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The New Covenant

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (Romans 14:5-9)

 The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
         We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
          Farewell. (Acts 15:23-29)

          There is a scene in an old TV series called West Wing in which the president dresses down a woman who claims that homosexuality is an abomination. You can watch it here West Wing Clip.
          It’s an awesome scene. I’d love the opportunity to put someone in his/her place so effectively. It has one huge flaw. It is entirely scripted to make it look as if there is no answer to the argument the president is making and therefore, to make her, and anyone who agrees with her, look like a fool. 
          All his references are based on the Jewish Law because he assumes that the Old Testament is the only part of Scripture that maintains that there is a problem with homosexuality.[1] I think her best response to him would have been to laugh, but curiously enough, Christians use the same tactic in their arguments.
          Do you work on Sunday? How about Christmas or Easter? Do you let your children trick-or-treat on Halloween? Do you practice Lent? Advent?  
          Do you consider cemeteries to be sacred places? What is your belief about divorcees serving in the Church? Or women preaching? Do you eat ham? Would you eat a chicken you knew had been used in a Voodoo rite? Do you smoke? Drink? Dance? Play cards? Go to movies? Some of these were against Old Testament laws. Some are against New Testament traditions. Some are New Testament traditions. There may be some very good reasons why you should or should not do them, but then we come to today’s passage. 
          What? Not keep the Sabbath? Not celebrate holy days with proper respect? Do celebrate unholy days at all? Gasp. I know some people who have taken up the “Daniel Diet” as a Scriptural mandate. Paul says, “Not a problem” – don’t inflict it on others. Today’s second passage comes to mind. Jewish Christians reported back to the leadership of the Church at Jerusalem that Gentiles were joining the Church, and they weren’t keeping all those laws that the president talked about. Gasp, again. James and the leaders in Jerusalem penned a letter to the Gentile church that was at the forefront of this crisis. Notice their instructions: “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.” None of the rest of the Old Testament Law was imposed on the Gentile Church. In fact, God made it triply clear to Peter in Acts 10 that the Old Testament restrictions on diet were not part of the New Covenant.   
          That doesn’t mean everyone is free to do as he pleases. Scripture doesn’t teach antinomianism or anarchy. What it means is that the president in West Wing had no clue what he was talking about.  It means that the principles and laws described in the New Testament are binding on Gentile Christians, not the principles and laws of the Old. There is natural overlap because we’re talking about the same God and He doesn’t change, but there is a reason why we have the Old and the New Covenants/Testaments. If they were precisely the same, there would only be one.


[1] It’s not, but that’s not the focus of my comment at the moment.



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