Jesus never Broke the law, He broke tradition. I realize that for some reason you feel the need to justify yourself with anyone that voices concern for your appearance. You continue to talk of love but your quick defense is less than lovely but suspicious, could it be that God is convicting you of your appearance through others concerns? Salvation only makes us free from the bondage of sin, but if we are redeemed we are not our own but bought with a price, Paul also said in 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold all things are become new. it goes on to say in verse 20 that we are ambassadors for Christ. In the next chapter verse 16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Jamey, I will pray for you. Sammy Lundy

Jesus never Broke the law, He broke tradition. I realize that for some reason you feel the need to justify yourself with anyone that voices concern for your appearance. You continue to talk of love but your quick defense is less than lovely but suspicious, could it be that God is convicting you of your appearance through others concerns? Salvation only makes us free from the bondage of sin, but if we are redeemed we are not our own but bought with a price, Paul also said in 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away: behold all things are become new. it goes on to say in verse 20 that we are ambassadors for Christ. In the next chapter verse 16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Jamey, I will pray for you. Sammy Lundy

There 2 different laws given in the Old Testament: the Mosaic and the Deuteronic. That is why Deuteronomy is called Deuteronomy. It means second law. This why the Pharisees asked Jesus about marriage, too. Divorce was in the Deuteronic law but not in the Mosaic. Jesus did disobey particularities of the Deuteronic law. If you desire to call those particularities traditions, then fine. Jesus broke Deuteronic traditions. Without an understanding of the two different but not contradictory laws of the Old Testament a reading of the Old Testament is incomprehensible.

Secondly, I was referring to Paul's context in reference to love and if a quick defense makes one guilty then you condemn Jesus. Jesus quickly refutes his opponents and in Matthew 23 even calls them names as he refutes them.


Thirdly, you are wonderfully correct that he calls us to come out from among them and be separate but you have missed the point if you think that separation is in dress or looks. I agree that certain types of dress can be destructive to the soul but Jesus even told the Pharisees that they wear the right things. In Matthew 23:5 he talks specifically about their dress. They were boxes that they wore that had Bible verses in them. Jesus calls these men hypocrites for being worried so much about dress and missing the "weightier matters of the law." If you would take your Bible verse from 2 Corinthians 5 and read it in its context you will read verse 16 just before 17 that says, "we regard no one from a human point of view." The verse you gave is a wonderful verse for not judging by the outside.

I appreciate your prayers.

Hello Bambi, long time no talk. I am excited for you that you have a grandbaby.

In regards to my argument, I was actually using 1 Cor. 11:14 in the above blog. Paul's very point in context is that this is not an important argument. The Corinthian church wrote Paul with this question about head coverings and he responds with a rhetorical question concerning nature and the conclusion that the church has no other practice. The point being that there is no point.


First of all, I don't see what is confusing but even if it is, in response to your statement that God is not the author of confusion, which is found in 1 Corinthians 14:33, it is found in reference to more than one person speaking at a time in church. Now, 2 Peter 3:15 -16 refers directly to the difficulty in understanding Paul's letters. It says, "Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." The context of this verse is in regards to the final days but the verse says he writes the same way in all his letters. Paul's writings according to the Bible are hard to understand. God is not the author of confusion in reference to more than one person speaking at a time. This is a common misconception.

In reference do Jesus being disobedient, a contextual understanding is also important. The deuteronic law, usually referred to as the deuteronomic law, was given to keep the Jewish people holy (I explained this above). They were not strong enough in their faith to actually bless those around them, so God gave them a law to keep them from being corrupted by those around them. In this second law was also laws against touching lepers and such because God's chosen people couldn't die out from disease either. At least two things were important, 1 that they didn't get corrupted by those around them and 2 that they did't die out. When Jesus came there was a remnant of Jews that were ready for the Mosaic law, the 10 ten commandments to be written on their heart. The keeping Israel holy was no longer needed because the law was written on their hearts, they were holy from the inside out now. They were now able to go into all the world. This is why many Jews were confused. Judaism was, to them, a religion of ethnicity, but their being chosen was so that they could bless the rest of the world. In context Jesus breaking particularities of the Deuteronic law makes plenty of sense. He came to establish the new law, the law written on our hearts. This is why he says these things and this is why they killed him. They were more in love with their old law than they were with God. Jesus broke many particularities of the Deuteronic law, though most of the laws he broke are found in the Talmud. To the Jews of his time, they were same as breaking the Deuteronic law found in Deuteronomy.

Understanding context is extremely important when using Bible verses to prove a point. I do not hope that my posts are accepted with all amens but that they help us realize our own problems. We as Christians have a lot to learn but most of us are more concerned with what we own and earn. I hope to challenge people to actually figure out what the Bible means not simply use it to support our beliefs that we bring to it.

Love, (specifically 1 Cor. 13:6 in regards to rejoicing in the truth)
Jamey Sturgill

After walking away from the computer but continuing to ponder what you were referring to in reference to confusion, I realized what you meant. I am sorry that I was confused earlier. You were saying Jesus would not confuse people because Jesus is God and God is not the author of confusion. Still the context with the verse in regards to God not being the author of confusion is important but of perhaps more importance is the Gospels. Did the disciples understand everything that Jesus said? Was Jesus confusing to the disciples? John 6:60 the disciples said that this was a hard teaching and who could accept it." Jesus even responds in verse 67 with, "do you want to leave too?" Again in John 16 Jesus explains that he has been speaking figuratively and the disciples even acknowledge in verse 29, "now you are speaking plainly and without figures of speech." The disciples acknowledge that they have not really understood Jesus. Another time Jesus refers to his resurrection after his death by calling it a temple and the Pharisees totally misunderstood him (John 2:19). The Pharisees specifically talk of how long it took to build the Temple in Jerusalem. The implication in verse 22 is that even the disciples misunderstood what he was talking about at that time. If one knows the Talmud laws that the Pharisees strictly adhered to they would quickly realize that nearly everything Jesus did was confusing to the Pharisees. Paul even references Jesus as a stumbling block to the Jews in 1 Corinthians 23. Jesus was a stumbling block. He confused the people that proudly obeyed laws that were no longer necessary. Jesus Christ was/is not concerned with man's laws but God's nature. My point in following Jesus in this way is that long hair is not against God's nature. Actually, in my desire to argue with people in order to show our proud adherence to rules that aren't eternal is in accordance with God's nature. I hate debating. It plagues my thoughts but I realize that many people think they understand a lot more than they do. I, like Jesus, desire to show how little most of us understand about the Bible. I spend/have spent the majority of the past 7 years of my life studying the Bible and different views of the Bible and I swear that today more than any other day I realize how little I understand. This gives me a wonderful peace though. I love the doxology at the end of Romans 11:34 - 36. The more I study, the more I realize how beyond me God is. As soon as we put God in a box, we have trapped something other than God. Most of us don't really believe that. It shows in how little we study. Why do people not study for a test? Because they think they already know the answers. God is not a test but we still think we know all the answers. My desire is that, I, and you, and everyone I meet realize how truly holy, holy, holy, this God is. One way I attempt to show this is by debunking our concentration on unnecessary rules.

Rejoicing in the Truth,
Jamey