Old Testament laws for Christians?

Welcome to Theology Throne Room!

In the Christian podcast community of podcasters, together to discuss our theological differences with love and charity.

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Theology Throwdown. This is a ministry of Christian podcast community, where the different Christian podcasters get together and discuss a topic of theological nature.

Many of us have come from very different theological positions, and so sometimes there's more disagreement than other times, but this is just a few of the podcasters that are joining us tonight.

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That's where you'll find all, I think, like 44 or 45 as of right now.

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I had someone that joined, and he said, he's like, I'm a personal friend of Andrew, and he made me go through the whole process.

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Though some of us here bypassed the process, because at least one person here was too early, joined so early there wasn't a process in place yet.

But there's three of us here tonight. The topic we're going to do is basically

Old Testament law for the Christian. We see the Old Testament.

Many people ignore the Old Testament. That's not good. Many people overemphasize the

Old Testament. That's not good. And so what's a proper balance? There's differences when it comes to a lot of the ones that most people end up discussing are things like Sabbath.

Do you keep the Sabbath? Do you not? We'll discuss that. There's some discussion on things like head coverings.

Is that just an Old Testament thing, or should we be doing that New Testament? Do we keep dietary laws, or are those things done away with?

So these are some of the things we'll discuss. And tonight I'm outnumbered so far by the ladies.

I know that some others are going to be coming in later. But right now

I'll let Eve, who is – now Eve holds the title, by the way, of having never missed a

Theology Throwdown. And both of the ladies here are folks who listen every month.

There was one episode one time one month where I couldn't make it. We canceled it. But the two ladies that are here didn't know, so they had their own discussion without me.

But, Eve, I will let you start off with introducing yourself, your podcast. What's your podcast about? I know it's my favorite topic.

Yes, that's a running joke between Andrew and I. I'm Eve Franklin, and I am co -host of the podcast

Are You Just Watching? in which we discuss secular entertainment from a Christian worldview.

A lot of it has to do with culture. We do a lot of Marvel movies and science fiction and any of the really popular high -end movies that come out.

But we've also talked about some TV shows. We've talked about commercials. I think we did a documentary once a couple years ago.

But, you know, it's just basically applying a Christian worldview to what we choose to watch.

And since Andrew is a very busy guy, he doesn't watch a lot of stuff. Andrew is pop culture illiterate.

And then I also have a book that I put out that is basically a workbook that kind of guides you through trying to apply your

Christian worldview to your entertainment. And that is available on Amazon. And then we have a new voice for folks who are here now.

New because, you know, the last time that she joined, I wasn't here. So she and Eve had a nice conversation without me or without any of us.

But Melissa Lex, why don't you introduce yourself? Yes.

So I am Melissa Lex, though I go by Belvitos. It's just my nickname since I was a little kid.

My podcast is Thoroughly Equipped. What I do basically on that podcast is

I look at women's ministry, teachings and philosophies. I look at the books and hope to do some message and sermon, sermon reviews on there.

And I compare them to scripture. The goal really is to show that scripture is just so much more sufficient and better to equip us to be godly women.

But, yeah, that's basically what the podcast is about. So you talk all about some great books from people like Beth Moore and all these other great women.

Great. I will be, yes, doing

Beth Moore this for my second season. But last season was

I looked at Liza Turkers. I'm just going blank here.

Liza Turkers, Jenny Allen. I looked at a Bible study by Jenny Allen.

That's important because there's not a lot of people doing discernment for women's ministries.

And yet it is kind of interesting as a pastor. I know most pastors kind of somewhat joke that most of the problems in the church start in women's ministries.

And yet there's no discernment in that area. So we thank you for your podcast. Well, thank you.

And so I'm Andrew Rappaport. I'm the executive director of the Christian Podcast Community. I have two primary podcasts.

I do. I have about five altogether. But my Andrew Rappaport's Rappaport, which is a weekly podcast where we deal with different topics, dealing with interpretations, applications.

Right now we've been in a series going through the doctrinal statement of striving for eternity, which is the ministry that Christian Podcast Community is part of.

And in that we have basically we've been going through, looked at the doctrines of God.

I think we're going to start the doctrine of angels pretty soon. And so that'll be fun.

But we also had to also do one called Apologetics Live. And that's a live show Thursday nights.

Anyone can join, ask any challenging questions about God and the Bible. And so that's a

Thursday night. You just go to ApologeticsLive .com and you can join that. So tonight's topic is going to be

Old Testament laws. And so I've noticed throughout my time in Christianity that, you know, having been raised

Jewish, it's interesting to watch Christians and how they apply the

Old Testament law. I remember, you know, having now it's called

Hebrew Roots. If you're familiar with that movement, you may have heard of it, but there's a movement where people get into the

Old Testament festivals. They get into keeping kosher and eventually get into really trying to live under the

Old Testament laws to the extent that they will sometimes, that movement often denies the deity of Christ, which is a problem.

But I end up seeing a distraction in a lot of those groups from Old Testament law. Instead of seeing it as laws for a nation, they apply it to Christians.

And I will recommend a book on this subject because as we discuss these things, there are some abuses,

I think, of Old Testament laws for Christians. And there's a book, it's the only book I know that deals with the issues really of Hebrew Roots, but the author calls it

Torahism. And the reason he does that is because it is basically people that are worshiping or following the

Torah. So it's Torahism by R .L. Saaberg. And if you want,

I just do a search on Torahism on the Christian podcast community, and you can hear the two interviews

I did with him on both my podcasts. So that's a book

I'll recommend. But I do see these abuses. I remember many years ago, I worked at Lucent Technologies, and they had a security guard there that was very into Old Testament law.

She was attending what should be, we would typically call church, but they would call it synagogue.

It tells you how far in that she was. And I remember her, I came in, it was a

Monday. I came to work, I saw her, and we would talk. And she's all excited about telling me this new festival that they did at her synagogue.

And she was describing it to me, and I had a very puzzled look on my face. And she asked, like, why

I was so puzzled. And I said, well, growing up Jewish, I've never heard of this festival.

And her response was quite interesting. She said, you're just upset because I'm more

Jewish than you are. To which I was kind of like, really?

I don't know. Born of the tribe of Levi, bar mitzvahed at 12. Like, I don't know.

Like, nine years of Hebrew school. But what makes you more Jewish?

You know, following a festival that no Jewish people follow. I guess that does it for you.

So, I want to talk, we're going to talk about some of those, these different laws.

Do we keep kosher as Christians? Should we keep kosher? There's some passages that people typically go to.

And I'm sure someone will bring it up, so I'm not going to mention it, because I'll take a different view. You know, you sounded a little bit like Paul just a little bit ago.

You know, listing your Jewish credentials and saying that. Well, yes, that was on purpose.

Hey, if it's good enough for Paul, it's good enough. I mean, look, if the King James Bible is good enough for Paul, it was good enough for me.

Oh, wait. I have had someone say that, and I think he was serious.

Yeah, that's a whole other topic. Another topic we'll tackle another day. Yes. So, what do you ladies think when it comes to Old Testament laws?

Where do you, let's start with the easiest one, because I usually find that not too many

Christians practice keeping kosher. And keeping kosher, when we say that, people often think about the foods.

Keeping kosher is actually broader than that, but let's start with the foods. Do you guys follow the

Old Testament dietary laws? I love me some bacon.

Amen, sister. That was almost in unison. So, just because you love it, then the

Old Testament law doesn't matter anymore. Is that it? No, no. I guess

I feel that the scripture was pretty clear when

Peter had his vision. And I know

I've actually talked to some people that told me that has nothing to do with food, but Peter had his vision of the sheet descending with all of the animals and the spirit saying that don't call unclean what

God has declared clean. And all of that, I've been told that had nothing to do with food, but I don't know how much clearer you can be with, you know,

Peter being told that the stuff is no longer unclean. But on the other side of that,

I do know that we have to be careful not to become, I mean, the scripture is all about conscience,

I think in the New Testament, it's like, it's not the physical outwardly things that make you sinful, it's the inwardly things that make you unclean.

So it's not the eating of the food, it's your conscience, when you're eating the food, or the conscience of your brothers and sisters, and, but we're saved by grace, if it's by works, then we lose, we lose the grace part.

And so I really feel like, you know, the strict keeping of the law and the concerns about diet and dress and what day of the week you worship and all this kind of stuff is adding to the work that Christ did for us on the cross.

And I just don't see that in scripture, when I read it. I could be corrected.

Melissa, how about you? Well, I do know in my study that when

I look at when Jesus says that the whole Old Testament was about him.

I do know that, you know, the kosher laws were meant to protect the

Jews, the Israelites, and bringing forth Messiah and keeping the nation pure and so I also look at that, and knowing that everything is now fulfilled in Christ.

I think that's another integrating thought that, or teaching, that comes from the

Old Testament that we see reflected, Paul talking about it in the New Testament. So, I don't think it's a matter of keeping.

So for example what you were talking about the lady that considered herself more

Jewish. I think there's an underlying falsehood that she doesn't understand that all of it was about Christ.

