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Jesus steps up to the mic in his first big public speech, he's crushing it, right? Everybody's like, whoa, sounds like a great religion. You seem compelling. I like the miracles. I like all of this blessed R stuff. I like that we have a role to play, salt and light. Oh, it's just terribly interesting. Wow, yeah. Uh, as a Jewish person, I would very much like to sign up for this. Oh, but wait a minute. We already have a religion and it's very old and it's very important and we believe it's very true. And they were right. So no doubt, Jesus' original audience starts to formulate this question in their heads like, ah, bummer, I got this thing that's new that sounds good, but we got this old thing that's definitely true. Ah, how do these two things relate together? And in these very pivotal verses, verse 17 and verse 18 of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus addresses that in a way that starts to give an answer, but that would have required a lot more thought on the part of his original audience, because this is difficult language. He says, Don't think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I haven't come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. So what did he just say? How many people in that audience would have been like, yeah. Wait, I don't get it. I mean, I sort of get it. It sounds No, I definitely still don't get it. Because it's tough. I mean, what does it mean to fulfill a law? Well, yesterday we wrestled with that a little bit. And this word law, it's super loaded. For you and me, it just means law, right? Like a rule or something like that, or maybe like a law of nature, maybe we could construe it that way. But for the original audience, the word law meant a ton of stuff. It meant the first part of what you and I might call the Old Testament. That'd be all the story and narrative and Moses and Abraham, Noah's Ark, and all of that kind of business. It also would have conjured the idea of all of those stories being incomplete and the themes that are left out there open-ended that still need some kind of resolution at some point, I guess. It also would have conjured the predictive nature of the Old Testament. Now, they might have separated out in their brains the idea of the law and the prophets as being two separate things, but this term can also be a catch-all for all of that. So we see Matthew covering those bases as we've discussed in hearkening back to narrative stuff that Jesus completes and hearkening back to prophetic stuff that Jesus completes. But what about the third aspect of the law, which would just be, well, the actual rules, the way you and I would think of the law? That's a little trickier. I can picture how someone comes along and rounds out a story that isn't quite finished. I can picture how someone comes along and there's a prediction, the guy wearing a Wyoming hat is gonna walk into a store and he is going to buy two cases of Coca-Cola Classic. Oh, well, I know how to fulfill that. I just put on my Wyoming hat, I go to the store and I buy the Coca-Cola Classic. There, that prophecy is fulfilled. But how do you fulfill a law? Does that just mean obey it? Well, then why wouldn't you use the word obey? It can't just mean that. It means more than that. So to understand that, I think we gotta consider what the law actually is in terms of the rules that come forward from the Old Testament. And we gotta admit, this gets a little bit weird and a little bit hazy because this isn't something that we feel super incentivized to go back and dig through. So let's assume we don't know what we're talking about and try to take a big picture look at this thing together for just a minute. Okay, the law, the rules. Uh, let's go with an example. I am going to talk about five random laws of my household growing up. I think my parents were great at being parents. I think we had good rules around my house. 12-year-old me would absolutely choke on something if he heard me saying that, but 12-year-old me was an idiot and wrong about everything. My parents did a good job. The rules made sense, but they weren't all the same in nature, in tone, in weight, in consequence, in severity. So when you hear this list, you'll see what I'm saying. Okay, random law number one from my upbringing. Toilet paper rolls must be installed so that they roll forward toward the pooper and not backwards away from the pooper. You want it to, I guess, be easier to get that? I don't know why this is a rule. I don't know why that's actually better, but that was definitely a law. Here's another one. If you're not home by curfew, you're gonna get grounded for two weeks. Just, I mean, there's no debate, there's no argument, it's just how it is. There's a time, it's nine o'clock, you're home at nine o'clock, or you take the next two weeks off from doing things, kind of like all of us are doing right now. Third rule: don't set your watch alarm to go off precisely at noon during church while your dad is preaching. Yes, he knows it's noon. Yes, he knows it's now noon plus 30 seconds. Yes, he knows that you want to go home. And he's still in charge of church and he will