There are some areas of life where understanding needs to precede action. When we visit a doctor or other medical professional, for example, we want them to understand what the situation is and what is needed before they take any action in prescribing medications or treatments. In cases like that, understanding obviously has to come before action. But in other areas of life we find situations where this “normal” way of things is reversed, and we simply have to act before we understand, counterintuitive as that may sound. Falling in love might be a good example – we have to experience love before we can really understand it. Following God’s instructions is often one of these situations. No amount of philosophizing can help us understand why it really is more blessed to give than to receive, for example – it is only when we do give that we begin to understand how we are blessed in giving. But it is easy to forget that sometimes action has to come before understanding. We may make the mistake of not acting on what we see in the word of God because we don’t understand why we should do or not do a certain thing.
Yet the Bible is very clear about the reality of “action before understanding” when applied to its teachings. Notice, for example, how David expressed this fact in the Psalms: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding” (Psalm 111:10). This is not saying that if you have good understanding you will follow God’s ways (though that is true, of course), but that following God’s instructions leads to understanding them. Another verse that makes this same point is found in the book of Exodus.
According to many translations, directly after God gave the Ten Commandments and other laws to ancient Israel the people said: “All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient” (Exodus 24:7 NKJV). But the Hebrew literally says “we will do and we will hear” or “we will do and we will understand.” Here again, as in many other instances, doing comes before “hearing” – action before understanding.
In the New Testament the principle is spelled out even more clearly. The Gospel of John records Jesus saying: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them” (John 14:21). This does not mean something esoteric and mystical – by “showing” himself to those who are obedient, Christ simply meant that they would come to understand and know him, just as we say “Ah! I see it now” when we come to understand something. But once again, the order is action before understanding.
In fact, this principle lies at the very heart of much of what the New Testament tells us. Compare these two very important verses in the book of Acts: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38); “And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit which God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:32).
Now the apostle Paul taught very clearly that: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:14). When we put these verses together we see that we cannot understand spiritual things until we receive the Spirit of God, and we have to act – to follow God’s instruction for repentance – before we can receive the Spirit. So action must come before full understanding even from the very beginning of the Christian life.
The important thing for us to remember is that this principle does not only apply to us as new Christians – it applies to us every time we see some new guidance in God’s word. The instruction may be clear as to what we must do, but we may only understand the guidance once we follow it – that is simply the way God often teaches us.
Many of the individuals mentioned in Hebrews’ great “Faith Hall of Fame” chapter (Hebrews 11) understood that faith means we must sometimes act before we understand – we must obey before we fully comprehend. These people seem to have learned a lesson we all must learn in the course of the Christian life: that faith often enables our obedience and our obedience often enables our understanding.
“In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1). “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
These two scriptures – Job 1:1 and Romans 3:23 – are loved by skeptics as they feel the two verses provide a “perfect” example of biblical contradiction. How, they ask, could Job be “blameless” (NIV, ESV, etc.) or “perfect” (as translated in the King James Version) – in other words, sinless – if, as Paul affirms, all have sinned?
Many Christians realize that when the New Testament uses the word “perfect” (as when Jesus tells his followers to “be perfect” – Matthew 5:48), the Greek word used means “mature” or “complete” (see “Does God Expect You to Be Perfect?” here). In the Old Testament a similar situation occurs. The Hebrew word tam translated in Job 1:1 as “blameless” or “perfect” (and again in Job 1:8, 2:3) has several shades of meaning. It comes from a root word meaning to be complete or finished (Genesis 47:18, Deuteronomy 31:24) and in a secondary sense to be morally sound or upright (Job 22:3, Psalm 18:26). Tam itself can be translated “complete,” “finished,” “blameless,” “innocent,” or “having integrity.” In Proverbs 29:10, for example, the word is used in the phrase “a person of integrity.”
This meaning – of having moral integrity or “uprightness” – that lies at the heart of what we are told in Job does not imply perfection as we might think of the word in modern English usage. In fact, the respected Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 1981) states categorically: “the words which are rendered in English by ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ [in the Hebrew Bible] denoted originally something other and less than ideal perfection.”