I think that's probably what she's missing. And if we have Christ, and we understand that and we look at the

Old Testament through the lens of it being about Christ, then that kind of changes what she might think the

Old Testament was about. Yeah, now you mentioned something Melissa that most people that I hear most

Christians least miss when it comes to the Old Testament laws and keep what it means to keep kosher and that is to protect the lineage for the

Messiah. That's why I said earlier that the laws are far more than, keeping kosher is more than just what you eat, it's what you wear.

There's a whole lot of laws and they're known as laws of separation. In Judaism they're often referred to as the holiness laws, because to be holy means to be separate.

And so there are laws to separate them from the other nations. And so, yeah,

I very few people actually pick that up, which is one of the things when I talked to theonomists who will say that the, you know, they'll say that the

Old Testament law should be applied today but they don't include the food, or any other holiness laws I say do we not need to be holy.

Now, the holiness, if you say well the purpose is to keep us holy until Messiah well then that that right

Christ comes. So, we don't need that. I do, I could, can't help but to address the

Acts 10, because Eve, you hit it, the verse that everybody turns to, I'm going to give you a better passage though.

So, hold on, but I actually would agree that the, in Acts chapter 10, you have as Eve, you mentioned the

Peter has this vision three times, having food that's unclean, a voice comes down says

Peter get up. Get up Peter kill and eat that's verse 13 of Acts 10, and Peter says, verse 14 but Peter said, by no means

Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy or unclean now it is kind of interesting because, you know, you have, he's commanding them to kill and commanding them to eat.

When, and Peter recognizes this is God doing it. God gives him a command, and he's saying no to well okay we do know

Peter's history he's, he's done that before with the Lord, but then you have verse 15 and a voice came to him a second time.

What God has cleansed no longer consider unholy. And so many people will look at that and say well this is

God declaring the food, all food, holy or able to be eaten.

Now this is an illustration. This is something that we see really what is going on is a different aspect of the holiness laws, which is that a

Jewish person would be called unclean to enter into a Gentile home. Cornelius would be a

Gentile, someone who's not Jewish. And so, Peter being called to go to a

Jewish home would be breaking the law. And that's more what you end up seeing in this now,

I will kind of fudge and say I agree with some of the people Eve that would tell you that this is not dealing with food.

It's not directly dealing with food. However, it would make no sense to use this as an illustration, if we can still have to hold to these holiness laws or quote keeping kosher.

Right, though the illustration doesn't make any sense if the all those laws are no longer.

So let me give you a different verse to go to for this, and it's one that I've never gone to until I was preaching through Mark.

And I don't know if you guys had this experience where you read the Bible, I mean I read the Bible, twice a year.

Okay, I do two different devotions, I do a devotion in the morning, where I will go through and do a different Bible reading plan.

And then I go through a study Bible, a year. And so I do twice but sometimes you just you read things over and over and over and just miss it until you preach it when you have to slow down so I came upon this

Mark chapter seven I'll start in verse 18 but the key is actually in verse 19.

And so, you know, just for a little bit of context, you know, it starts actually in verse 14, you know, he calls a crowd to him, you know, and he's talking with them, he gives them a parable.

And then in verse 18. He says, and he said to them, are you so lacking in understanding also now that's

I mean just the disciples always seem to have that problem. Right. The parable that you end up seeing is that he starts at, you know, he's talking about traditions.

And so he says, you know, you guys so still lacking understanding. He says, do you not understand whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach, and is eliminated.

Thus, he declared all foods clean. See, it's not actually in Peter's time that foods were declared clean.

It was actually during the ministry of our Lord that he was sitting there and they were upset because they didn't do the proper things, the proper following the proper etiquette and laws of the time on how to do the washings.

That's part of also, you're supposed to do washing it's a certain way of doing washings and you have all this tradition, but Jesus during his lifetime it scripture says he declared all foods clean.

So, I would say based on that. We don't need to follow those laws.

Now, you know, Melissa, like you had said, if you have the

Messiah comes, then what do you need the protection to protect the people until Messiah? You know, so it becomes a thing where once the once Messiah comes, you don't need the things that protect you till he comes.

And so now the question becomes, and this will be a question I have for you guys. So, all right, so some of the law is done.

How do we make this distinction? What laws are done? Now, I don't know the backgrounds with you guys where you'd be, but there is this view, at least within Presbyterianism, of a tripart division of the law.

I don't know if either of you hold to that. And if you do, maybe you could describe it instead of me doing all the talking.

But what are each of your views with Old Testament law? I mean, how do we define what continues for the Christian today?

Either one of you. I guess I'll answer on my end.

When you say the three part and the Presbyterian view, you're talking about the use of the law?

Well, the separation that you'd often see within Presbyterians and some

Reformed circles, not just Presbyterians, I should say. There's the laws.

The three parts are the moral law, civil law, ceremonial law.

And so a lot of people break those up that way. Well, I haven't done a whole lot of study on the whole

Old Testament law. I'm looking at it in three parts. But I have done study on the purpose of the

Ten Commandments specifically. So I think I myself, look, the

Ten Commandments are universal. They're applicable to us today.

So, I mean, I just want to make sure I'm understanding your question. Like, how do we differentiate between the social laws?

Which ones would we continue to today? Like, how do you in your life as a Christian differentiate between what

Old Testament laws we should continue to today and which ones shouldn't we? For example, we would say that, at least

I believe you guys would hold this as part of your doctrinal statement we have, right?

Homosexuality would be wrong still today, even though it's commanded in the Old Testament. Some people would say that that should be done away with just like the food.

How do we make a distinction between some of the laws of the Old Testament that we would say have ceased?

Use that terminology for our sensationalist friends and charismatic friends. So it's not just tongues that ceased.

But we would say, you know, certain laws ceased and certain haven't.

How do we define, how do we differentiate which ones have and haven't? Well, that's a good question.

For me, bottom line, basically just reading the whole

New Testament, looking at what Jesus taught, that I think is where I start.

Because, you know, Jesus says that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. And that includes, since he is the author, the

Holy Spirit being the author of scripture, the old and the new.

But like, take, for example, we are questioning like if homosexuality is a, if there's a commandment against it, which

I think is where there's a lot of people are like, well, there's no specific commandment against it.

But we can look at the Ten Commandments in general and look at specifically like the committing adultery and understanding that adultery means to have sex with anybody besides your spouse.

So we can extrapolate from there, from the Ten Commandments, certain other laws, if you know what

I'm saying, like in regards to homosexuality, we can extrapolate from there. Like coveting.

So basically, I think for me, looking at it, I just, I understand the

Ten Commandments are still applicable to me today as a Christian. In fact, they're the rule that I live by.

They're how I love my neighbor. And so that is where I kind of start.

I think with wanting to obey God, I want to obey whatever he says.

And if he says, you know, thou shalt not commit, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not lie, then

I'm going to obey because I love Jesus. So I think that's where I look at it.

Is this loving Jesus and is this loving my neighbor? Is how then I can differentiate.

I don't know if I'm answering your question correctly. So would you hold to that three part division?

That there are some that have passed. Well, do you see the laws as being either ceremonial or civil or plural?

Yes, I can see. I can look at the Old Testament and see that there are some that are ceremonial and some are for today.

Yeah. Eve, how about you? I kind of, I don't think I've ever heard them described as, you know, being divided up.

But I like to go back to Jesus's teaching, especially in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, where he talks about, you know, you've heard that it was said this, and I tell you this.

And so I've always felt like when Jesus is teaching that, he's taking the outward ceremonial aspects of the law and turning them internally into the conscience.

You know, it's like, you're told not to kill, which is like one of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not murder. He says,

I tell you, don't hate anyone. You know, so I think that for me, if Jesus speaks directly to a matter of law and internally commits it to a matter of Christian conscience, then

I think that it behooves us, because Jesus told us to, to follow that to the best of our ability, because he says you should be perfect as your

Father in Heaven is perfect. And we can't be perfect in and of ourselves. And that was the whole teaching of Paul was that, you know, you can't, the law shows us how much we are not able in our frail human nature to keep the law, we have to have

Christ and the Holy Spirit to do it for us, because we are not capable. And so having the structure of laws that we are supposed to keep, which for the

Israelites were not only a matter of being separated from the rest of the world, like the circumcision and all the other things, to make them stand out as different.

But it was also to prove to them that in their human frailty, they couldn't do it on their own.

And, and that's a reminder to us, it's like no matter how hard we attempt to keep the law perfectly and be perfect as our

Father is in Heaven, if we're doing it to be seen by men, not only are we doing it for the wrong reason, and our reward is on earth instead of heaven, which are all things

I'm taking right out of the Sermon on the Mount, but we're just proving to ourselves that we can't all the way from the exterior to the interior be perfect and keeping those things.

And so I don't, your question about the different stages that, honestly,

I've never dealt with that in my religious life, but I've always tried to commit to the internalization of the,

I guess the meaning, not the exterior meaning of the laws, but the interior meaning of the laws, if that makes any sense.

Well, we now know that you've been primarily in Baptist circles and not Presbyterian circles. Yep. Yeah.

And, and, and this, there is a thing, I mean, I get into the question of how do you divide those up because like every law is moral, right?

So, so it doesn't mean is the law moral because every law is going to be, so they would, and I don't know how you divide those up because I think there's so much overlap in some of those.

And so I would say that the, that division is manmade. We don't see anything there in the scripture that says it's divided that way.

