You can sit through a year’s worth of sermons and not be taught any law. Perhaps longer, as the law, if taught at all, is not taught correctly where I’ve attended for many years. It is also not taught correctly in many, many other congregations from what I’ve witnessed on television and trips to other churches.

We are told where I attend that we are under the law of Jesus and the New Testament. This is true, but their understanding of the law is flawed and their discernment limited.

What is the law of Jesus?

Jesus said it repeatedly. Keep my Father’s will. To get an understanding of the Father’s will, which includes the law, we must not exclude the Old Testament. When asked by one man which commandments we should keep, Jesus listed off 5 or 6. Matthew 19:17-19. It would have been nice if he had listed all ten in these oft cited verses, but all ten are covered in the New Testament. Not 6. Not 7. Not 8. Not 9, but 10. The Ten Commandments can be found in Exodus 20 and through doctrine taught in the New Testament.

There is an argument as to when the Church began. We are told that a Testament takes effect when the Testator dies. However, we cannot throw out the body of work – the Testament – at Acts. The Testament includes the four gospels where Jesus taught we should keep the commandments.

Can we then say that the Mosaic law is dead or the Old Testament shouldn’t be followed?

It’s alive in those that keep it.

One significant change in the New Testament was in dietary law. Peter’s dream opening salvation to the Gentiles made the unclean or common clean. Paul affirms this when saying all things eaten with thanksgiving to the Lord are clean – keep in mind this yet excludes food sacrificed to idols.

If God asked them to do something then – it’s wise for us to also do it now. Jesus brought us mercy and truth. What mercy and truth did he bring us? It is better to be merciful than to demand an eye for an eye. It is better to turn the other cheek than to strike back. It is okay to do good on the Sabbath. These among many things. He brought us a better understanding of the law and the Father’s will, he did not abolish it.

Matthew 5:17 KJV Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.