Mat 5:17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
Mat 5:18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished.
Mat 5:19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:20 "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus continually taught and upheld the Law and the Prophets (Matt 1:22-23;2:3,5-6,15,23:3 4:4,7,10,14-16;5:17,21,27,33,38; 8:26-27; 9:1311:4-512:3-8,17-21;13:14-15,35;). The apostles did as well. The entire Word of God is a corpus, a body, a unit of Truth. They cannot be disconnected. But it's interesting to see Evangelicals try to do so.
The prophets and the law continue to be upheld in Matthew by Jesus yet most Evangelicals ignore them. They are a unity because Jesus taught them even as He revealed more truth and enacted the New Covenant.
Evangelicals will spend two years in the Gospel of Matthew while ignoring the very things it teaches regarding the Law and Prophets starting with the sound doctrine of Creation in six literal days. Many will eisogete the parables and they all claim that the parables can have various interpretations (thus proving Jesus' point that those who don't understand the parables are under judgment--Matt. 13:16).
It's like they think His Kingdom (which is the theme of Jesus and Matthew), is merely theoretical, as they also see Creation as theoretical, but not actual. They however, war a physical/political one but it's not according to His laws and under His rule. They deny the Millennial kingdom while trying to create a political one right now, as they attach their names to it with their rules, laws, standards, and judgments determining who's in and who's out in their man-made kingdom. Oh, they will slap on the name of Jesus to what they've created, in order to get people to follow them, but it has nothing to do with HIS holy kingdom at all. In fact, they are just modern day Pharisees. But worse, today they don't even attempt to "venerate" or "idolize" Jesus, but they do indeed venerate and idolize their own men (professors, theologians, speakers, writers, pastors). In fact, Jesus is always competing with the rule of their celebrity theologians, traditions, coalitions, etc. Basically they are no different than the RCC which really is to say, they are no different than the Pharisees.
For today's Evangelical leaders, Scripture is too burdensome to them; too precise; too ridged. And so they use pragmatism. God's commands aren't burdensome to those in Christ nor is His rule over them a thing to fight--rather they joyfully and gratefully submit to His dominance and commands. Evangelicals instead fight both.
1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
The methods of the Evangelicals (which come by their pragmatism, not Scripture as these two are antithetical) become the standard of judging others' spirituality. Coalitions, conferences,music, programs, books, book studies (which they call "bible studies"), favoring famous Christian, etc are their measure of whether one is to be considered on a higher spiritual plane by them. But these things are all fleshly and fall short of God's precise standard of holiness.
Ironically these same Evangelicals, who find God's commands and standard to be too precise (and thus they judge most of them to be "non-essential" and therefore "agree to disagree" on them), are also the ones who will take one verse and turn it into a doctrine, or worse, claim a teaching is actually in Scripture when it isn't. For example they take David's hope of seeing his dead baby again as a proof text of all babies going to Heaven, when in fact Scripture only states that those who have repented of their sins and turned to Christ go to Heaven (what happens to babies is not taught). The other is that no where in all of Scripture do we see infant sprinkling (sprinkling is not baptizing by the way), but many claim "infant baptism" is biblical. Yet these are the same people who will deny multiple verses that speak of God creating all things by the power of His Word, in six literal days. They also deny multiple verses about the Millennial Kingdom. These are quite the rebels and do not speak according to Scripture but merely of men.
By way of clarification, biblical salvation is by faith and trust in the biblical Lord Jesus Christ alone and repenting of all of one's sins. The result is that a truly saved person will bear HIS fruit (1 John 1). Ironically, Evangelicals have attached good works to salvation and now determine a person's salvation by whether or not they are part of "social justice", which is actually injustice and stems from Rome's Liberation Theology and Marxism.
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