I end up, with the way I kind of look at some of these laws, and maybe you'll find this helpful, although any of the

Presbyterians probably just want to shoot me right now for saying I don't hold to the tripod division, but I look at the laws as there's universal laws, laws that are universally true for all human beings.

That would be most of the Ten Commandments. So we'll get to that. I just dropped something and we will get to that.

Right. But I would say there's, there's laws, it is wrong for everybody to lie.

Why? Because God is not a liar. So it's based in the nature of God. That's what makes it wrong. And they're going to be universal for every human being.

Then I see that there's laws that were given. Now, I'll fully disclose,

I'm a dispensationalist, so I see God working differently in different time periods with His people, and each of those people have a law that He gives.

So I would say that there's laws that were given to the nation of Israel that would be different than the laws of Christ that are given to the church.

And so the laws that are given to the nation, I don't think we would carry over because they're national laws, but they wouldn't be held to the laws of Christ.

We have laws we would do under Christ, and I think both of you kind of hinted to it.

Melissa, you were saying, how do I show love for God, love for neighbor? It's Christ.

Right. And so we have things that Christ commands us to do that you wouldn't see in the

Old Testament, such as go to all the world and preach the gospel. Well, that would have contradicted some of the

Old Testament views of going into a Gentile home, even though Israel was said that they would spread the good news to all the nations.

How do you do that? So you get that contrast.

So I would end up seeing it as you have universal laws, national laws, and then laws for the church.

And so maybe I still have a tripartite division, but I would end up having more because I think there were laws that were given to Noah for his day and Abraham separate from Moses.

And so I wouldn't hold Abraham or Noah to the laws of Moses that hadn't been, you know, we think some of them were given, even back as early as Adam and Eve, because it seems that Seth, why did

I say Seth? He didn't come until after Cain. But Cain knew that there was a certain requirement for offerings.

So where did he get that information? But we would think that some of the laws are there.

Some of it's known. So with that, I go, I look at these and say, OK, it seems that there's some laws given to different people at different times, but we specifically focus on the

Old Testament law, which is from Moses and given to the nation of Israel. And I would say those national laws don't carry over.

But the universal things like homosexuality, that does carry over, that we should not be practicing homosexuality.

We shouldn't be committing adultery, period. So that carries over because that's universal for all people.

So whether you're in the church or in Israel, it doesn't matter. So any disagreement with that or anything further?

No, I actually appreciate that distinction you made between nation, because I think

I haven't done study in depth on this. It's very kind of minute, really.

But that distinction was very helpful,

I think, definitely in looking at nation. And then I immediately thought of, you know, the catechism where we learned that the first law was given to Adam.

And that was just one law. And then we do see progression over time to which all of it is fulfilled in Christ anyway.

So, yeah, that was very helpful. So let's talk about at least the one that I would say may not carry over in the same meaning.

And that's the Sabbath. And we've done different on here and on my podcast.

I've dealt with the Sabbath issue several times. You know, it's funny because there was another podcast that used to be around.

They stopped podcasting. But it's really funny. They disagreed with me vehemently on my position on Sabbath.

And we had a Christian podcast meet up at the Museum of the Bible. I still to this day, we all wish that we were recording over lunch, because as I got to explain my view of Sabbath, they ended up saying, well, we agree with you.

So we should have been listening to the podcast instead of, you know, they thought they were hearing what

I was saying. But this is one that some people, if you're more the

Presbyterians, would hold to keeping a Sabbath. Some Reformed Baptists as well would hold to keeping a

Sabbath day, a day you don't work. I remember being in a, I was speaking at a

Presbyterian church, and I came in for Sunday school. And on the way to church,

I stopped at my Dunkin Donuts and got some Dunkin Donuts and forgot it in the car.

And I was very upset. I said to my wife, I forgot the coffee in the car. I was glad that I left it in the car because as the pastor was talking at Sunday school, he's explaining that his view of the

Sabbath is that if you would go and he used this as an example, if you go to Dunkin Donuts on a

Sunday, you're forcing someone else to work and violate the Sabbath. And I kind of always thought like, well, they're going to work regardless of that.

But his point was you're encouraging it, enabling it, and you shouldn't be doing that.

So I was really glad I left my coffee in the car. I mean, he used that illustration, like, did he walk by my car?

But when we get to the Sabbath, there's lots of discussion with the Sabbath. Do we keep the

Sabbath? Do we not keep the Sabbath as Christians? So, you know, let me put this out.

You know, Melissa, I'll start with you and then Eve, that'll give us time for the new person that just came in that we'll introduce afterwards.

So he has time to think about what his view is on the Sabbath. He's going to do it based on what you guys say,

I'm sure. But Melissa, what's your view on keeping a Sabbath for Christians? That we keep it.

Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is my Sabbath. He is my rest.

I do not consider one day more special than the other. So I also look at that God has redeemed work.

And so that means then he also redeemed rest and work is no longer, how do

I say this, about mere toil, but about serving. And so to me, when

I rest, it's about being with God and getting to know

God and Christ specifically. And I believe that because all of the law is fulfilled in Christ, that he is my rest and I can worship on Wednesdays or I can worship on Monday or I can worship on Sunday or Saturday, I wish,

Friday. That's the original Sabbath. But um, yeah. So that's my, that's my view.

I have still a lot of learning to do on that regard, but I'm not gonna, you know, argue with somebody who says that they,

I have several friends who actually attend church on Saturday. They're Seventh Day.

What they call? No, they call them Seventh Day Baptists. Okay. Yeah. So, um, it's not,

I'm not knowledgeable enough to kind of argue against her yet.

But I would state my view that just this, that Christ is the

Lord of the Sabbath and he's fulfilled it and we can have our rest in him. So, that's how about you, do you, you think

Christians should carry over Sabbath, do we keep a Sabbath. Well, I think we honor.

I guess my position is that we honor God in his, you know, you work six days, and you rest on the seventh, but I don't know that we keep that we need to keep it to the extreme.

You know where if you pick something up and carry it a certain amount of feet, or you do something that you know classifies his work by the old, you know,

I don't know that we need to carry it to that extreme. But I also think that we as Melissa has said can choose what day we wish to rest.

And I appreciate that we have as as Christianity in general has moved the

Sabbath, typically to Sunday instead of Saturday. Because of the celebration of the resurrection of Christ, and I think that is our as Melissa wonderfully pointed out

I'd never even put it heard it this put this way is that Christ redeem the Sabbath. And so we celebrate his that redemption on the first day of the week instead of the last day of the week.

But I honestly don't know how we can be so legalistic about what day of the week is the

Sabbath, because we don't do we really know that the week we have now is the same.

You know that the days are falling on the same parts of the week or whatever that they did.

I mean, have we kept our calendar so carefully that we know that we've always had seven day, seven days a week for all this time, and that somewhere along the way it hasn't been messed up or, you know, because we have to keep addressing our calendars and stuff so how do we keep it strictly to this particular

Sabbath, do we know that the Sabbath is actually falling on the Sabbath all this time and being so legalistic about it that that it causes disunity among believers because, you know, you, you carried some, you went to a

Dunkin Donuts on your way to church, or something like that that I think that that can create accusations and disunity among believers and become a object of discord among the body and I just don't see that as being necessary.

But all of that is what I feel on the topic and I'm as Melissa says

I, it's something that I'm willing to be educated on. So if somebody has something else to say on that topic

I, I've just always, you know, we've always celebrated Sunday as being our

Sabbath, and my family has always, you know, we have no problem going out to eat after church or whatever.

But we also, I was raised in a culture where Sunday was at least until probably like the last 10 or 15 years culturally in the

United States Sunday was day of rest. And you didn't find a lot of, excuse me, you didn't find a lot of things open on Sunday, you didn't have a lot of things that that competed for your time and attention on Sunday because the vast majority of the country kept, you know,

Sunday as the Sabbath, but now we live in a very secular culture so I don't know what that says to the secular world when

Christians abuse Sunday but I also don't know that, you know, we have the inner argument of whether the

Sabbath is Saturday, Friday night to Saturday night or whether it's Sunday or whatever I, I just think we need to come up to a point of unity on that so we don't look so disorganized and, and ununified to the world.

If that any of that makes any sense, not competing for our time Have you not heard of NFL.

I mean, I don't watch sports, regardless if you're watching it like, but, but, you know,

I so let me explain my view and and give a little bit you know

I kind of agree disagree a little bit with what you guys had said I have a little bit of a different view with it.

I'm very much like I said with Old Testament law and division that I have there, I, I go to Genesis chapter two, right, let's sort of read that just chapter two verses one and two.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their host. By the seventh day

God completed all his work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because he rested from all his work that God had that he created and made.

And so we see, where does the Sabbath the idea of a Sabbath begin it's it's right in creation, the seventh day of creation.

And so the idea there is that we see that God had rested. Now did

God need to rest. You know, so he's kind of interesting that you know some of the reformers. They also had issues with the, you know, the, the creation days of creation but not the way we think of it nowadays we argue people argue for many millions of years of creation.

But I think it was Calvin that actually so God could have created everything in a split second. Why do you, why would he have to take so long.

And so I think he did that for us as an example for us.

And so that example is that God worked seven days or work six days rested on the seventh we should do the same.

So we have a day set aside for resting, and should be for the worship of God.