So although Job 1:1 records that Job was blameless, and in Job 1:8 and 2:3 God is said to have declared Job to be blameless, the Hebrew word translated “blameless” does not have to mean morally perfect and completely sinless. This can be seen in that the book itself shows Job’s failings. In 7:21 Job states “Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins?” and in 42:6 Job confirms his own sinfulness when he says: “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” When we take these facts into account, it is clear that being “blameless” or “perfect” before God in Job – and elsewhere in the Old Testament – means being morally upright, but it does not have to refer to some kind of sinless perfection.
Putting the scriptures together, then, there is no contradiction between what the Book of Job tells us and what Paul affirms in Romans. All humans, including Job, have sinned, as Paul stresses; but Job had attained a level of integrity or moral uprightness that God himself acknowledged as being remarkable – just as the Book of Job states.
“Posture: Noun. A. The position of the body in movement or at rest. B. A mental or spiritual attitude.”
Ever hear the expression “watch your posture!”? Health care professionals (and parents) know that posture affects a person’s health in many ways.
The Bible also has something to say about posture in a spiritual sense. We see this in the opening of the book of Psalms where David uses metaphorical language for specific types of wrong behavior from the perspective of our posture (which, as the dictionary definition above shows, can reflect our spiritual attitude as well as the position of our body):
“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers” (Psalm 1:1).
It’s easy to read over these words without thinking about the analogy David was making, but we see in this verse three different ways we can err in our lives. First, David speaks of the person who walks “in step with the wicked” or “in the way of the wicked,” as other translations word it. When we read the entirety of Psalms we see that this isn’t just a poetic way to say “does wrong” – it is a specific comment regarding those who choose to actively move toward or with what is wrong. It’s an expression based on a Hebrew way of thought that is found not only in the Psalms, but also in many other biblical books: “They rush to commit evil deeds” (Proverbs 1:16); “Feet that run rapidly to evil” (Proverbs 6:18); “Their feet run to evil” (Isaiah 59:7); etc. This is ultimate wrongdoing in that it encompasses a deliberate desire for evil.
Next, David speaks of those who “Stand in the way that sinners take.” By contrast with those who “run to evil,” such people do not necessarily desire to go in a wrong way. This is evident in the fact that they are not “walking” or “running” with evil, but they “stand” in that way in the sense that they do not remove themselves from it. This can apply to those who know better, but do not choose to avoid evil, or even feel trapped in its hold through the force of habit, addiction, or lack of resolve. In Ecclesiastes 8:3 we are warned not to “stand” in an evil situation, or to “stand up” for evil by supporting those who further it.
Finally, in this analogy David speaks of those who “sit in the company of mockers.” Being a “mocker” in the Hebrew Scriptures is often synonymous with being someone in rebellion against the way of God (Proverbs 29:8; Isaiah 29:20; etc.). In this case, we are not told of those who actively seek evil or who do not remove themselves from it, but who, perhaps in weakness of character, “sit” with those who do wrong – they passively participate in what is not right, because of peer pressure, work pressure, or whatever.
It’s a simple analogy, but David’s three “postures” of sin should remind us all that it is possible to fail by degree. We may not actively be seeking evil by “walking” or “running” after it, but are we still allowing ourselves to stand or “stay put” in wrongdoing, or to be influenced by those around us so that we “sit” with and do not truly separate ourselves from those we know influence us to do wrong?
The word of God gives us alternatives to these failing behaviors. In 2 John 1:6 we are told that “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands,” Philippians 4:1 tells us that we should “stand firm in the Lord in this way” and Revelation 3:21 states “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne.” The common denominator in all these positive spiritual “postures” is clearly that of obedience. Physical posture is important for physical health, but David’s point in laying out the three types of sin in his first psalm is that our spiritual posture is even more important for our spiritual health!
The subject of which Biblical laws apply today can be confusing for many Christians. This is because some claim a great many of the laws given to ancient Israel still apply today while others claim none of them do and that under the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-33) believers are only responsible for fulling the “law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2) or the “law of love” (Matthew 22:37-40; James 2:8).
