Bree
Active Member
You've got the Old Testament and the Abrahamic God. You start to know the Abrahamic God as someone to fear. He wipes out most humans with a flood. Then you've got laws about clean and unclean animals, etc.
Then comes the New Testament. Jesus comes, and his message is different enough that to me, it must be a new covenant. I interpret certain verses as going against the Old Testament, or at least changing things. You can now eat unclean animals as far as I can tell. And at some point in history, the Sabbath seems to become Sunday instead of Saturday.
a simple way to understand it is to know that the Old Testament, written nearly 4,000 years ago, was written for 1 family (Abraham) for a temporary time, who would have to live according to Gods perfect laws. (of course his offspring failed over and over again, but the point was that they were a nation upholding Gods moral standards and could provide a safe spiritual environment for the birth of Gods own son who was to come into the world)
When that Son finally did come into the world, he was raised in an environment where he could come to know his Father, where he would not be corrupted by the false religions of the nations. He was protected spiritually in that strict religious environment.
Once he came of age and began his work of disciple making, he understood his role was to guide all mankind ( not just the jews) all mankind would be guided into a way of worship of the 1 true God that they could all achieve. The world of mankind could never achieve to worship God under the Old covenant because not even the jews could achieve that 100%.
Rather, Christ gave the new commandment to 'love one another just as I have loved you'
All mankind could achieve that. It was not difficult. They did not have to remember days and times and seasons, they did not have to limit their diet to certain foods, they did not have to perform daily rituals or provide animal sacrifices for forgiveness of sins etc etc etc.
They need only begin to love one another. And thus christianity is a religion of love of God and love of neighbor.
Last edited: