Yes, Jesus did refer to the Torah as the "law of Moses", but when he said that, everyone understood that he mean the law that God gave through Moses. There was no difference in their minds between the law of God and the law of Moses. I was addressing
JLB. He has some way (which he has so far refused to explain) of differentiating between the law of God and the law of Moses. That's why I used those terms the way I did.
The New Testament, including the part you quoted, was not written in a vacuum. It was written in a specific cultural and linguistic context. Our culture affects our language, and therefore our language can often only be understood, if we understand the culture that has molded it. Because we grew up in the culture and it is part of us, we never think about this, but we can run into problems when reading or listening to something from another culture, which we do not fully understand. For example, if I say to you "Most things are hay in hardship", you probably wouldn't have any idea what I was talking about. It's an Icelandic saying, and to understand it, you have to understand Icelandic culture and how Icelanders have lived for the past 1100 years. Without knowing what's behind it, you might think that hay represents something worthless, similar to what the Bible says about the grass that blooms today but withers tomorrow. Based on this understanding , you might conclude that the saying meant that in hardship, everything you don't absolutely need is worthless. While that is true, it's the exact opposite of what the saying means. Iceland has for most of it's history been a nation built primarily on farming and agriculture (and to a large extent still is). Because grass doesn't grow during the winter, farmers gather hay during the late summer and autumn, to feed their flocks through the winter months. Come next summer, they burn or otherwise dispose of any hay that is left in their barns, to make room for new hay. But when there were hardships, and there was little hay to be had, the farmers would use whatever they could, even if it was old hay or low quality, to keep their animals alive.
So, why the Icelandic lesson? Because most people reading the Bible are in the exact same position. They are reading something from a culture they don't understand, and the most common interpretation of that verse is one result. When we see the word "yoke" we think of something heavy, or in this context, difficult. Because we have been taught that the law was too difficult to keep (which actually contradicts what the Bible says), we assume that the word "yoke" refers to the law. But that isn't the case. In Hebrew, "yoke" or "burden" can refer to a specific interpretation of the law. Each rabbi would have his interpretation of the law, which he would teach to his disciples, and which he expected them to follow. This was called that rabbis yoke or burden, which he laid on his disciples. What is being referred to in Acts 15:10 is the Pharisees interpretation of the law, not the law itself. Jesus also told us his interpretation of the law, which he expected his disciples (and us today) to follow. He said his yoke was easy and his burden light. That was a reference to his interpretation of the law (which we know is the right interpretation).
I love it when people do this. It gives me a chance to show how utterly ridiculous they sound. Here is a partial list of the commandments that are
not among those in Acts 15:
- Do not murder
- Do not steal
- Do not bear false witness
- Do not rape
- Use honest scales
- Love your neighbor
- Honor your parents
Is it acceptable for Gentile Christians to violate these commandments? If those 4 in acts are the only ones we need to follow, then the logical conclusion of that is that we are allowed to do these other things. That obviously is not the case, and nobody here would ever claim that it was. It's just because people don't think things all the way through. The question being addressed in Acts 15 was not whether Gentile believers should obey the law. That was a given. The question was how much of it, if any, they were required to keep before they were considered saved. Some ("those of the circumcision") were saying that they had to obey the entire law, including the Pharisaic additions in the oral law, before they were considered saved. Others said that they only needed to have faith in God and Christ, and they could learn later how to obey His commandments. The 4 commandments they listed were those that the Gentiles were violating on a regular basis in their old religion, and which were considered serious enough that they had to stop doing them immediately, if they wanted to be counted among the believers. That passage goes on to say that Moses is taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. New believers were expected to go to the synagogues and learn the rest of the law over time.
Rev. 1:10 is the only verse in the only verse in the entire Bible that used the term "Lord's day". I don't think it's a good idea to base doctrines on a single verse. Besides, it only mentions that certain things happened on the Lord's day. It doesn't in any way imply that the Lord's day had replaced the Sabbath. In fact, it doesn't even define what day the Lord's day is. We only assume that it was Sunday, because that's the day we are used to calling the Lord's day. Jesus said he was Lord of the Sabbath, so it would not be illogical for John to have called the Sabbath "the Lord's day".
