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[Yummy Yummy]

> Then I have miscommunicated.

No, I think I simply misunderstood you. Thanks for re-explaining it.

> It seemed he/she was assuming that we had two choices: metaphor or literal.

The way I understand the OP is for any valid comprehension of, say, a particular verse, how do we determine whether that comprehension is intended to be literal or metaphorical? For example, there are many miracles or supernatural events portrayed in the Bible. Most non-literalists would agree that those events did not actually occur within our reality. Well, how did they decide that?

[jimwalton]

Thinking people will always (or at least often) disagree. It's the wonder of the human brain. I happen to be convinced that the miraculous events are necessary to theology. They are how God authenticates his message. Without the miraculous, all is subjective. With the miraculous, we have objective and verifiable (for the people who saw them) substantiation of the alleged message of God, which is now no longer alleged, but confirmed. To claim that miracles didn't actually occur in reality is to remove God's revelation from the planet.

[Yoo halloo]

> there is no hint in the NT that witches should be executed.

Matthew 5:17 - "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Matthew 5:18 - ”For truly I tell you, 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.”

[jimwalton]

Thank you for these texts. The law that Christ fulfilled was the law in general, not just part of it. He fulfilled it in that he did what the law failed to do: showed people how to live. The law was a temporary measure—God wanted to tell his people that they should have certain attitudes. God did that by commanding actions (the Law) with the idea that they would see the attitudes behind them. They failed. Christ, on the other hand, preached the attitudes (Mt. 5), but more importantly lived an example of the proper attitudes (Phil. 2.5-8) as well as the proper actions (Jn. 8.46), thus accomplishing what the law failed to accomplish. So the rule of thumb now is that we follow Christ's example. We can, in that sense, ignore the law (all of it), because if we follow Christ's example, we'll get the actions of the law and the attitudes of the heart. But we don't do them because of the law; we do them because that is what godly attitudes bring about. So all of the law was fulfilled in Jesus, and our behavior now is not based at all on the law, but on Jesus' example (Rom. 13.8-10). The coinciding with many points of the law is to be expected, but we are not living by even that section of Law.

The Law is still there, but it has been superseded. Picture a volcano on a barren plain. It is the law. From wherever the people are on the plain they can look to the law for direction. It stands awesome and ominous.

When Jesus came two things happened. First of all, the volcano erupted and grew into a mountain that completely engulfed and dwarfed the original. This mountain is Jesus. Second, the land, instead of being barren and sterile began, to bear fruit. Now we, rather than living in a wilderness, live in a well-watered garden land, and when we need direction we look to Jesus, and not to the law at all. The law is still there, but we don’t see it. It has been fulfilled. Now we look to Jesus, and him alone. The law is void; Christ is the standard.

Therefore we look at the OT teachings, but don't govern our lives by them. The NT still condemns witchcraft, but it's not a capital crime any more. The Law has been fulfilled; Jesus is the standard; witchcraft is sinful.

[Yoo halloo]

> God did that by commanding actions (the Law) with the idea that they would see the attitudes behind them. They failed.

Isn't God supposed to be omniscient? If so, he should have known the Law won't work, even before creating the universe...

[jimwalton]

God often works by processes. He is enacting his plan of salvation in the course of history, not all at once. He reveals himself one element at a time, not all at once. Jesus came in the fullness of time, not when Adam & Eve were in the Garden.

The Law had its place and its purpose. It was designed and implemented for a specific era and to accomplish a specific end. He knew that it would accomplish what it was put in place to do, but also that further and more complete revelation would be required. It's all part of a process. Having a plan that unfolds and is implemented in stages doesn't mean he's not omniscient.

[You may worship me]

I want to preface this by saying that for the most part, I agree with what you've written about how the Bible isn't a monolith, and how we look for clues of authorial intent to determine how specific passages should be interpreted.

This, however: "We can assume that the rule had its place in the days of the OT (preserving the young community from such dangerous influences), but by the days of the NT their understanding of the rules had changed," ...is the kind of maneuver that leads non-Christians to think you're making it all up as you go along.

The Bible speaks about witches in both the OT and NT. In the OT, the command to kill them is explicit. In the NT, their actions are condemned and the question of their punishment is not addressed. I don't think silence is an adequate substitute, in a textual-interpretive sense, for: "Hey guys, I changed my mind about the whole killing witches thing. No need to do that anymore."

