One of the most important ideas emphasized in the New Testament is the concept of the “spirit of the law” – the idea that we must keep the deeper meaning or intent of a law, not just its literal “letter of the law” application. The example that comes immediately to mind, of course, is that of Christ’s words regarding the commandment forbidding adultery: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27–28).
We all know this example, and recognize its importance, but we may not have taken the time to work through the other nine commandments and to systematically think out in each case what the spirit of the law – what some call its extended application – might involve in our Christian lives. In this article we look briefly at each commandment in terms of how we are to keep its spirit and intent.
1. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Jesus showed us the intent of this law when he said “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (Matthew 22:37–38). This shows us that this law is not just about worship, but also about whom we love above all – do we love ourselves, others, or God first?
2. “You shall not make idols.” Where the first commandment tells us to worship the right God, the second commandment tells us to worship God the right way. In its intent, this law tells us that anything – even an aspect of our religion – can become an idol if we let it come between us and God.
3. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.” We usually think of this law as applying to what we say – as in using God’s name inappropriately (Leviticus 24:16; etc.), but the word vain (as it is rendered in the KJV, ESV, etc.) can also mean “worthless,” or “to make of no value.” Thus, the Old Testament tells us that people “profaned God’s name” who touched the holy things (Leviticus 22:2), offered sub-standard offerings to God (Malachi 1:10–14), or even sacrificed their children to Molech (Leviticus 18:21). The spirit of this law covers anything we might do that devalues God.
4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” The spirit of this commandment is that we must honor God with our time. Jesus went out of his way to heal on the Sabbath Day (Mark 3:1–6; etc.), showing the rest God calls us to is not just about what we don’t do, but also about what we do.
5. “Honor your father and your mother.” The spirit of this commandment does not involve anything substantially different from its basic meaning – rather the difference is one of extent. It is easy to think of the command applying to children, but the Bible shows that its ongoing application should be something we do throughout our lives – as long as our parents live and even beyond – continuing to respect their memory.
6. “You shall not murder.” Jesus showed us the spiritual application of this commandment by emphasizing that we must not break it by letting anger control us: “You have heard that it was said … ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21).
7. “You shall not commit adultery.” We already mentioned the spiritual application of this law in Jesus’ saying that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Clearly, the spirit of this law applies to pornography and anything that is lust-inciting.
8. “You shall not steal.” The indirect or spiritual extent of this law involves not just taking something that is not ours, but also not paying what we should – whether that is not paying taxes we should pay or withholding any form of payment that is due to others. “Indeed the wages of the laborers … which you kept back by fraud, cry out” (James 5:4).
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Anything that willfully or carelessly deceives others is breaking the spirit of this commandment. So the spirit of this law forbids not only exaggeration and lying, but also slander (Matthew 15:19; etc.), gossip (Psalm 15:3; etc.), and even flattery (Romans 16:18; etc.).
10. “You shall not covet.” This final commandment may seem as though it is already stated at the spiritual level and that is true to an extent. But there is also an indirect aspect to the law – we can covet not only by wanting something that is not right for us to want, but also by not wanting to give up what we ourselves have. When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life, Jesus listed all the commandments pertaining to love of our neighbor – except coveting. Then when the man said he had kept these laws, Jesus replied “go, sell all that you have and give to the poor” (Mark 10:21). Jesus recognized that the individual still coveted in being unwilling to give up what he had.
Ultimately, when Jesus said that love of God and others is the fulfilling of the law (Matthew 22:36–40) he was summarizing the spirit of the law. But thinking a little on how we apply love to God and others by keeping the spirit of the individual laws can help us fulfill their broader goal. And this is far from just a theological exercise. While we tend to judge ourselves by the letter of the law, the Bible makes it clear (Matthew 5:21; etc.) that God judges us not just by the letter, but also by the perfect spirit of the law.
Not all prayer is asking for something, but a great deal of it obviously is. When we do ask, do we pray mainly for our own physical and spiritual needs and concerns? There is no doubt that it is acceptable to pray for these things – we have Christ’s encouragement to do so – but that is only part of the picture we find in the words of Jesus and in the New Testament as a whole.
Jesus certainly commanded us to pray about our own needs. “Give us this day our daily bread” lies at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:11), but we should never forget that all the petitions in that guide to prayer are for the needs of others – “us” – as well as our own.
Asking in Acts
If we continue in the New Testament and look at the Book of Acts, we find something very interesting. Acts continually speaks of prayer in the Church, but if we set aside the scriptures that simply tell us that the early church members prayed and we look only at verses telling us what the early believers were praying, in most translations we find only two verses in that book showing people praying for their own situations and twelve verses showing believers praying for the needs and welfare of others. This means that of the recorded prayers in Acts, some 83% are prayers on behalf of others rather than prayers for the individual who was offering the prayer.
