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Under Construction, Week 5, Day 30

by David Joynt on September 09, 2019

Under Construction, Week 5, Day 30

MATTHEW 5:18-19 | For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.  Therefore, whoever breaks 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.

Jesus insists on the eternal validity of the law.  To envision the spiritual life apart from Scripture, as a free form experiment in immediacy, for instance, is contrary to his teaching.  For Jesus’ God really reveals his character and truth in the law and the prophets.  Yet Jesus feels free to reinterpret the laws of the Torah, to prioritize them, and to fill them full with fresh meaning.  You and I cannot put the Old Testament aside or set Jesus against it in a pure contrast of love versus law.

What role does God’s law have in your life?

 

Tags: law

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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