preach as long as he wants. And your stupid alarm is only going to provoke him to go longer if he feels so compelled. So don't set your watch alarm to go off in church. Oddly specific rule. I don't know why that one had to be made. A fourth random law from my upbringing would be don't lick fly swatters. I don't know why that rule was made either. Uh why maybe I was maybe it was my brother, it's very hard to say. Fifth rule from my childhood: we don't punch people. He just, that's not how we solve things. We're not going to punch people. That's not how we do business around here. Okay, obviously there were a ton more rules from my childhood, but that gives you kind of a random sampling. Well, what do you notice about those rules? One, they all seem, I suppose, infinitely reasonable. But two, like I mentioned earlier, they all seem very different in character. And three, if we think carefully about those differences in character from law to law that I just gave you, you might have to acknowledge that some of those are more meant for kids and maybe those rules wouldn't be needed later on. Like I don't really need a rule in my life that says don't lick fly swatters. The reason I don't lick fly swaters is just because I don't lick fly swaters. I don't I don't need to be told or corrected if I were to do it. I just I promise you I won't. And so when we look at the law of the Old Testament, we see a similar thing. We see laws that deal with different aspects of life. I mean, consider the five I just gave you one more time. Uh I promise we won't keep coming back to these forever, but they they really all do address a different aspect of my existence, of our existence as kids in that household. So the first one, toilet paper rolls go out over the top. Okay, is that an ethical, moral issue? No, you can't call that a moral law of my childhood. It's a civil law. It's a thing where, like, this is just how we're gonna do things in our house. This is a matter of agreement that this is the way we do business, and so this is how we're going to install these things. If I didn't do that, it's not like I get grounded or something would go terribly wrong. It just wasn't good for the sense of unity and peace in my household. Okay, so you got kind of a civil law there. A second rule that we had, the one about if you're not home by curfew, you can't go out for two weeks. Well, that law comes with a punishment. So, in a way, it's if you fail this, there will be a price you have to pay to make it right. And in that respect, it's kind of reminiscent of a sacrificial law. I have to give up a thing to atone for my failure to make this right and to be in good standing, trustwise, and moving forward with my parents and my family. Very different from a civil law. A third type of law: don't set your watch alarm to go off in church at precisely noon. Does it really matter when your watch alarm goes off normally? No, who cares? The issue here isn't even one so much of propriety. It's one of thoughtfulness and acknowledging the importance of what we do as a family and as a church in worship. So that effectively is a ceremonial law. It's not about the watch, it's not about the alarm, it's not even about the watch alarm going off in that building. It's about what the watch alarm going off at that moment in that building, doing what we do at that time. That is the issue. And because I pushed the envelope, that rule had to be made. But that's not a civil law, that's not a sacrificial law, that's a ceremonial law about how we do church or how we do sacred things. The fourth rule: don't lick fly swaters. Why don't you lick a fly swatter? Come on, it's easy. Because it's disgusting, because there's bug innards on the fly swatter and they're old and crusted and rotting. And if you put your tongue on that, you're just an idiot and it's gross. That's a clean and unclean law. It's not a moral law, it's not a civil law, it's not a sacrificial law, it's not a ceremonial law. It's just clean and unclean. That's not a clean thing to do. And if you do that, don't come over here and kiss me. Don't come over here and cuddle up with me. You have fly guts on your lips. It's disgusting. The fifth rule: we don't punch people. Well, that's kind of a universal moral law, isn't it? That one is a good rule whether you're at the house, whether you're at school, whether you're at work, whether you're 70, whether you're seven. Punching people is just ideally not what you want people to be doing. And so there's a universality to that that addresses behavior. You see what I'm doing here, right? Likewise, in the Old Testament, we tend to want to lump everything into one notion of law. And especially people who are in a phase in life where they're thinking kind of critically in the negative sense about the Bible and Jesus and religion, they slash we will tend to want to go and find the most obscure, irritating laws and lift them out of that context, not apply the same common sense that we would apply to our own household laws and be like, well, what the heck is the deal with this? Why shouldn't we be doing that now? How can Jesus just do away with that? Why do you pick and choose what laws you