And I think that is a universal principle, a universal law.

However, Moses came along and gave Sarah gave laws ceremonial or civil however you want to say national laws to the nation of Israel that were more restrictive than the universal law.

And so I end up looking at this and I believe that we're under a that universal

Sabbath that we should have a day set aside for the worship of God where we rest and meditate upon God, and that that's universal for all but we're not held to the national laws that Israel now when it comes to the day,

I would look to Colossians two, I'll read verse 15 and 16 but 16 is the is the emphasis.

When he had when he had disarmed the rulers and authorities he made public display of them having triumphant over over them through him.

Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regards to food or drink or in respect to festivals or new moon or Sabbath day, things which are a mere shadow of what is to come.

But the substance belongs to Christ and so I would sit there and say that the one thing and Melissa you kind of said this is we should and so you we shouldn't be judging one another over this.

We shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't be so focused that we're going to separate from one another that would be the principle of seeing

Colossians. And I do know of a church that would actually discipline people out of the church if they were to work on a

Sunday, or to do, you know, to do activities that they would define as work.

I would say that's kind of an abuse that's going too far based on Colossians we shouldn't be doing that.

So, I end up seeing the Sabbath is two parts a universal law, and then a national law for Israel.

So how does that apply to the church, I would see that we celebrate the resurrection of Christ which occurred on Sunday.

And therefore, we have that day of rest that universal day of rest, but we we change the day because it's about Christ and now we have a day of rest we celebrate the resurrection.

And so let me really welcome in Aaron. Aaron you came in, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself to folks, even though we, those that listen regularly have heard your voice before, but if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself and your podcasts, plural.

Yes, the, the sultry tones of this voice, let me tell you what.

My name is Aaron Brewster, and I am the president of evermind ministries, and there are two evermind ministries in particular that have podcasts, one of them is truth love family, and that has the truth love parent podcast.

And really excited because we're getting close to that 500th episode coming up here and it's really cool.

The other one of the other ministries is the year long celebration of God, and the podcast for that one is called the celebration of God, and this idea of Sabbath is actually one that I'm, I've been planning now for quite a while to really do due diligence with and have a series, stepping through these biblical concepts and so today was originally gonna be a really bad day for me to join you guys but then

I saw the topic I was like, Oh, I gotta do something so I cut my other thing short so I could be here.

I'm super excited. Anyway, oh the head covering to I missed that but man I love that conversation. We didn't get to that one yet so you got time.

Oh you did. Sweet. Alright, so real quick, to eat by the way hey

Eve, and we have what somebody I haven't met before Melissa, how's it going. Eve to your question,

I will say that to the Jews credit. They have done a pretty stinking fantastic job of keeping track of these days.

So, yeah, I would say that we actually do know when Sabbath is just based off of that like when the

Saturday is because they have done an amazing job over the millennia keeping track and they're

Yeah, they're, they're understanding of like how old the earth is and their understanding of,

I think they're off on that one they have it about 5000 years so yeah okay but I'll give them 1000 I'm just saying still it's pretty good.

Anyway, I think it's actually really cool that they, they're fairly certain that that the world was created and when we would say like September ish sometime around there

I think that that's really cool. Anyway, to the point. So I think, first of all, I like being the one guy who disagrees with everyone but I'm going to have a hard time doing that because you people are also very balanced you you got it right so congratulations to Andrews point

I think he makes a really good distinction. Like Moses had a lot. We keep saying

Moses God had a lot to say through Moses to the children of Israel about marriage, and yet we know that marriage was created long before God created the nation right and created theocracy.

So yes, there were a lot of interesting things about marriage that were unique to the Jewish people that don't necessarily apply to Christians of all time and people of all time.

And yet the institution of marriage is clearly set in stone by God in the beginning and preach all throughout the entirety of scripture into the

New Testament, and by Christ himself. So I do think it's appropriate to see that you know

I do have a big issue with people who see them as the nine commandments and the one good suggestion.

I think you know it's very, it's very dangerous when we say oh well okay all the other ones are so good but that remember the

Sabbath day to keep it holy. We can toss that one out. I'm saying there's some real danger there like I'm really curious about your hermeneutic when, when you're willing to make a statement like that.

I think you got to be careful got to take a step back so interestingly enough, my family growing up did not really approach the the concept of Sabbath, very not not like with intentionality.

Sure, it was true growing up in the 80s and 90s there wasn't a lot open on Sundays, you know, that, you know, people just you know

I had friends and family who they didn't watch TV on Sundays or do certain things and whatever else because, and their whole thing wasn't that it was about Sabbath, it was just about you know we want to, we want to keep our mind focused on the

Lord and not get distracted from things this is the day that we really focus in on him and. So that was a very loose concept, but a number of years ago a couple years ago when

I was before we moved to North Carolina. I was introduced to somebody through my podcast who his last name is

Swoboda, I can't remember his first name he wrote a book called subversive Sabbath. And I don't agree with him on everything in the book or all of the stances on everything else

I'm not putting my stamp of approval on Swoboda but the book was really very fantastic, and I read it to my family, and there were times reading it to my family that I was actually

I was drawn to tears. And it was during a time of my life when I was working a job where I only had one day off.

I worked six days a week, one day off, and that was my one time to connect with my family, and all that kind of stuff and the job

I was working that when I would over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I would log 30 hours.

I would have a day off on Monday, I'd be back to work on Tuesday and Tuesdays are basically like 10 hour days all the way through Friday and then

Friday, Saturday and Sunday and log another 30 hours over the course of those three days so I mean it was it was just that was just how what

I was working. And this idea of physical and spiritual rest was so significant it was such a missed part of my life at that point that I was grabbed by the biblical concept of rest.

And that concept of rest, you know, is all throughout the New Testament, and I think the one passage that ends up being a big deal that people go to is in Hebrew Shepherd four.

And it's referring to the believers rest. And it talks about this, this

Sabbath rest in verse nine says so there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

The one who has entered, excuse me has entered his rest has himself also arrested from his work as God did from his.

Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience.

And this is where it goes in for the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword we're very familiar with that passage but that verse, it comes within the context of a conversation about the believers rest.

It quotes from I believe it quotes from Psalms, God saying that he swore in his wrath that these people would not enter his rest.

And so the picture of this Sabbath rest from the beginning of creation all the way through eternity.

Well, entering into eternity is the idea to keep our minds focused on the eternal promise that God has prepared for us.

God Jesus says I'm going to go to prepare a place for you and I will come again and receive you to myself. And though, and what the cool thing is that though we will be working in heaven.

That will be sanctified perfect work a work from which we do not need to rest because we will be experiencing the perfect rest of God for all eternity, perfectly combined with our work, but we don't have that now work is necessary it's beautiful, it can be done to God's honor and glory, but we still need to take that rest so that we don't get distracted by our work.

You see, it's really easy for us to believe that our work here is our purpose, but it's not.

And that's why we need that day for us to stop and to look forward, not only to the rest we're experiencing now and the physical rest that's very necessary for our body one and seven at least.

But also to look forward to that eternal rest that God is preparing for us and I think that is still the necessary beauty of Sabbath, or of a day arrest whatever you want to call it for modern

Christians, and I believe that we do ourselves a huge spiritual and physical disservice.

When we neglect that, because workaholism is actually just another form of idolatry.

And, and to us not to take the time to give God his do now the question ends up being so what day, you know, that sort of thing and I do believe that again first of all,

I think a lot we get a lot of mistaken I think a lot of the rules about Sabbath rest that a lot of people quote actually weren't from God.

They were from the Pharisees. The Pharisees added a ton of extra rules, my kids who actually my kids are taking their dual credit courses from Bob Jones University their high school juniors, and they came to me like dad did you know that you know the

Pharisees said that if, if the thing weighed more than like a dried fig you weren't allowed to pick it up.

And that if you did pick it up you weren't allowed to put it down if anyone else was looking, and then if you toss it in the air you were allowed to catch it with the other hand you had to catch you with the same and they're sharing with me all these ridiculous rules of the

Pharisees had come up with. But really the Sabbath rules in the

Old Testament weren't as dramatic as you would think they actually made a lot of sense that people you know people who had important jobs what can we call them essential jobs now those people actually allowed to work on the

Sabbath doctors didn't take a day off. You know, they would go and they would still work with people on the

Sabbath day because so a lot of people I don't think really understand necessarily how God originally instituted and we imagine it being a whole lot worse than it actually was.

And I think though to that this idea of you know recognizing the fact that to, to, to have the

Sabbath on a Sunday is completely appropriate. We a lot of times we we look at church history try to determine you know when that shift was made to worshiping

God on Sunday and one of the passages that we talked about is from First Corinthians 16 where Paul's talking about the collection for the saints he says so on the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save as may prosper, so that no collections be made when

I come. And we say see they were all getting together on the first of the week and Paul's like well when you're doing that go ahead and have your collection but what's interesting is that the word translated week is the exact same word translated

Sabbath, nearly every other time in Scripture. It actually says on the first day of every Sabbath. It's a very interesting construction and I think the translators were wise to translate it the way they did but it's helpful for us to recognize how

Paul referred to that day. I'm not saying this is God's divine stamp of approval via Paul, that the new

Sabbath was supposed to be Sunday, and we need to, you know, treat Sunday the exact same day we treat

Saturday to be honest, my family. We have a rather flexible Sabbath because we want to Sundays really aren't you know

I used to work on Sundays because I was, you know, I was, I was working at a boy's home. So, Sunday was very much not a day of rest for me in any way shape or form

I was working at church I was where it was a big, hard job. So back then Monday used to be our

Sabbath. We intentionally Sabbath to God's honor and glory. Anyway, I've been talking for a long time, Andrew.

