all believers, the more they see of its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, to exhort one another so much the more —

Closer and closer let us cleave
To his beloved Embrace;
Expect his fullness to receive,
And grace to answer grace.[3]

^[1] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2260.

^[2] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2258.

[3] John Wesley, Sermon #34 – The Original Nature, Property, and Use of the Law

His article “Jesus Through Jewish Eyes” is excellent it’s entirety, but the Appendix “Are All Foods Clean? or Down the Drain!” can be found by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

A Strictly Literal Rendering of Mark 7:19

"…because it enters not of him into the heart but into the belly, and into the drain goes out, purging all the food."

…

Contextual Analysis of Mark 7:19

1.  "Food" by definition in Yeshua’s context is only what is kosher!

2. The context of this text deals with hand-washing not eating food or what is kosher.

3. The point of the passage (as emphasized by Mt. 15:20b) is "eating with unwashed hands—not eating non-kosher food—does not make a person unclean."

[T]he author [of Deuteronomy] was writing to well-to-do landowners. He was concerned that they remember from whence they came and on whom they needed to rely. He treated their economic prosperity as a threat to their required humility before God. He sought to counter this tendency to self-sufficiency by reminding them of their past slavery; and of their dependence on God for a bountiful harvest. He limited their ambitions by emphasizing the need for sabbath rest, and sabbath years. The requirement to rejoice and hold feasts also served to restrict their utilitarianism. He believed that they themselves were not ultimately responsible for their prosperity, and that they would be in the position of the widow, fatherless and alien if tragedy befell them.^[1]

Something about the way I’m wired means that everywhere I look I see the consequences of bad theology. To me it’s like looking at heat under infrared, the connections are so glaring and direct. America was settled on the basis of a dangerous and diabolic theology called Manifest Destiny (more on that in another post), and when the impetus of that cooled a new twist was thrown into our lives during the 1950s. Having driven men to misinterpret the Torah, the Adversary now drove them to ignore it. Loosed from our moorings, without an eternal standard of morality, we lost any ability to accurately recognize injustice, and lost the benefit of the practical life instruction God had included for His people.

These days, gratitude is a thing of the past; I see more athletes pound their own chest after a great play than point a finger toward heaven. I hear even pastors talk about how they were a “champion for Jesus” and you can be one too, if you’ll just pull yourself up by your own boot straps and take the initiative like they did.

Today overwhelming percentages even of the well-to-do can be described as fatherless, and waves and waves of people feel lost and alien in their own culture. We have lost our way and substituted the American Dream for the biblical prescriptions; often by reinterpreting biblical language to support our misguided priorities.

Moo concludes that the Mosaic law “is not a direct [or] immediate source of guidance to the new covenant believer.” However, he suggests that there is an “essential ‘moral’ content of the Mosaic law [that] is … applicable to believers.” But this confuses me still more, for now the moral aspect of the unified law can be ascertained and is applicable, but not in any direct or immediate way. Moo concludes, “I am no Marcionite.” For this I am glad; but please tell me how his disciples are going to be able to resist Marcionitism, given the force, direction, and logic of his position? Ultimately, Moo is bound only by what is clearly repeated within the New Testament teaching. What advice will he give on marriage to close relatives (cf. Lev. 18), involvement with forms of witchcraft and various forms of the occult (cf. Lev. 19), the case for capital punishment (cf. Gen. 9), or the proscription against abortion (cf. Ex. 21)? Did Americans not learn in 1973 that a New Testament exclusivistic ethic landed us squarely in one of the largest legalized murdering ventures in recent times—now exceeding Hitler’s six million Jews sent up a chimney by four times over with some twenty-four million babies going in a bucket? What will it take to wake us up to the narrowness of our views? If this is not a Marcionite view, it is at least semi-Marcionite—and the disciples of our teaching will soon prove what direction it was that we were heading in if we refuse to fully follow the implications of our own thought.^[1] [emphasis mine]

John Wimber: No, I’m largely convinced it is the Spirit. But, I believe it is a mixture of humanity and Spirit.

Peter Jenkins: So you do think that there are instances where behavior in the church is too extreme?"

John Wimber: "Yes. Remember, not everybody that walks into our building’s real healthy, Peter. Some people have gone through some pretty tough things in life. They’ve been beaten, they’ve been abused, they’ve been sexually molested, they’ve gone through long difficult histories with addiction. And so, the Spirit of God touches them and they do things that you and I wouldn’t probably do, and we don’t want to endorse or encourage.

- "In the Name of God" ABC, 1995

In the Lutheran context, the Commandments were usually read as preparation for the confession of sin, thus serving one of the functions of the law: to convict us of our sins so as to open our hearts to confession and God’s forgiveness. Similarly, up to the modern era the Anglican Book of Common Prayer has called for the repetition of the Commandments by the priest while the people would respond to each commandment with “Lord, have mercy.” While the Reformed tradition did not worry too much at first about where the Commandments belonged in the liturgy, because they were understood to function primarily catechetically, Calvin and other Reformed leaders came to have the Commandments sung or read after the confession of sin and the words of absolution, as a guide to living according to God’s instruction.[1]