The other day I received a very good Bible question that I thought might be prudent to share, along with the answer…
Hey Matthew, how exactly are we to tell the difference between a civil/ceremonial law (i.e. head coverings in Corinth) and moral laws? It seems like most of them are obvious, but I never thought to wonder if there was an actual standard. The Ten Commandments are always viewed as moral laws but ‘obey the sabbath’ was never re-mentioned by Jesus after his fulfillment (unlike the rest of the Ten Commandments). Is honoring the sabbath a civil or moral law and should it be followed today? Those are two separate questions obviously but I think you can make the connection to answer them both appropriately
My answer to the querist was this (and it’s only now that I go back and look over the text message that I realize my answer didn’t cover every aspect of his question, so I’ll probably revisit this topic later)…
Alright so as you say, you have two different questions here, because the head covering issue isn’t related to, say, the ten commandments.
The ten commandments weren’t really moral laws. I mean, some commands are moral in nature, sure. “Don’t kill” is a moral law, but “keep the sabbath” isn’t moral, per se, yet both are equally upheld by Israel throughout the OT (or, at least, were supposed to be).
Jesus may not have talked about the sabbath very much (though He does talk about it), but He certainly observed it. He didn’t necessarily observe it the way the Pharisees wanted him to, but that was their problem, not His. Jesus doesn’t have to mention or re-mention a commandment to give it any validity. The ten commandments were just the first ten out of 600+ commandments, all of which were commanded to Israel by God.
I think some brethren have the idea that Jesus did away with like 604 of the commands of Israel and just kept the nine or so that He ported over into Christianity, but that’s a big oversimplification.
Christianity isn’t like Israel, because we don’t have a long list of laws that decide when or how we are faithful. Christianity is a liberating religion, free from that sort of thing. Instead, Christianity is about upholding a basic principle: “Do all in the name of the Lord” (Colossians 3:17). Whatever you do, do it for Jesus. In that case, of course you won’t kill, steal, disrespect your parents, etc. But with that new principle means leaving behind a bunch of old commandments. Do we have to abstain from pork, or avoid mixing meat and milk, or avoid work on Saturday? No, because Christianity doesn’t have specific prohibitions like that. There ARE some specific laws, but not like with Israel.
As for head-covering and other customs, Paul’s command to Corinth was rooted in that same Christian principle: Do all in the name of the Lord. In other words, if it’s considered disrespectful to uncover your head (as it was for first century ladies in Corinth), then cover it, because the Lord would have you be respectful.
Simply put: Israel had 600+ laws and basically everything else was fair game. Christianity isn’t like that: From one perspective, it has far fewer laws, but you could look at another way and see it as a religion that makes one law the central motivator of every action you will ever undertake. In that case, you could argue that’s it’s far, far bigger than the law of Moses, and yet far more rewarding, too!
~Matthew