To come to a sound biblical answer to this question we must first understand that the laws given to ancient Israel were of different types (Jeremiah 7:22-23; Hebrews 8:13):
1. The ritual or sacrificial laws. Of the more than 600 laws found in the Old Testament, the great majority are the ritual laws pertaining to the temple, its priesthood, and sacrifices (see Leviticus 16:18-19, for example). This is the easiest category to deal with as the New Testament unequivocally shows that these laws foreshadowed the work and death of Jesus Christ and were fulfilled by him as the ultimate sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-14).
That is why the apostle Paul draws a clear distinction between the ritual laws of the Old Testament and the spiritual or moral laws (see below) in verses such as this: “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts.” (1 Corinthians 7:19).
2. The civil or governmental laws. These laws were given for the civil administration of the physical nation of ancient Israel (see Deuteronomy 24:10-11, for example). The purpose of many of these laws was to provide an identity for Israel as the people of God and to separate them from the pagan nations around them. Because we do not live under the government of ancient Israel, these laws do not directly apply to us today. In fact, rather than being called to be separate from the nations, Christians are called to carry the gospel “into all the world” (Matthew 28:19). Yet the principles behind many of these laws can still be applied today in keeping ourselves separate from the sinful aspects of the societies in which we live (2 Corinthians 6:17) and in other ways.
For example, the Old Testament civil law states that the people of God were not to muzzle an ox, but must allow it to eat as it was used to thresh the grain (Deuteronomy 25:4). In the New Testament, Paul uses the principle behind this law to show that it is not wrong for a minister of the Gospel to be supported by the work he does. Here, and in other cases, Paul argues from an old civil law to a modern application of its principle.
3. The spiritual or moral laws. These are actually a minority of the laws of the Old Testament, yet they are the most important (see Exodus 20, for example). The Ten Commandments are particularly vital because they summarize the moral or spiritual laws given to Israel, and many scholars feel that there is clear biblical evidence of all ten commandments being understood before the nation of Israel came into existence. We certainly find them being followed in the later writings of the New Testament, which shows that they were not like the sacrificial or governmental laws pertaining to Israel alone and that they continued beyond the death of Christ (see Ephesians 6:1-2, for example). As a result, we can say that the spiritual or moral laws found in the Old Testament transcend time and space and are perfectly applicable today.
We may have heard that all we have to do as Christians is to love God and our fellow humans, but the spiritual or moral laws show us how we do that. That is why the apostle John (the “apostle of love” himself) tells us “this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,” (1 John 5:3).
Although the ritual laws of the Old Testament were fulfilled by Christ’s sacrifice, and the civil laws of Israel are no longer applicable because the church is not a separate physical nation, the basic moral laws of the Old Testament are clearly reflected in the New Testament (Romans 13:8-10; Colossians 3:5-10, etc.).
In many cases we can also learn valuable principles from the other types of laws found in the Old Testament – which is why Paul tells us that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16 NKJV). But Paul is equally clear in showing that the Christian should not become enslaved to laws that were fulfilled or no longer apply (Galatians 5:1-3).
So the Bible shows that the moral principles found in the Old Testament and reaffirmed in the New Testament are valid for us today and guide us in living out the new life to which God calls us (Galatians 5:16-26).
Isaiah’s statement “Learn to do right” is simple enough, but it deserves looking at. In the ancient Hebrew in which the words were written – just as in English – the word “learn” can connote learning a fact as we might do when we listen to a teacher or read a book. But, again just as in English, “learn” can also mean to become accustomed to something or to practice it – just as we might say we are “learning” to live with a situation or learning to drive a car.
We learn by doing as much as we learn by listening, and it is context that usually tells us whether the word learn means to learn a fact by studying or to learn a skill by doing. We see this dual usage of the word throughout the Bible, but in verses such as Isaiah 1:17 the word clearly means to learn a skill. We see this in the words directly following Isaiah’s statement where he gives examples of learning to do right or good:
“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17).
All these examples of “learning to do right” represent not facts to be learned but things that must be done – they must be practiced in order to be learned. Look at a couple of further examples of this same biblical word for “learn” translated in other ways:
“He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze” (2 Samuel 22:35).