I know, I know you're catching up on dinner there. If you need you guys need to watch the video, go back and find this video you're gonna love it.

No, no, because they only see you. Oh, they only see me oh okay sorry I gave away your secret. Hopefully they, they always see.

Yeah, no, I actually what it is more. So, this may get into a different thing we could have, but typically on Mondays I do a fast.

But some, some Mondays, just as we were recording I sent my wife a text and said,

I'm starting to get a little lightheaded. She's like, eat some cheese. Yeah, no, it was actually, she brought me carrots and celery and hard boiled egg.

But that idea of fasting too is another thing that I think we modern Christians, we have completely lost like we've lost a communal knowledge that was just understood in Christ's time.

And we literally I mean fasting isn't described in the Bible. And nowadays we're like what does that even mean, it's, it's interesting.

Yeah. And so, and the word you brought up there in First Corinthians 16, and you were reading, you know, basically it's really first verse two.

It is the word Sabbath, Sabaton, which is a transliteration of Sabbath and Sabbath, Sabbath itself.

You know, it's seven. It's just the, you know, when we go through and you look there's there were more than one

Sabbath, by the way, people often forget this. But in Judaism, I mean, every seventh day was a

Sabbath. Every seventh year was a Sabbath. The New Year, the

Day of Atonement, Passover, those are Sabbaths. We, and I know

Aaron, you and I talked about this at some length on, I think it was Apologetics Live where we did it.

We talked about the difference of the, you know, what day the, you know, was a good Friday, good Thursday, right.

And a lot of that was we talked about the Sabbath and that, you know, it's based on, you know, what it that there's

Sabbath, people often make the mistake of thinking, well, Sabbath is only Saturday. No, it's not. Right.

But I think that, you know, we've, my thing is there's, there are some people that have harder lines with what you can and can't do on a

Sunday. I mean, most except that in Christianity, that's a

Sunday. Melissa, you mentioned friends that still go to church on Saturday.

Colossians would say we shouldn't judge that. You know, there might be a judgment if they start giving themselves over to like start trying to follow the law.

Some, some do that. But let's, let's, you know, let's move to a different topic.

Because this is something we see, we actually only see this in the

New Testament. But this is in, if we look at 1

Corinthians, we see this idea of head coverings. So, this is something that, you know, this is 1

Corinthians chapter 11. Now, is this an Old Testament law? Is this something that we should be doing today?

There's some differing views with whether, you know, so historically, Jewish women would cover their face and heads when they go out.

In fact, even today in Orthodox communities, if you see an Orthodox woman who is married, you're probably not seeing her hair.

And you go, but wait, I see her hair. No, it's typically a wig. And they cover their hair because the hair is only to be seen for the husband.

And so, that is their head covering. And they, you know, so is that something that we see in the law that we should be carrying over today?

Well, we see it. And one of the things, we didn't get to this, but, you know, Melissa, you kind of inferred to it earlier.

When it comes to the laws, we, you know, some of this we see, for example, the Sabbath. Why do some, you know, especially if you follow people like New Covenant theology, some

Baptists, they don't, they wouldn't hold to a Sabbath day. Why not?

They would say it isn't repeated in the New Testament. You look at the Ten Commandments, and nine of them are commanded again and stated in the

New Testament, but the Sabbath isn't commanded in the New Testament. I would just argue that the Sabbath predates the law,

Genesis 2, and therefore, that's still in effect.

But when you look at it, we would look and say these things are, are they practiced in the

New Testament? Are they commanded in the New Testament? And so, some would look at 1 Corinthians 11 and say, well, we have head coverings that were in the

Old Testament times, being practiced and encouraged, instructed to do for the church.

So, what do you guys say? Aaron, I know you wanted to talk on this topic, so you may have a stronger view than us.

Juan, you go first, then we'll tell you how wrong you are. Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's how it works, yeah. I hope someone disagrees with me.

Here's how I want to frame just a hermeneutical approach. I've used that word a couple times now for those, I'm sure all of your listeners know what hermeneutics are.

But basically, hermeneutics is just basically how we approach the scriptures in order to understand it and interpret it.

Not to translate it, but to interpret, to understand it. How we systematize it and come to understandings about it.

And I do believe that there is only one correct hermeneutic. This is not a question of what it means to me, it's a question of what it means to God.

What did God intend for the scriptures to mean to us? I always say that if you interpret the

Bible accurately and consistently, you will always agree with me. Exactly, yeah, yeah.

I change it ever so slightly and I say, if you want to be 100 % right all of the time, agree with God.

It's the same thing, because of course you're always agreeing with him. Thank you for getting that was a joke.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I think is interesting, and here's what I hear a lot when it comes to this discussion of head coverings.

And I'll just throw this out right off the bat. There have been times in the past when my wife has worn head coverings to church, and there have been times in the past when she hasn't.

I will admit that this is something that we practicing as a family, honestly, we struggle with it.

I think really because a lot of peer pressure. Okay, so I'm not I am not claiming that I have the answer that everyone else needs to submit to.

I'm saying that this is a personal struggle that we're having to and what I'm about to share is a struggle that I share it. Now other people have it.

I also have this problem. They come to, they want to use this very easy cultural caveat, right, where they look in scripture and they see something and they're like, well, that was cult, that was their culture.

And that's a huge, massive, gigantic problem for a couple reasons. First of all, that has completely backfired on everyone's face.

And we see this now in liberal progressive quote unquote Christianity where they basically said, yes, well, you know, complementarism was a cultural thing.

And now there needs to be we have to have an egalitarian approach, women pastors. Well, that was just a cultural thing.

And so that that excuse, that cultural caveat has literally blown up in our faces because everyone realized that you can pretty much claim that because the whole scriptures was written a long time ago.

You can pretty much claim that wherever you want without any substance. But the other problem with that is the fact that look at what's surrounding this conversation within context.

Okay, coming out of chapter 10, you know, he's talking about some big stuff.

He's talking about idolatry. Right? Fleeing idolatry and the pride that we need to avoid.

And all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. You're right. You're talking about this meat as sacrifice to idols.

I mean, this is the big deal that we have to understand. We grapple with how Paul talks about this. And then there are some really familiar verses in chapter 11.

Like most people don't even know about the head covering and about the it's a disgrace for men to have. Was that Justin Peters who blew up Twitter recently?

Was that him who was talking about the long hair? Or was that somebody else? Was that Owen? It could not be Justin because he is off Twitter.

He's off Twitter. Maybe it wasn't Justin. It was somebody else who was blowing up Twitter recently because they quoted from 1

Corinthians 11. Everyone knows it's a disgrace for a man to have long hair. But verse 1 starts off, be imitators of me just as I also am of Christ.

All right. That's significant. Then he praises the people because of them holding firmly to some important traditions.

Then he goes into this idea about head covering and men not having their head covering. And then there's a really difficult verse in verse 10 about because of the angels.

And that sometimes makes people really uncomfortable. It doesn't have to do with angels. But then he starts transitioning in verse 17 and talking about how the problem is that when you guys are coming together, you're actually not pleasing the

Lord. At which point he transitions into the Lord's Supper. Right. So this discussion about head coverings is happening in smack in the middle of a huge discourse that has very weighty significance on it.

And he's through a lot of it. He's also he's condemning them because they're not glorifying

God in there and how they're loving each other in regards to the meat being offered to idols. They're not loving

God and how they're coming to and participating in the Lord's Supper. So these are these are big deals.

And I'm just going to say that I firmly believe that it is unwise for us to conveniently slip in here and just say, well, see, that was a cultural thing that doesn't apply to us anymore.

Because you literally have zero anything to point to in the text itself to justify that because Paul is tying his arguments to biblical principles that have been established since the beginning of time.

The headship of man and other concepts that are desperately important.

So I'm going to just stir the pot there. I do want to remind everyone, my wife and I, we honestly firmly believe that we probably need to.

The whole head covering thing potentially is going to be one of those things that we're going to find out that we in our foolishness just completely missed a beautiful spiritual imagery that God intended for us to be able to appreciate.

And we may find that some of the issues in our cultural nowadays kind of stem from, in part, missing out on the imagery that God was intending the head coverings to do.

But honestly, way more often than not, my wife and I attend churches where head coverings are not a thing. And to be honest, we've not done it for really bad reasons, because it's kind of like a peer pressure thing at that point.

So I just wanted to be transparent here and just share my own struggle with this very difficult concept. Well, you know, with this one specifically, let me recommend the

Do Theology podcast. They recently dealt with this in quite detail, and they admit that they changed position on that.

So episode 57 of Do Theology, you can find it at christianpodcastcommunity .org.

Episode 57, it says one thing about head coverings. And then episode 58, the second one about head coverings answering questions.

And yeah, the second one may have been because I challenged them with some questions. But I didn't, you know, they make some really compelling arguments.