If we have not thought about this topic before, the statistic may seem unexpected. Perhaps we would expect the ratio to be about 50/50 – prayer for others just as much as for ourselves. But the 83% prayer for others we find in Acts is a powerful statement of another way of looking at prayer – and the Book of Acts is not alone in taking this view.
Paul and Prayer
When we look at the writings of the apostle Paul, we find the principle corroborated. Paul speaks of prayer some 50 times in his epistles. Apart from non-specific examples, when we look at the nature of the prayers Paul mentions we find only three instances of praying for one’s own needs. Seven times Paul speaks of praying generally; but in some 40 of the 50 instances (80%) where he mentions specific things being prayed about, we find him speaking of praying for others or urging people to do likewise. For example, Paul tells us that he and his fellow workers prayed constantly for the spiritual needs of others:
“Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12).
And he urged others to continually do the same:
“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should” (Ephesians 6:18-20, etc.).
So the pattern we found in Acts where we are told what people were praying for is repeated in the epistles of Paul where he so frequently tells what we should be praying for. These facts should speak to us. It is not a matter of attempting to establish Christian practice through statistics. It is simply acknowledging that of the prayers recorded and commanded in the New Testament Church, the great majority – somewhere around 80% – are prayers for others.
Applying a Principle
That’s why we can think of this fact as the 80% principle of what we ask for in prayer. It’s an estimated number with no claim to being correct to the third decimal place, but it’s a rounded number with a clear message. The 80% principle does not mean we should not pray for our own needs – and in some circumstances, of course, our own needs may be urgent and take full precedence in our thoughts. But the 80% principle opens a window for us to see how the early Church saw prayer, how Paul encouraged us to pray, and it gives added meaning to Jesus’ words that we pray for “us” in the plural. We certainly don’t need to feel constrained to structure our prayers to a certain percentage in a certain way, but if we are growing more and more like the One to whom we are praying, the chances are that our prayers will become increasingly full of the needs of others and reflect our concern for them. If our prayers are growing in that direction and we begin to see the needs of others as usually greater than our own needs, we can trust that God will be pleased with our prayers – perhaps 100% pleased.
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).
There are two ways we can respond to the trials that invariably affect all of us as we go through life. We can resent them and remain forever damaged by them, or we can come out from under them and even be renewed by them. The Japanese art of kintsukuroi (“golden repair”) or kintsugi (“golden joinery”) provides a physical illustration of that choice.
According to legend, the art commenced when the Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a cracked precious Chinese tea bowl back to China to be repaired. Upon its return, the ruler was displeased to find that it had been mended by means of unsightly metal staples. Japanese craftsmen working for the shogun sought to find an alternative and more pleasing method of repair, and the art or craft of kintsukuroi was born.
Kintsukuroi means “golden repair” because the art restores broken pottery with resin mixed with powdered gold or silver so that instead of attempting to camouflage the break lines they are actually accentuated – being enhanced and beautified by the precious repair material. Thus, kintsukuroi celebrates imperfections as a valid and important aspect of damaged objects – something to be understood as part of their history rather than something to be disguised. In this way, objects that have suffered damage become not less, but more beautiful and more imbued with character.
At the spiritual level, we all have the opportunity to look at the damage we accrue, the “hits” we take in life, in the same way. We can look at them only in terms of the spiritual scars and damage done, or we can look at the trials we go through as part of a process of re-creation in which the end result is better than the original state. That is why the apostle Peter wrote: “you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6–7). Peter’s reference speaks of something far above the kintsukuroi application of gold to purely physical things, and while the process of remaking may be similar, the formative trials we endure lead to something of far greater value.
That is why the apostle James similarly wrote: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4). In fact, the word “complete” that James uses in this passage is the Greek holoklēros which means complete in all its parts and without damage or defect – like a perfectly repaired vessel that is improved by the process of repair.
In the same way, although God allows us to undergo trials in this life that may seem destructive in the short term, in the long term the master potter who formed us (Isaiah 64:8) is also the master of the golden repair. That is why we can rejoice – not in the trials that come on us, but on their outcome if we choose to let God work with and in us. And that is why, if we choose to do so, we can always say with the apostle Paul “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).
For Many Christians, the concepts of justice and love sum up the major thrusts of the Old Testament and New Testament respectively. But this view misses a great deal of truth in both parts of the Bible.
Starting with simple word counts (using the NIV as a basis), the word “justice” occurs 115 times in the Old Testament and only 15 times in the New. But there are far more books in the Old Testament than the New, of course, and when we look at the average occurrences in the individual books, we find the frequency of the word justice is actually about the same in both Testaments.
