Women on their monthly flow (unclean) as well as Church Discipline or Theonomy?

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You can pick your way through the ceremonial law looking for particular laws that will materially be beneficial for your health, or might be materially beneficial for your health, or you can also try to prove that some laws you wish to observe are good for your health e.g. you can dispute with people whether pork is ever good for your health or always bad.

But is this keeping God's ceremonial holiness law or just raiding it for health tips which may or may not be there, some of which can be deduced by science or common sense?

The purpose for which these laws was given was to teach an under age church about holiness, because only a small number of these laws also impinge on health.

How much of Leviticus 15 is the Lord wanting New Covenant Israelites to follow for the sake of their health?

Nicley put Richard! I have had many debates with Fundamentalists over the meaning of our body being "The Lord's temple" and health. They say you shouldn't do anything that you know is unhealthy, to which I reply that going outside and breathing is knowingly unhealthy (I mean smog here) would you stop doing that? I think the whole cerimonial law for health reasons distorts the whole picture. It is like saying that God must have a good reason to give a law, in this case these laws are healthy. This somehow gets God off the hook legaly and justifies His legal opinions, well I say hogwash! If God layed down a law that we must stand on our heads once a day for 2 minutes than that is His divine to do so, He needs no "good reasons" (which are always only good in our eyes, autonomy) to make demands on us, only His divine right.
 
If God layed down a law that we must stand on our heads once a day for 2 minutes than that is His divine to do so, He needs no "good reasons" (which are always only good in our eyes, autonomy) to make demands on us, only His divine right.

Yes but it seems fairly clear that we can identify the reason for most of these laws being to do with teaching the people about sin and spiritual uncleanness through various kinds of physical and outward uncleanness. In this case it's about teaching them about original sin and reproduction being the occasion of its transmission.

Another wrongheaded approach to this law, apart from saying that God gave it for health reasons, would be to say that its morality lay in the relationship between man and wife and that they should show respect for one another in their relations.

But

(a) Showing respect for one another in ones relations is covered by the law of love.

(b) Insisting on conjugal relations in these circumstances - maybe against the will of the wife - is not the only way that disrespect/lack of love could be shown in this area.

The real moral afront is to God in despising his ceremonial law of outward, physical, pedagogical, holiness in a flagrant manner.

The penalty isn't death or anything else but temporary excommunication by shunning.

In the New Covenant it is also because of the law of love and the Sixth Commandment that we should be reasonably concerned about our's and other's health and cleanliness.

But e.g. unless you can show from science that a practice under the ceremonial law is a serious health risk, you shouldn't push it. And if you do keep it or push it, you're not following the ceremonial law. You're just picking through it in case there are some health tips there, which there may or may not be. And it's good to see if there are any important health tips there because health is important.

Quote from Rhonda
"New Covenant Israeliltes?"

Us. Christians. The New Covenant Church. The Church no longer under the babyhood phase.
 
I thought I'd seen everything...I was wrong. :wow:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (II Timothy 3:16, ESV)
 
As a slightly squeamish woman, I wish this discussion was not public. That being said, it seems to me that 'that' time of the month might be a good time for husbands and wives to devote themselves to prayer, as in 1 Corinthians 7:5.
 
Yeah Richard your right. I was just raised in a fundementalist type envioroment and church, that a distorted view of the law. In my later years I have met more fundementalists who view it this way that I try to counteract that temptation. The temptation is to say that God has a good reason, in a way outside of Himself, to pick what is a law and what isn't. So being healthy is good, it is good apart from God's will, and God is good so He chose laws that conform to this goodness out there. It is a very weak apologetical strategy to try to justify God's ways to the unbeleiver by trying to appeal to some good they agree with and make God on their side or something. In apolgetics of this type I simply point out that God needs no "good reason" that we would agree with or sighn off on to do what He does. As the Creator He dpes whatever He wants and has to answer to no one.

Now we also affirm His goodness in His being and so everything He does for us is for are own good, but that is quite a different way of saying it. The very fact that God has made something right or wrong makes it right or wrong, not soem standered of good out there beyond Him that He must appeal to. Now He doesn't do anything abritrarly, He has His own "good reasons" for doing things as He does. For instance the pedegalogical reason for the ceremonial law is all that it needs to be good, not some ammended reason like its healthy (although that may be part of it).
 
Now we also affirm His goodness in His being and so everything He does for us is for are own good, but that is quite a different way of saying it. The very fact that God has made something right or wrong makes it right or wrong, not soem standered of good out there beyond Him that He must appeal to. Now He doesn't do anything abritrarly, He has His own "good reasons" for doing things as He does. For instance the pedegalogical reason for the ceremonial law is all that it needs to be good, not some ammended reason like its healthy (although that may be part of it).

It is the case that if God legislates something we should follow it even if we don't know the reasons for it. But the believing and spiritually sensitive Jew would have understood that these laws respecting avoiding physical contact with certain kinds of bodily fluids, filth and dirt, death, animals associated with dirt and death, had spiritual lessons about spiritual contamination and cleansing.

In the New Covenant we do not - should not - follow the laws (we can "keep" some of them for health, sqeamish or compassionate reasons but that is not keeping them), but the spiritual lessons remain, as an extended commentary on our baptism.
 
I think Richard is absolutely correct that health and hygiene are not the rationale behind God's giving of the ceremonial law. Not only would the omission of many helpful things tell against that, but consider Levitius 14:36. Items are to be removed from a house before a priest gives the verdict of clean or unclean, so that those items will not be rendered unclean by being in an unclean house. If the goal were to prevent the spread of some infestation, this is the opposite of the procedure that would be adopted.
 
Now we also affirm His goodness in His being and so everything He does for us is for are own good, but that is quite a different way of saying it. The very fact that God has made something right or wrong makes it right or wrong, not soem standered of good out there beyond Him that He must appeal to. Now He doesn't do anything abritrarly, He has His own "good reasons" for doing things as He does. For instance the pedegalogical reason for the ceremonial law is all that it needs to be good, not some ammended reason like its healthy (although that may be part of it).

It is the case that if God legislates something we should follow it even if we don't know the reasons for it. But the believing and spiritually sensitive Jew would have understood that these laws respecting avoiding physical contact with certain kinds of bodily fluids, filth and dirt, death, animals associated with dirt and death, had spiritual lessons about spiritual contamination and cleansing.

In the New Covenant we do not - should not - follow the laws (we can "keep" some of them for health, sqeamish or compassionate reasons but that is not keeping them), but the spiritual lessons remain, as an extended commentary on our baptism.

I completly agree Richard. And with you too py3ak.
 
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