I wish the guys, I wish, you know, that they were here so that we could engage with them.

Because I think it would have been good, but Jeremy and Ken did a good job of explaining how they transitioned on this.

And actually gave probably the best argument I've ever heard. Now, I'm going to say,

I'm on a different side with this. Forward or against it? Forward or against it? I am all for head coverings, just as the text seems to indicate, hair.

And so the issue that I see is the text itself speaks about hair and the cutting off of the hair.

And so my position with the 1 Corinthians 11, there are some things here that we see that are true.

The imagery that we see of, for example, verse 3 of 1

Corinthians 11. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, every man the head of woman,

God is the head of Christ. So this headship issue is being depicted in this covering.

There are, you know, so I see the imagery there. One of the things that we end up seeing is some people will point to in Corinth.

Now, one thing I think that, Aaron, you would agree with. Basically, every chapter of 1

Corinthians, Paul is dealing with some abuse of the Corinthian church. So, you know, one argument that people have culturally.

Now, we don't see this, I agree with you. We don't see this from the text specifically.

But some people bring up this idea that culturally the women were shaving their heads to try to identify that they're equal with men.

Very similar to what we had in the 60s where women were burning their bras to say, well, see, we're no different than men.

Nowadays, they just call themselves men and compete in sports and show that they're, you know, or actually, it's more they call themselves women and compete in sports and show that they're not, right.

But what you see here is I think that it lays out what the head covering is, is the hair.

Now, if this was a cultural thing going on in Corinth where they're shaving their heads to say, hey, look,

I can be like a man, then I think that would fit in the headship issues in explaining why women shouldn't be shaving their heads for this sake, that there's this whole idea that our hair should be there.

Verse 6, for if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off.

If it be a disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off, her head shaved, let her cover her head.

So there seems to be some indication that some make with that. Quick question though.

So if that's the case, does he argue then that verse 4 would require us to shave our heads?

Correct. And that becomes the thing, verse 4, which says, every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.

And this is what the guys that do theology, Jeremy and Kent, did a good job at kind of explaining through, because there are difficulties if you say that it's the hair.

Actually, there's difficulties either way. And that was what I really appreciated with their podcast, those two episodes, because they lay out the arguments to how they came to the conclusions they came to.

And as far as those who would argue for Christian law, one of the things

I would see though, I don't see how you can make this an argument that this was from Old Testament law, because I don't know the

Old Testament law that states that you have to have a head covering. There's 614 laws, none of which address the head covering issue.

There are some issues in the Talmud, and you guys were referencing this earlier, but the

Talmud is, in Judaism you have four authorities. You have the written law and the oral law, and then you have commentaries on those two.

The Talmud is what the rabbis really practice, and the Talmud is the commentary on the oral law, the supposed oral law.

They say that it was kept word for word from Moses on Mount Sinai all the way through to about the first century

BC, somewhere around there where they started writing it down, and kept it for 2 ,000 years word for word.

I guess part of the issue I have with that is we know that Muslims say the same thing, that they got it word for word from Muhammad, and they kept it perfectly, except 18 years after Muhammad died, they started writing it down just 18 years, not 2 ,000 years, and they realized they didn't have it word for word the same.

In fact, Khalif Uthman had to burn the abhorrent text, which means there were textual variances.

There were different copies, and he just declared one was right and all the others are wrong. How do you know he got the right one?

Just saying. But they couldn't do that within 18 years of Muhammad's death. How do we think that people would do that over thousands?

But we do see some of the head coverings in the Talmud. You were mentioning,

Aaron, about some of your kids looking at some of the things with rabbinic law.

I have this in my book, What Do They Believe? Probably my favorite passage or command or instruction in the

Talmud. I'll paraphrase it because I don't have it memorized verbatim, but it basically is a command that if you're going to go and sin, go to a foreign country where nobody knows who you are so that God is not disgraced.

There's so much wisdom there. I practice that. I only sin in South Carolina, never in North Carolina.

I always sin in South Carolina. It tells you how man -made that is because God can't sin.

No, God is disgraced when you commit sin, period. But it's all in the outward, but that's the one

I always had to include in my book because it does depict really well the difference between rabbinic

Judaism and Old Testament Judaism. But I don't think we can say that we see something in the

Talmud and say, therefore, this is Old Testament law.

When I'm going to look at what's Old Testament law, I'm going to look at the 614 commandments we have in the first five books of Moses.

That's where there mostly are going to be Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy.

And so that's where I'm going to see the law. There was,

I mean, just to be fair, there was one thing in the Old Testament law in Deuteronomy 21 -12 about women shaving their heads.

I don't want to say that this is tied directly to what we're discussing here. It had to do with having a woman from a country that the

Israelites had overpowered, and they bring her in, they shave her head, they trim her nails, they change her clothes.

And this is about really bringing her into the people of God, potentially even as a wife, which other things are tied to that.

So I think it's a little, again, I'm not going to say it's tied directly to this, but it's interesting that God did specifically command that woman in that instance for those reasons that she did need to shave her head, which here in verse 5 is saying, a woman who prays without her head covered is disgracing her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved, which we know from Deuteronomy there were times when a woman was commanded by God to shave her head.

So that is an interesting scenario. It's kind of like later on it says that even nature knows that it's a shame for a man to have long hair, and yet we're very familiar with the

Nazarite vow, where there were some men who didn't cut their hair. So there is something going on here that I think we're foolish, if we, you know, fools rush in type of an approach.

Yeah, and part of that, what you bring up with Deuteronomy is the idea of cleanliness.

This gets into the whole thing of defilement and cleanliness laws.

You'll see in Numbers 6 .9, I guess I'll read in 6 .8,

but in all the days of his separation, he is holy to the Lord. But if a man dies very suddenly beside him, and he defiles his dedicated head of hair, then he shall shave his head on the day when he becomes clean, and he shall shave on the seventh day.

So there seems to be some indication there that when it came to, and this is what you refer to with the law of the

Nazarites, that there is a day when the cleansing occurs, there's a day of where he must shave.

And so I do think there's some aspect of this that we see has to do where, you know, this is part of the shaving of a head, at least for the men, or in one case you have typically would be a

Gentile that's now being accepted into Jewish customs. So the question is, what does the shaving of the head have to do with there?

The only other place I know of with the shaving of the head is Leviticus 14 .8, and this is dealing with a leperous person.

But it says the one to be cleansed shall then wash his clothes and shave off all his head and bathe in water and be clean.

Now, afterwards, he may enter the camp, but he shall stay outside the tent for seven days.

And so there we end up again with it has to do with the idea of cleanliness.

And so I do think that there is a seemingly difference between this and what we're seeing in 1

Corinthians 11, where it's headship issues. And so I don't know that we could see this as being the same context.

It seems like there's different purposes between them. We got to figure out what the girls are saying, because these women who should have their head covered, and I'm just saying at least one of them doesn't.

I just want to point that out to everyone who's not watching. Well, that's because Eve's bald. No, I'm kidding.

You can see in her icon, she has hair. Lovely brown hair.

Well, I'll let Eve speak first into this, because I think I might be one who stands out.

To be honest, this isn't a topic that I've never really thought much about because it's not a question that's been raised in the circles of Christianity that I live in.

So it's not something that has really been brought to my conscience on this matter.

I have always, like I mentioned earlier in our discussion on other topics, I typically go back to the way

Jesus was internalizing the laws of conscience. And to me,

I always felt like the head coverings was a matter of humility. Like having the proper heart of an attitude when approaching prayer and worship.

And Christ was always internalizing the laws, doing things externally to be seen by others, and more the matter of purifying the heart and having the correct attitude.

And so to me, I guess the head covering would be having the proper humility, as Andrew presented, putting yourself under the proper authorities when you are worshiping and when you're praying.

And maybe I have missed something about that being, you know, an external virtue. I did have a young lady who stayed with me as an intern one summer who was of the

Amish community and she obviously had the net on her hair, whenever she was in public.

And we discussed that quite frequently and she said that it was, among the

Amish community, it was an outward presentation of when they accepted

Christ, then all the women would put their hairs up in nets as an outward representation of that decision.

That's why their little girls would not, before they had made a decision for Christ, they would have their hair in pigtails and they wouldn't have the hair covering because that was an outward representation of that.

And that was kind of a new way of looking at it for me even when we discussed it together.

But I guess for me, in my walk, I've always felt like a lot of those rules and regulations had more to do with having the appearance of Christianity, but not necessarily having the correct attitude within.

And to me, it's always been a matter of having the correct attitude within should take precedent.

But I'm willing to be educated on the matter. So does that mean that next week your avatar is going to have head covering?

Is that what you're saying? I think that's what I'm hearing. It's got it.

She's got hair on her avatar. So Melissa, you think you'll be the outlier here?

What's your view with that? Well, first I want to say this is like totally providential that this would be my first theology throwdown on this topic.

I'll give a little background. About two years ago, I was really struggling with submission and what it would kind of look like to actually submit myself and come under the headship of my husband.

So I was really learning about headship and what it meant. And I wanted to transition from this idea of,

OK, I submit to my husband, but that's only when, you know, he's like really adamant or he has to make a final decision.

I started to believe or look when I was reading the scripture, started to see that it was a lifestyle, that it was a, like Eve said, a heart thing.