“… men ready for military service – able-bodied men who could handle shield and sword, who could use a bow, and who were trained for battle” (1Chronicles 5:18).
In these examples, forms of the same word translated “learn” in Isaiah 1:17 are translated to show the military training people received – obviously through training exercises rather than through book-learning!
This is an important principle to grasp if we are to properly understand much of what is written in the Old Testament. When scriptures say things such as “learn my laws” or “learn my statutes,” they invariably mean that we must learn facts or principles through study or listening. But when the Old Testament scriptures say we must “learn to do right” or “learn to do good,” it means learning through doing and practice.
The principle is just as true in the New Testament. When Jesus commanded his followers: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…” (Matthew 11:29), he meant that we would learn by doing – by wearing the yoke as an ox might do to plow a field or pull a load. This helps us to better understand the stinging rebuke Jesus gave to the Pharisees when he told them: “…go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13). In telling the hypocritical religionists of his day to learn what a scripture meant, Jesus implied not that they learn its meaning from a book, but that they learn its meaning by doing it.
Although the distinction between learning by studying and learning by doing may seem like a simple one, it is vitally important. In the modern world we are so used to the concept of learning being an academic one – usually relating to learning facts – that we sometimes forget that is not what the Bible is telling us to do when it comes to learning what is right. The Bible makes it clear that although we may learn its principles through study – and that is a necessary part of spiritual learning, of course – we truly learn to do right or good by doing it, through practice and continued action.
That truth underlies much of what is written for our instruction. It is the basis of what the apostle Paul wrote to Titus: “Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives” (Titus 3:14, emphasis added).
Learning to do good is a skill, not just a fact. Our response to the command to learn to do right begins in our study of God’s word, but only finds fulfillment in practicing God’s way.
“A superior pilot is best defined as one who uses his superior judgment to avoid situations requiring the use of his superior skill.” – Frank Borman II, fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut.
Astronaut and pilot Frank Borman touched on a number of truths with his wryly worded comment. In everyday life, for those of us who may not be pilots, it is better to use the knowledge and experience we have gained to avoid difficult situations rather than having to use “emergency” techniques and tactics to extricate ourselves from them (Proverbs 22:3). In this sense, Colonel Borman’s words are just as true for us as Christians metaphorically “flying” through the life we are given as they are regarding actual physical flight.
His comment also suggests another point that we can relate to. The successful pilot would have neither superior judgment nor superior skill if it were not for training – learning the laws of aerodynamics and how to fly by them. As Christians we are given guidance in the word of God on how to live, and this training is what enables us to utilize both judgment and skill in navigating the potential problems of life. Sadly, however, many Christians come in contact with and accept an attitude that treats many of the principles of living given in the Bible as laws that are outdated, irrelevant or no longer in force.
Fortunately, flight schools do not teach their students that the laws of aerodynamics are outdated, irrelevant or done away; yet many Christians feel they can still be “good” people without paying attention to biblical commands. Radio personality and author Dennis Prager has a good take on this: “Telling people to be good without giving them specific directions on how to be good is as useless as telling a person, ‘Be a good pilot,’ without giving the person flying lessons” (The Rational Bible: Exodus, p. 222).
Almost two thousand years ago, the apostle John touched on this truth (and the one verbalized by Colonel Borman) when he wrote: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us” (1 John 3:23). John makes it clear in these words that we do need commands, laws, and principles to guide us in life and that the commands God gives us enable our right belief (“superior judgment”) and right behavior (“superior skill”).
The truth is, we do need to follow commands and laws – not just be “nice people” – if we are to be trained in righteousness. Paul alludes to this fact in his famous instruction to Timothy: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). It is only through seeing the right way to do things as outlined in the principles of God’s word that we can be rebuked, corrected, and properly trained. As Paul wrote, the Christian’s training comes through use of the word of God – which we might well say functions as a “life simulator” in the same way a pilot is trained by use of a flight simulator. If we attempt to disregard the principles and commands the Bible holds, we lose the opportunity to learn superior judgment and skill that can protect us from unwanted consequences in life. This is not an attitude of “seeking law rather than seeking love,” as the apostle John made clear when he wrote: “In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
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