House Rules

Reading: Ps 119.

Relationships and Rules and Regulations
Relationships imply rules; rules reflect and structure relationships.
A pressing early Christian issue: What role(s) do the covenantal Torah regulations play in Christian life?
The OT already suggests some fluidity and flexibility according to Israel's circumstances:

The Torah frames them historically (Deut 5:6);
Psalms treasure but do not depend on them;
the histories affirm them but acknowledge their limits;
the prophets foresee restoration and change rather than abolition;
Jewish messianic expectation awaited renewed justice and purified worship.

Rejected Christian positions miss the newness and the continuity of Jesus Christ's restoration of relationships:

Marcion: Both they and their inferior god should be disowned; Jesus represents a different, higher God of love.

'Circumcision party': They apply to Christians just as they had applied to Jews.

The NT writings reflect disputed positions already in Jesus' day, and especially in the apostolic age:

Hebrews: They are ineffective, old, and passing away (so later Christian 'supersessionism').	James: They are the 'law of liberty', vital for life in Christ (so Calvin's 'third use of the Torah').
Galatians: They were (are?) a tutor and a trustee to train Israel to maturity.	Matthew: While they are limited, they contain 'treasures old and new' for the Kingdom's disciples.
John: Jesus' coming focuses our attention elsewhere.	Romans: Sin frustrates their just intentions and drives us to Christ instead (so Luther).
Mark, Luke/Acts: Christ's work turns out to have transformed and relativized at least some of them (sabbath, food laws, fueling later distinctions between ceremonial commandments and other kinds.	Corinthians: They are instructive for the church, but Paul often treats them allegorically (so patristic and medieval exegesis).

So Christ is determinative for the Kingdom's new arrangement, and OT and NT rules are newly significant within that arrangement.

Jesus, then the apostles, then later generations appeal to a variety of old rules and issue new ones (rulings, household codes, authoritative opinions, etc.) to order Christian communities.
There are at least some internal distinctions between, say, directions for temple and tabernacle, regulations on relationships and justice, and rules on hygiene.
Their authority has always been the Holy Spirit's authority.
Their operation is not straightforward but calls for wisdom, judgment.

These arise out of shifting (and often problematic) cultural locations and circumstances (for instance, Deut's justice laws and Paul's codes of gender conduct) and are bound to them, but their force is not restricted to them.

Then should Christians:

condemn their respect for fallen and thus unjust circumstances? (cf. some moral absolutisms)	abstract generalizable principles from them? (cf. some deontologies such as situation ethics)
ignore them and obey the Spirit directly? (cf. antinomianism)	imitate their circumstances so they will continue to apply directly? (cf. legalism, some divine command theories)
ignore them and favor less disputed material? (cf. some cultural relativisms)	read them allegorically in light of Christ's story? (cf. some narrative ethics)

My approach: Cultivate an 'apostolic sensibility' so we can maintain apostolic traditions of rule-keeping.

Learn OT and NT rules, in the contexts in which they operate.
Read them always within the framework of Christ, the church, and the Kingdom's righteousness, peace, and joy (Rom 14:17).
Honor them and thus participate in the God-given relationships they manifest.
Respect the continuities and discontinuities among those relationships.
Pay attention especially to how NT writers do all these things.
Case study: Deut 21:10-14.