Letters

I was recently accused of being inconsistent because I assert that the Bible is the living word of God but ignore many of the Old Testament laws, like those forbidding men to shave their beards. I can see the point, but I don't believe it's inconsistent at all. Say you found an old letter in your house. It was from your great grandfather, addressed to your not-so-great grandfather, and it said something like this:

Dear son,

I'm going to be out of town today. I want you to take care of your brothers and sisters. Don't quarrel with them. If they fight, you should be a mediator. Make sure you do all your chores, especially feeding the chickens. I'll see you when I get back later this evening.

Love,

Dad.

Now say you knew your great grandfather before he died, and you truly believed he was the wisest man to ever live. You would probably take to heart his instructions, even though they weren't addressed to you. For example, if you had been arguing with your siblings earlier in the day, this letter might inspire you to make peace with them. However, one thing you probably wouldn't do is go find some chickens somewhere just so you could feed them. In other words, you could easily distinguish between instructions that would apply to you as well as your grandfather and instructions that would have only applied to your grandfather. Another way of saying this is that you could easily distinguish between general moral precepts and specific, context-relative instructions. My belief is that it is the same with the Old Testament laws. And this isn't to say that the context-relative instructions are useless. Especially when dealing with the Scriptures, nothing is useless. After reading this letter, you may not feed any chickens, but you may indeed be inspired to be more responsible and diligent at your job.