Learn from Our Forebears – The Law of God: Questions and Answers

Learn from Our Forebears
The Law of God: Questions and Answers

How should we understand and apply the Law of God today?

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. Psalm 16:3

Most Christians are as ignorant of the history of the Christian movement as they are of the Law of God.

I do not say this to condemn; it’s simply an observation I’ve made over some 40 years of ministering in various places and capacities.

How many believers do you know who can say, with the psalmist, that the saints who are already “in the earth” (a better translation, I think) are “all my delight”? That we read about their lives, cherish their works, and seek to emulate their example?

Not many, I suspect.

Our forebears in the faith would not approve of our studied indifference—even hostility—to the Law of God. In their day they loved the Law and worked to bring it to fruition in all aspects of their lives. Those who did not love the Law were chastened, admonished, and, in some cases, set apart from the rest of the community as having no true interest in the Kingdom of God.

Our forebears loved the Law; ought we not love it as well?

But we cannot love that which we do not understand. So let us devote ourselves to understanding the Law of God as He intends, so that we might, when it comes our time, justly take our place, without shame or regret, amid that great cloud of witness cheering on the faithful in every age.

And as we apply ourselves to this task, let us not neglect the teaching of our forebears, for whom delighting in and loving the Law of God was an important feature in their discipleship and disciple-making.

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and clicking on our Book Store. While you’re there, sign up to receive our newsletters, Crosfigell and Voices Together.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.