And I think that's she's right that when we come down to laws and whether we obey, it's always about our heart and motivation behind it.

So for me, coming into this and looking at submission, it was about my love first off for Christ and then my love for my husband.

And still I was struggling with it. And my mom, my mom was going through the same thing.

So we talked a lot. And she just about two years ago was like,

I'm having a hard time submitting. But I'm reading through First Corinthians 11 and I think

I'm going to start wearing a head covering. And this made me go, OK, I had to look at this text.

So it's been a long journey. But the last six months, I actually wear a head covering now.

I'm not now, but I wear one at church. It depends.

I mean, your headphones could count, right? So and that's funny, too, because I actually my progression, it started out where like.

Like, I'm sorry, Mr. Brewster, what was Aaron you were saying,

Aaron, you were saying about the motivation, like, yes, the pressure.

And so for me, it was OK, I would start to wear this headband and it was just a fabric little headband.

So I was like, yeah, I'm obeying. Look at you go. But it was like, nobody knows.

But what really, really transitioned, what has solidified is not just studying the text.

And yet at the same time, the Do Theology guys, it was so funny because I was really, really studying.

And I couldn't find arguments when I was reading through it. I was like, nobody addresses the angels.

Nobody addresses that. It's rooted in creation and nobody addresses that. It's like a headship. Yeah, they they say it's a principle behind it and that we should obey the principle.

But he's clearly said that's a symbol of a principle. So that means it's an outward revealing of something that's true in our heart, that we believe it.

And so I was looking for arguments that would, like, handle the text, like fully.

And Do Theology had this like, oh, it's like I was like listening to it right away.

And then I emailed them and they suggested that I listen to Milton Vincent, which

Andrew, he's done nine sermons on it back in 2002.

So you can look him up if you're interested and find he really like just is deep, deep into all of it.

And so anyway, so I was progressing. And then I started really thinking about it with John MacArthur talking about the gender issue and trying to get pastors to talk about gender differences in our roles.

And I really started to realize this if I wear a head cover, like make it actual visible head cover, not try to hide it with a headband, but a scarf or something.

It really is proclaiming something that's that I believe that not just I believe, but it is true that God has created headship from the very, very beginning.

And that I as a woman can glorify God and praise him and the angels can see me and I don't know how that works, but that we together are worshiping and glorifying

God through this symbol. I started to realize, okay, then

I need to not be afraid and wear the head covering and I am the only person in my church.

I'm so proud of you. But the only person in the last couple of churches that I've been to, and I because we're still looking for a church home that wears a head covering.

And so yeah, I literally bought these long ones, big scarves and it's, it's, it's,

I still struggle with it. It's still, you know, I'm self conscience I am my sinful nature is like what are people going to think of me.

But I keep thinking about I, I, the what reason why I do it is because I do want to submit to my husband, and I want to submit to God.

And so I think for me it's been a worship and a sanctification issue, not necessarily a law issue because I don't think you know if I wear it or if somebody else doesn't then they're not saved there.

No way do I think that it's just a matter of wrestling with myself as a woman, and coming up under submission and headship.

That's basically what it, what it means for me. Well first off, you're not that far you can you

Pennsylvania, we're just, we're just over the borders, you keep looking. We will be fine with you wearing the head cover.

But there's another, there's another resource or with mentioning resources the church my wife and I attended when we were first married and the one that you know we, we, she was wearing head covering every

Sunday was a pastor by Mark Minick, and it's a Calvary. Sorry, Mount Calvary Baptist Church, and Mark Minick did a series he want one, one, one message on it.

That was a big part of our learning journey as well that can be helpful for anyone who wants to learn more. So, I mean, what we see with some of these,

I mean we've dealt with several topics here tonight right kosher, you know, the food laws

Sabbath head coverings. I mean there's more I think I think we really encapsulate a lot of them in, in some of what we said earlier with just the view what we have of the law.

You know, Aaron I want to give you a chance because we talked about this earlier I'd be curious in your view, we talked about the, you know, appeal that hold to a tripart view of the law that's ceremonial civil moral.

You know, I, so there's those views I explained I have a little bit of a different view when it comes to law

I look at it as universal laws laws for all people all times all cultures versus national laws for the nation of Israel, and laws that are for the church.

Me being dispensational so I'm going to see that, you know, God gives a covenant to his people in different times and there was going to have different laws of obedience.

And, you know, so I would end up seeing that each of those covenants has the has laws for a new, a new group and they can be different they don't always have to build upon what the previous had had.

What would be your view with when it comes to the laws do you hold to the tripart view.

Do you have a differing view, what's so basically the question that we asked earlier is how we as Christians, we see the

Old Testament law, how do we carry over that into New Testament, how do we know which ones we apply as Christians or which ones do we say nope, these were for Israel and are done.

Yeah, well, first of all, I'll say that you didn't have to say the thing about dispensationalist the moment you stated your view I'm like oh he is showing his dispensationalist card right there is showing his whole hand.

The Bible says dispensationalist myself, you know, it makes sense that we were going to approach that different than somebody who's coming at it from a covenant perspective.

You know, I do see the, the, the differences like the the ceremonial versus the whatever.

Obviously that's there you can take the law and you can categorize it multiple different ways and it'd be easy to categorize them but as you're, you're pointing out.

Most of the people who are talking in the along those lines are doing so because they're trying to separate out what

I have to do, versus what everyone else had to do. And so I think that's that's the main reason they're talking about it.

I do want to say right off the bat, that, that the Bible is alive, it is a sharp sword, and the entire scriptures from Genesis to Revelation have huge significance and importance for modern

Christians. I've had people ask me why do you preach from the Old Testament.

And there are there are people. You know, I believe that people who love the Lord, who don't understand the purpose of the

Old Testament so I want to frame everything that I'm about to say underneath this umbrella purpose of the Old Testament for modern

Christians. The Old Testament reveals God. Every single one of those laws, listen carefully, everyone, every single one of the laws from the corners on the beards to the mixed fabrics to the shellfish to the prohibitions against homosexuality to idolatry, every single law reveals who our

God is. It has significance and is important because our God doesn't change. Those things were important to him for a reason.

Now the key thing is for us to understand what was the reason. Was it like the

Old Testament tabernacle and the sacrificial system, an image of a future reality that was to come, and would be displaced by that future reality or Andrew and put it this way by that future covenant.

Or was it something that was God's intention for his people at all times at all places, like for example

I believe with the day of rest. And so, yeah, I think I definitely approach it more so as you do from that perspective that there are universal laws that apply to all mankind at all times.

But then within the separate you want to call them dispensations or within each of the unique covenants made by God to various people or groups of people.

There were different expectations. I mean, God is not calling us to travel out from our place to from where we live to a place we do not know and he'll let us know when we get there he expected that of Abraham.

That was his expectation for Abraham within the Abrahamic covenant. And yes, there were truths that were going to be appreciated by us from the

Abrahamic covenant covenant but there are things that Abraham had to do that we don't have to do. Right. And I think that I'm not going to be able to give a clear concise hermeneutic and how we can read through the scriptures specifically the

Old Testament law and and know exactly what applies to us at every time.

But I will say, we need to approach it first and foremost as a revelation of God and his character we need to recognize that that God that is still who he is.

And nothing has changed with him. But then we need to understand the entire scope of the

Bible, to be able to recognize his expectations for us within our lifetime, as the as the children of God the people of God now, how does he want us functioning in relationship to him and relationship to others and I do believe that the

New Testament has as Peter said, has everything we need for life and godliness in it to be able to be the people that God wants us to be.

Now recently, so my aunt on my mother's side, had a genetic test done.

And she found out that there's probably like 1 %

Jewish in my mom's family.

And that makes a little bit of sense too because my mom, they came from Poland my grandma is 100 %

Polish my mom's half Polish right. So for the fact that there would be Jewish mixed in there actually, it's like a light bulb moment for me.

And I have to admit that at that moment when I heard that obviously to the Jews, I'm a Gentile 100 %

Gentile, none of that counts right. But it made me wonder just a slight little bit, like all those cool promises to the

Jews, that they would be able to have in the eternity and all that kind of stuff that I've always thought that doesn't apply to me because I'm not a covenant theologian, that was for the

Jews, not for me, right. And now makes me wonder and excites me a little bit that potentially, in one way maybe in God's mind

I'm, I am Jewish, I'm just as Jewish as you know as Ishmael was or whatever, you know,

I don't know I have no clue but, and as I had that thought and I was kind of thinking like oh that might be cool I wonder how

God looks at that. I also thought to myself, well, hold on a second. That makes me wonder if there are unique expectations that God has for Jews living today, whether they, you know, not just national

Jews but I'm talking about even Jews who are followers of Christ. If there are unique expectations for that people group, because of what

God substantiated in the past. It makes me wonder if I have any response, you know, so this has been an interesting thing for me as I've, and I don't have an answer as your answer whatsoever.

Well, I can put your mind at rest. Everything at rest, I'm waiting. It all depends on who did the genealogy.

If it's the Mormon Church, who does most of the genealogies because of their theology, everybody comes up with a small percentage

Jewish. Oh, interesting. It is, it is kind of interesting, it's been a thing

I've always said for the longest time and most of them are from Joseph's two children. Okay, they're mostly in one of those two.

