Tattoos and Couches - What Old Testament Laws are Binding?

[Bootstrap]

While I would certainly advise my granddaughters against wearing trousers or slacks today, I wonder if the OT command about women wearing men's clothing applies to this situation. I am not suggesting I am in favour of women wearing what we consider men's clothing but I wonder how we would answer someone who came to us with the idea that it is more modest for women to wear loose fitting pants than a dress.

In every country I have been to, men and women each have their own distinct clothing style.

If I go to a store in North America, there's a men's section and a women's section. The clothes in the two sections are different.

In the men's section, they sell pants, which were not the kind of men's clothing that the Old Testament had in mind. In the women's section, they sell pants, which were not the kind of women's clothing that the Old Testament had in mind. So if I want to follow the Old Testament commandment literally, what should men and women do?

In Old Testament times, the men's section would have had robes. And the women's section would have had robes too.

[Josh]

"What laws are binding?" Boot, do you believe 1 Corinthians 11 applies to Christians? Or is that also something you can handwave away as culturally archaic?

Why isn't loving your neighbour also culturally archaic?

[Bootstrap]

"What laws are binding?" Boot, do you believe 1 Corinthians 11 applies to Christians? Or is that also something you can handwave away as culturally archaic?

Why isn't loving your neighbour also culturally archaic?

Josh, do you insist on putting words in my mouth that you know I disagree with? Are you intentionally trying to put me on the defensive? I'd be much more interested in hearing what you think, and I can weigh in about what I think. Otherwise, the thread gets way too bogged down with me explaining what I really believe about something I wasn't talking about in the first place.

I'm doing too much of that on MN. I'm not sure it makes anyone happy.

[shadrach]

but I wonder how we would answer someone who came to us with the idea that it is more modest for women to wear loose fitting pants than a dress.

I would tell the person that they're right, our people do not know how to make modest dresses anymore. And a dress is not automatically more modest than pants. And many supposedly modest dresses lose their modesty in things like: too long, too loose (puffy) shoulders, too short sleeves, too tight cuffs, too loose at the waist (no belt or elastic), too tight at the hips. Do these sensible women not realize these facts? But I realize that I too will be brought to judgment for what I allow my self to gaze at.

[cmbl]

When do we read a verse from the Old Testament and say that is still binding today? When do we say that it was done away with in the New Covenant?

I would generally avoid quoting the OT law as binding on Christians today.
I would be happy to read something from Deuteronomy (law) or Ezekiel (prophecy) and say, this general principle is still true. God still wants us to deal kindly with our neighbor, or the poor, and God still deals with people today similar to Ezekiel 18.

I think there's a big difference between saying, "Love your neighbor, because Leviticus tells you to," and "Love your neighbor (and also your enemy) because Jesus says to."

Sometimes people choose to intentionally misunderstand this, and say "oh he thinks the OT is not binding. Well, he must think [obviously bad thing] is OK." I have little patience for people who intentionally misunderstand.

I feel that the moral part of the law is where God revealed his feelings about sin. This part of the OT is worthwhile studying, just to get some insight into God's thinking about things. But again, I don't go there and make them part of my daily life, because I believe that the NT lists what we need.

The Sermon on the Mount shows Jesus going back to the moral law and strengthening it. God expects better things of us than he expected of the OT believers, because we have the Spirit and the grace that comes with the Spirit.

I personally have some doubts about this whole "national" "ceremonial" "moral" law distinction. It seems to me that's a distinction we impose on the text. While I wouldn't use that language myself, when it comes to actual practice, I can pretty much agree with Mennonites who do use this language.

[Josh]

I personally have some doubts about this whole "national" "ceremonial" "moral" law distinction. It seems to me that's a distinction we impose on the text. While I wouldn't use that language myself, when it comes to actual practice, I can pretty much agree with Mennonites who do use this language.

I would agree - whilst it's popular in the modern day to talk about these distinctions, this distinction shows up nowhere in either the Old or the New Testament. Most notably, the New Testament doesn't even seem to bind keeping the Ten Commandments on believers, in the sense Gentile believers are not obligated to keep the Sabbath (on Saturdays).