You could invoke the general notion of Jesus saying that vengeance is the Lord's, but there's an interpretive canon by which the specific controls over the general and I think a standard application of that canon renders the witch-specific passages authoritative on the question of how to treat witches.

In essence, I'm agreeing with what another said: "In this case, I was taken by the somewhat serious schism that modern Christians often apply between the OT and NT. They rather freely drop whatever old law they find uncomfortable while keeping the ones they still like. This seems like yet another creative example of that tendency."

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the comment. I can see how it could be taken that way, but the idea that the NT changed the way we read and follow the OT is fairly obvious. Jesus spoke in terms of doing away with old wineskins, of fulfilling the Law, and of ushering in a new kingdom complete with a new manifesto (The Sermon on the Mount), where the sacrificial system, the food regulations, and even the Law itself (the 10 Commandments, rules about the Sabbath, and even the priesthood and the Temple) would no longer be binding. From now on, so goes the prophecy, the Law would be written on the heart, everyone would be priests, the people of God together were the Temple, the sacrifice had already been made, redemption was by faith and not the law, and salvation was by grace, not works. In the process, as is clear, there is no longer capital punishment for working on the Sabbath, for adultery, for homosexuality, or for witchcraft. It's not so much that God changed his mind, but that some laws should always stand on the books while others should come and go with certain eras. Hopefully laws about murder will always be on the books, but by the same token laws about computer hacking and computer espionage, etc., are in flux and subject to change.

In the OT, many capital crimes are listed. In the NT, we seem several of those same behaviors not being brought to execution. Witchcraft is one of them. We see witchcraft in the NT, and we read of God's continuing disapproval of it, but no notion of it being a capital offense. It's not a matter of dropping what we find uncomfortable or what we want to drop while keeping the ones we still like, but following the teaching of Scripture wherever it leads us.

[Not a dude]

And what was the purpose of the temporary commandment? Also how does one tell what does and doesn't count anymore?

[jimwalton]

The purpose of the Law was to point to Jesus and to lead us there (Gal. 3.24). Now that Jesus has come, the Law has fulfilled its purpose.

The purpose of the Law was also to show us what sin is (Romans 5.20).

We are not to think that the Law is bad, or that is was good for nothing. The Law came from a good source and had good things to accomplish. It had its place, and it did was it was designed to do. And, as Galatians 3.25 says, "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the Law."

> Also how does one tell what does and doesn't count anymore?

The law that Christ fulfilled was the law in general, not just part of it. He fulfilled it in that he did what the law failed to do: showed people how to live. The law was a temporary measure—God wanted to tell his people that they should have certain attitudes. God did that by commanding actions (the Law) with the idea that they would see the attitudes behind them. They failed. Christ, on the other hand, preached the attitudes (Mt. 5), but more importantly lived an example of the proper attitudes (Phil. 2.5-8) as well as the proper actions (Jn. 8.46), thus accomplishing what the law failed to accomplish. So the rule of thumb now is that we follow Christ's example. We can, in that sense, ignore the law (all of it), because if we follow Christ's example, we'll get the actions of the law and the attitudes of the heart. But we don't do them because of the law; we do them because that is what godly attitudes bring about. So all of the law was fulfilled in Jesus, and our behavior now is not based at all on the law, but on Jesus' example (Rom. 13.8-10). The coinciding with many points of the law is to be expected, but we are not living by even that section of Law.

The Law is still there, but it has been superseded. Picture a volcano on a barren plain. It is the law. From wherever the people are on the plain they can look to the law for direction. It stands awesome and ominous.

When Jesus came two things happened. First of all, the volcano erupted and grew into a mountain that completely engulfed and dwarfed the original. This mountain is Jesus. Second, the land, instead of being barren and sterile began, to bear fruit. Now we, rather than living in a wilderness, live in a well-watered garden land, and when we need direction we look to Jesus, and not to the law at all. The law is still there, but we don’t see it. It has been fulfilled. Now we look to Jesus, and him alone. The law is void; Christ is the standard.

Therefore we look at the OT teachings, but don't govern our lives by them.