And it's just really funny. And why do they get it? Because Joseph Smith, Joseph, like, yeah, they have just share the same name.

That's it. But no, but yeah, it is. It is kind of because a lot of it, they, they believe that like every man can be part of the

Aaronic priesthood, but you have to be a Jewish. You got to be one of the 12 tribes.

Well, actually, they always get it wrong. That had to be of the Levi and more specifically of Aaron. But yeah, you know, they forget that part.

Which I clearly can be. Because I'm 1 % Jewish and my name is Aaron. So I'm just saying, sign me up for the job.

But it is, it's, it is, it is something that we're, I know of someone that said that he did a genealogy test one through the

Mormon Church. Cause there's like what, 23 and me and the other. And I forget the other, you do the

DNA tests and the Mormon one had him like 3 %

Jewish and the other one didn't. I'll check with my aunt.

I didn't strike me as being one, but maybe the Mormons run it. No one knows. Mormons do a lot when it comes to ancestry .com

that that's Mormons. They do one of the, there's two major companies that do

DNA tests and they, they're there. They do one of them. And there's a reason they're so into checking genealogies.

If you understand Mormon background, Mormon theology, they believe that you need to be baptized to be saved.

And they have a belief you can be baptized for other people. And so they go through all the genealogy so that people are constantly getting baptized for previous family members.

And so they keep going back to find a family member that hasn't, no one's baptized. And they, they get, they'll get baptized just for names.

It's, it's, it is quite interesting. There was a, there was a petition out to get the

Mormon Church to stop these baptisms for the dead. For a very different reason, you may think.

Basically the way these baptisms would work is they do this within the temple. It's usually young teenage males and females that are getting baptized.

They have all the, the elders who are, who watch over it to make sure that it's, it's, you know, done properly.

And they have to basically wear a very thin sheet of clothing over them and then go into the water.

Now, I will say that from what I've been told, the female baptisms are more heavily watched than the male baptisms by the elders.

So you can therefore figure out why some people are petitioning for these to stop.

So, yeah, quite interesting. So, but that, I mean, that, and like, look, you look at what they're doing.

They're arguing, you know, they claim that in their theology that the 12

Lost Tribes of Israel came to America. And they're, this is why, this is the 12 tribes, the

Lost, sorry, the Lost Ten Tribes that are here in America. They've just been here and are continuing basically with laws now.

It is interesting because they would say they're the continuation. So they have a little bit different way of viewing these laws continuing.

But one of the things I do find interesting with different cults and groups like that is even the

Catholic Church, they want to tie themselves to the Old Testament, like the priesthood. You know,

Mormons with the idea of the Aaronic priesthood, the Melchizedek priesthood, which

I had a friend of mine in college who became Mormon and he told me he was of the line of Melchizedek priesthood.

And my response was repent from that blasphemy because there's only one that's of that priesthood and he's

Christ. You know, you have to be God to be in that priesthood and you're not.

And so, yeah, I'm just like, it just shows you're Mormon and then you are a small

God and you will become a bigger one later. Yeah, well, you're not God yet. You can become a big God of your plan.

Not yet, buddy. Not yet. So, I mean, but I do find it interesting how groups will try to tie themselves to the

Old Testament process. You have the Catholic Church with the priests, right?

And they're going to act as a mediator between you and God for your salvation.

I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. God created us to be liturgical creatures.

Even atheists, I mean, it's crazy. You watch some of these demonstrations, these abortion demonstrations or these earth -related demonstrations, and these people have some of the most crazy convoluted liturgical practices.

It's almost like they have their own choirs and their own Eucharist. I'm thinking about, what is it?

Sacraments. They have these things that they do, and I think God created us that way.

And so, when you're naturally an individual who was created to want to submit to a liturgy, a practical, tangible, physical representation of spiritual realities, then you're going to latch on to the closest thing you can to make sense of it all.

I think that's definitely hardcore what the Catholic Church is doing and many other people as well. Yeah. But wouldn't you say,

I mean, that a lot of that is, as harping back to what I was saying earlier, an attempt to work your way into being right with God.

It's like it's always putting what you do or what you say or how you dress or all of these things as making yourself outwardly appropriate to approach

God and completely missing the fact that when you go through all of these motions,

God looks at the heart, not at the exterior. So all of these exterior things are man's attempt to reach

God instead of allowing God to change our hearts so that we can reach him through the gift of salvation that makes us pure, not through our own works, but through what

Christ did on the cross. And when you see all of these outward things, even like you said, even the atheists, even people who don't even believe there is a

God, they're putting all of this effort into this external thing to make them, what we call it nowadays, virtue signaling.

It's all about virtue signaling so that other people see how righteous they are in whatever walk of life they've chosen.

And I guess I always come back to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus kept saying, you've heard that it was said, he says in chapter five in Matthew, and then in chapter six, he says, he keeps saying, you've done this in public to be seen by men, but you should be doing it in private to be seen by God.

And I always come back to that. It's like, yeah, what we're doing external may matter under some situations, but if we're not paying attention to how

God sees our heart, if we haven't internalized all of these external things, then we've completely missed the point.

That's exactly what Christ said in to the Pharisees in his eight woes. You've done all of this meticulous outside stuff, but you're filled with dead men's bones.

Yep. Yeah, so I think, I mean, I hope folks that are listening to this, you have something else you want to add,

Melissa? Oh, you raised your finger. No, my son is sneaking in on me. Oh, okay.

I thought you were putting your finger like, yeah, one more thing to say. She's wagging her finger at you,

Andrew. Yes. It's her first theology throwdown.

She's already reprimanding me, wagging her finger at me. Hey, good for you, Melissa. Give it up. Probably not the last.

So I hope, folks, that this has been helpful. I mean, you see some differing ways of thinking about these things.

I will say this. I got some feedback from someone recently that they said that the theology throwdowns are one of their favorite podcasts because they learn so much about different views.

They learn from people that support those views. They not only get to learn that way, but they also like the interaction that we all have, the discussion, the way we go about our discussion.

And I think that to me said we achieve the goal of what we're trying to do, right?

Discuss our theological differences with love and charity. We don't have to argue and fight and call each other names because Aaron's wrong.

You'll do that when the camera's off. I won't do that because we've already established you know way more martial arts than I do.

That's right. I'll intimidate you physically. Yes. But I mean, where we disagree,

I hope you're seeing that there's been a wide range of discussion here tonight. Where do you fall on this?

Where do you land? Well, I don't know. But as you're seeing, we have these discussions really to show there's different views that we can have, different ways of approaching the scriptures to come to the conclusions we come to.

Let's try to hear one another out, understand each other's positions before we go attacking them.

I know. Crazy idea. That's not social media etiquette. I get it. I'm sorry. You know,

I'm this crazy guy that actually believes Christians should show love to one another before posting on social media.

Shut up. You're wrong. It doesn't make for good drama either. Yeah, I know. It doesn't get the clicks.

I get it. I get it. Those theology thrown at people never actually throw down. I know.

Well, we do. We just do it respectfully. And so I think that—I hope that this is helpful for you as you listen.

I hope that if you do find it helpful, share it with others. Let others know about it. And go to christianpodcastcommunity .org.

Check out all of the 40 -some podcasts that are out there. Some of the ones we mentioned here, you know, this is a monthly podcast.

One of the few, Eve, has a monthly podcast. If you're interested in movies and entertainment, you want to have a way of looking at that with discernment, her podcast,

Are You Just Watching?, is an excellent one. If you have a women's ministry in the church—okay, sorry.

We actually in our church are starting to discuss having a women's Bible study. So that's being discussed.

But, Melissa, you'll probably be okay. The discussion is Paul Washer. We got two thumbs up from her.

But if you have a women's ministry in your church and you have people that are recommending some of the women's

Bible studies, well, Thoroughly Equipped with Melissa Lacks is an excellent podcast that will go through and dig into some of those things.

And also represented is Aaron's two podcasts, two excellent podcasts. I mean, Truth Love Parent does—I mean, deals with a lot of issues, a lot with parenting, but very helpful.

I'll say this even though Aaron's here and listening, but I don't want him to get a big head.

But he really does—if you listen to his podcast, one of the things I appreciate about it, very concise, very articulate, gives you a lot of information.

So there's like not a wasted minute in that. And then Celebration of God is a very different podcast.

I've really been enjoying that because I never really think about holidays and things. And he even has some holidays he's created on his own, like Creation Day.

Oh, it's Creation Week. It's a whole week of made -up holidays, man. But, you know,

I appreciate—it goes into Father's Day. Where did those come from? How did they start? Why do we honor fathers and mothers?

Things like this, so very educational. So I encourage you guys to listen to those. Listen to the other podcasts that are out at christianpodcastcommunity .org.

And if you're interested in podcasting, you can go to christianpodcastcommunity .org. Go to the

About section, click on the Consider Podcasting, and we'll describe. There's a video there describing what we're all about, what we're doing.

And if you think you're a good fit, hey, you can apply and maybe join us. And then maybe we'll see you in one of these theology throwdowns in the future.

And just saying, maybe we'll see you here sometime soon. When you could also be thrown down with us, but don't challenge

Aaron. He actually has black belts. Several of them.

He could actually beat us up. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.