I was listening to the Bible on my way to work and I just finished listening to Exodus chapter 23. This chapter along with others in the Old Testament have extensive lists of what the Israelites need to do and what they don’t need to do.

So it made me think, why so extensive, why so specific, why make it so confusing? Now days based on the New Testament, we have a hard enough time doing the simple commandments. Jesus lays it out nicely for us…

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40

Now we can all agree that the same God that gave these commandments to the Israelites and who gave them to us in the New Testament are the same…and also God doesn’t change.

God fulfilled the law according to Matthew 5:17. He came to fulfill it, and to me that means make it new…make it better. The people whom were around when Jesus walked the earth and to our current time frame have a much wider understanding of the Bible than did the Israelites. But the true change was brought about with Christs’ death, burial, and resurrection!

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1-4

So even though things may seem slightly different, and they are, the depth and reason behind it all are still there, they are still the same. Why do we do what we do…because of LOVE. If we love God, we will keep His commandments.