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I really struggle to understand what Paul says on us being free from the law of Moses and that God’s law is now written on our heart seemingly for us to work out for ourselves. Then at the same time it still seems like we should follow certain Old Testament laws. What’s your understanding of this? So my understanding of this is that you know, if you read if you read Saint Paul, Saint Paul is very difficult to read, you know, but if you read Saint Paul, he’ll say things, you know, like we’re we’re we are above the law, you know, we’ve been freed from the law the law in our hearts and then he’ll ask well, does that mean that we should break the law and he says by no mean we shouldn’t break the law, right? We should follow the law. And so what is going on there? The the idea is that as you enter into Christ as you Let’s say, you know, it’s the same as when Saint Paul says, you know in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew there’s neither man or woman there’s neither slave nor free, you know, and you think he’s like, okay, I guess but then Paul turns around and he says slaves obey your master, you know, he says, uh, you know, uh women submit to your husbands. He says submit to one another to your authority as to as to God himself and so it’s like you know what’s going on and so the idea is that Think of it as Think of it as the mountain, you know, it’s like you you ascend the mountain you enter into the heart all that imagery and then you reach the point of the divine logos in you you reach the holy of holies you go beyond the veils of the heart, however Expression that the mystics use and then when you reach that place you find this spark that is Contains in it everything and therefore is beyond the specifics of the law is beyond the the the The multiplicity of the law it’s like it’s as if the law is kind of taken into this one place And you see christ tried to do that even when he’s speaking to try to show that space to you when he says things like, you know all the law and the prophet is In his result is resorbed in you know, uh love love love Love your god and your neighbor as yourself And so it’s like he’s trying to show you how all the law kind of if you have love then you have all the law And so but the the problem is that when you go back down the mountain It doesn’t mean that the law doesn’t reappear or that certain things don’t reappear I don’t know if that makes sense. And so and so A good question a good question a good way to see it is this it’s like If i’m in the heart and I and let’s say i’m in christ then If I if i’m driving down the street and I see somebody who wants to cross then i’ll stop and i’ll let them cross in front Of me and it’s like, you know, i’m doing it out of the love of christ in in me but if But it still means that there might be a rule which says that if you come to a crosswalk and the person Is in front of you. You have to stop to let them pass. So those two things are not contradictory It’s just that one is like this outer expression of what you should be able to find in your heart in terms of something which is is beyond the multiplicity of just legal prescriptions Um, so that’s how I see it. I hope this might I hope that makes sense It’s as if one of the things that christ does is he’s constantly Showing the logos of things he’s constantly pointing to the meaning pointing to the purpose You know, it’s like he says these laws these laws that you’re doing. Do you know the purpose of them? Do you understand that you know you pay the tithe to this and to that but the fact that you’re not helping your neighbor Means that you don’t understand the purpose of the law don’t understand. What is this is aiming to And so he wants to realign the law. We talked about that before today He wants the outer performance to match the inner purpose. That’s what christ is doing Um, and so there’s there’s a kind of transformation of the law which happens in christ interestingly enough sometimes there’s a flips sometimes it there’s a weird kind of like uh, A flip but maybe i’ll make a video about that one day about how there’s some laws that flip when christ comes Why does christianity find it unnecessary to follow certain laws from the old testament? In a certain manner you would almost have to look at All the laws and each law and kind of look at why some laws are followed and why some laws aren’t there is a sense in christianity that the law has been Resolved has been let’s say Has been brought together in christ and so all the laws of the old testament find their resolution in the person of christ and so That has an effect on the law so for example one of the so for example one of the things that I often tell people is The the The law about not making grave inimities for example is resolved in christ Because christ is the image of god and so we are given an image and so in that way the the resolution of the law happens in the person of christ and it actually kind of flips the law because We are given an image and then in that image we celebrate the image that god has given us And we celebrate the fact that we all participate in that image by that by becoming the children of the new atom So That’s a way in which the law is still there. It’s not gone, but it has it’s kind of brought into christ There are there are other laws for example the sabbath where We also understand to a certain extent the death of christ as the resolution of the sabbath And so we see if you look at the paschal Um, if you look at the paschal hymns you have this whole sense that that the the day that christ is in the tomb Is the the true sabbath that it is the resolution of the sabbath for example, right that it is the Holy sabbath and as christians We are asked to live in the eighth day In the the the bringing together of the end in the beginning the day of the resurrection At the day after the cycle but which is also the beginning of a new eternal cycle And so and so it’s not as it’s not that the sabbath isn’t there anymore It’s that it has been brought into christ and so you see that in a lot of the different laws now I’m not going to go into all the different laws uh Some of the more technical laws Um those that are more to do with kind of ritual purity and all these things are also not Followed as much because We are not Jews Like we we are the strangers We are the we are the the impure that have been brought into christ and made pure to christ And so we are not asked to be circumcised, right? We are not asked to participate in the circumcision Uh rituals and so those circumcision rituals have all I call them circumcision rituals, but you could just call them rituals of purity the idea of not mixing different things the idea of You know or the idea that you can’t eat certain foods that certain foods are impure You know you have this this moment in the the acts of the apostle where Saint peter is dreaming and he sees the cloth sees this cloth come from the heavens And it unfolds in front of him and on the cloth is all kinds of pure and impure meats And he hears the voice which says eat and saint peter says I can’t eat that food I i’m a jew i’ve i’ve always followed the law. I can’t I can’t eat these impure meats And he hears again, you know, it happens again. He has a vision I think three times and by the third time he decides to eat and that becomes an image of how now the outsiders the the Those who are not jewish are meant to come together into the same space as the the the jews and so That also implies that we are allowed to eat also different meats that we don’t have to eat The just the meats that are kosher for example So that is usually the argument which is given In or in in terms of the law, but the law is still very useful It’s very useful to study the law. It is very useful to understand The different laws I always like to go into the strangest laws and try to show how they are extremely meaningful And how they actually point towards uh christ You