take forward? Well, I don't know. Why do you not hire someone to keep you accountable to not lick fly swatters now that you're an adult? You probably never did that as a kid. That's probably a terrible example. Why are there universal rules about assault? Because some of these things transfer into other moments of life, some of these things don't. Some of these things are household rules, some of them don't really apply when you get beyond the boundaries of the household. The same thing is true of the Old Testament law. And I, wow, burned through that time very quickly. I was gonna do this all at once. This is gonna be like three or four sessions here. So, okay, I'm gonna hit pause there. I have lobbied that softball. I've been resetting a lot lately. I'm not gonna reset this time around. Instead, I'm gonna go right into this tomorrow, and we're just gonna keep going off of this idea of different aspects of the law and what Jesus might have meant when he said that somehow he is the fulfillment of the law. In the meantime, I haven't thanked you for a while for doing the review thing. That is a big deal. I've learned more about how this works. Apparently, actually downloading an episode of the podcast is way more helpful than just streaming it. So if you felt like doing that, I wouldn't argue with you. If you just want to stream it, cool. If you just want to act like you're not into it at all and just kind of casually listen while somebody else does the downloading or streaming, I'm great with that too. Just glad you're here. The other thing that really helps is the review thing, as I've mentioned before. And I read all of them. I don't have time to read every single comment that comes in on all of the YouTube stuff and everything. But these reviews mean a lot. And um, I don't know, here's a couple of nice things that people have said lately. Uh, Tuggo, this has been one of my favorite podcasts to listen to. I enjoy starting my day thinking about biblical principles and dwelling on it throughout the day. Uh, thanks for putting in the effort. Uh, that means a lot. Thank you for saying all that stuff. Here's Taylor from Georgia. Oh, this one's nice. This has become a daily staple for both me and my wife, even though our schedules dictate we listen to it separately most days. Uh, then he goes on to say some nice stuff about how I'm putting it together. And um, yeah, thank you very much for that as well. Phenomenal podcast. That's a nice title. Uh, Jared Lambert, 61. You will not regret taking the time to listen to this. Um, says some nice things about how we talk about this stuff, and um, I don't want to read it because it makes me blush. So, whether you're a Christian or not, I think you'll find something of value from this podcast. Thank you. That's that's exactly what I'm going for, Jared. I want I want people who don't think the same stuff as me to be able to show up here and not just feel inundated with a bunch of insider language that might make sense for people who kind of hang out in the same little thought bubble. But I think the conversation is much more rich hanging out with people who aren't in the same thought bubble and processing it together. I think just the act of having a whole bunch of people in the room here who I know aren't coming to the same exact conclusions as me and who read this whole thing differently, it really keeps me honest. I I appreciate you just by knowing you're here, those of you who see it different in one way or another, um yeah, it changes the way I prepare, it changes the way I think about it, it pushes me, and I appreciate it. Oh my goodness, there's a two-star review. I think this guy reviewed the wrong one. Oh my goodness, you guys gotta hear this. Okay, uh, this person's name is Rourke Rourke Rourke, like R-O-A-R-K. Two out of five stars, so that's that's rough. It says well-meaning but misleading. I have been listening through, and although I believe these two are well-meaning and nice people, I worry about the lack of biblical backing to the lessons they teach, especially during the sex episodes. What? Well, it's just me. There aren't there aren't two people, it's just the me. And I'm trying to remember when the sex episodes were. I understand the church's rigid nature. Uh maybe I misunderstood their take on the Bible. I think this person reviewed the wrong podcast. Um, Rourke, Rourke, Rourke, if you're listening, I don't think you probably meant to review this one, but if you want to leave it, that's cool. Whatever's fine, man. Either way, thanks for listening and being around. Okay, well, that went a little bit differently than I expected. But whatever the case, I really do appreciate the reviews. Uh, I took too long interacting with all of that, whatever. Maybe I'll have to cut some of it down to make this fit into the time constraints, but I like that we do this together. I like that we think about it together. I like that it's an ongoing conversation, and the feedback from you uh is encouraging and energizing to do more. All right, we're gonna shut it down there and pick up right where we left off, Man Yana. I'm Matt. This is a 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.