When we look at the word love, we find the same thing. The Old Testament mentions love a surprising 425 times, and the New Testament mentions the same concept 261 times. But once again, when we check the averages, we find they are essentially the same – the word love occurs with about the same frequency in the books of the Old Testament and New Testament.
But there is more to this. Looking at simple word counts only gives us part of the picture. First, there are OT verses that clearly show the equivalent importance of both justice and love. David, for example, wrote “I will sing of your love and justice” (Psalm 101:1), and Hosea urges us to “maintain love and justice” (Hosea 12:6).
We may be familiar with such verses, but when we read the Old Testament carefully, we find something surprising. In many places in the Pentateuch, laws regarding justice are clearly alternated with laws regarding love. We find this, for example, in Exodus 23:1-9 as we see below – where the laws regarding justice are in normal type and those regarding love are in italic type:
“Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness. “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.
“If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.
“Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.“Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.
“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.“
When we consider the numerical frequency of the words justice and love that we looked at in the beginning of this article, and we add the frequent alternation of laws of justice with laws of love in the Old Testament, we realize that to characterize the Old Testament as the testament of “justice,” as opposed to the New Testament of “love” is a complete misunderstanding. Both the Old and New Testaments stress the important of justice and love.
Both the Old and New Testaments show that God is a God of justice and love. For example, in the Old Testament we read “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” (Psalm 89:14), and in the New Testament we read both that “God is love” (1 John 4:8; 4:16) and “Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments” (Revelation 16:7; 19:2). Verses such as these show that the two cannot be separated – true justice involves love and true love involves justice.
The application of this fact for us as Christians is to look at our own lives and to consider if they reflect the godly qualities of both justice and love.
What one thing do you think almost all the men and women mentioned in the Bible as faithful followers of God had in common? The answer – apart from the obvious one of their righteousness – was that they all are said to have had to wait. We may not always think about this aspect of the lives of the spiritual “Hall of Fame” greats, but it is the one consistent trait of their stories.
Abraham and his wife Sarah waited for a son – God let them wait for twenty-five years until their waiting was eventually rewarded (Genesis 21:5). The same is true, of course, of Abraham’s waiting to inherit the land God promised him. Although he only received a small portion of it in his lifetime (Genesis 23:17-20), he was willing to wait faithfully for the fulfillment of the promise.
The patriarchs descended from Abraham waited in the same way. Isaac waited twenty years for a son (Genesis 25:20), Jacob waited fourteen years for a wife (Genesis 29:18-30), and Joseph waited thirteen years – some of them in prison – before God brought him to the position of greatness he had promised him.
Moses waited forty long years in the wilderness before seeing the land God had promised. Joshua and Caleb waited in the wilderness, too, and then during the years of struggle before the promised land was finally taken.
David was anointed king years before he became king, but waited patiently till God brought his destiny about. In fact, David speaks often in his psalms about waiting – for example “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits … my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:5-6 ESV).
We see many of the prophets of Israel and Judah having to wait – sometimes even to hear God’s message (Jeremiah 42:7, etc.). The prophet Habakkuk was told regarding God’s vision for him “If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed” (Habakkuk 2:3 NLT).
And we find many others who had to wait. The patriarch Job waited under great suffering till God healed and restored him (Job 7:3), and Noah, Daniel and other heroes of the Old Testament are all said to have waited.
In the New Testament, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, had to wait till she was old to have a child. Simeon and Anna are said to have waited years to see the Messiah. Jesus himself had to wait some thirty years to begin his mission of salvation – and had actually waited for untold time since its planning (Revelation 13:8). The disciples were told to wait in Jerusalem before they could begin their Spirit-empowered ministry (Acts 1:4); Paul had to wait many times in his ministry (Acts 28:30; etc.); and you and I are told to “Wait patiently for the LORD … Yes, wait patiently for the LORD” (Psalm 27:14 NLT).
In our own lives we may have to wait for things we need and for things we long for – perhaps we are waiting for work, or for a husband or wife, or for needed healing, or something else. It can be hard to continue to wait, especially when what we hope for seems nowhere in sight, but we should remember that we are not alone in our waiting. God lets us all wait for something and rewards us when we seek him first and continue to trust him. As Jeremiah proclaimed: “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him” (Lamentations 3:25 ESV).
We may have to wait, but we should never give up the trusting expectancy God desires us to have. Just because a needed answer has not come yet, we should also not give up on praying for it. Jesus gave several parables to teach this, telling his disciples “that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1-8 NIV).
Above all, we need never doubt that while we wait, God works with us in mind – and he works to make things worth our waiting. As the prophet Isaiah learned and confirmed for us, God is a God “who acts for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4 ESV).
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