Toon Theology

Which commands are yours to keep?

Theology Tidbits · 2-minute video · PDF · slides

The Torah holds 613 commands by the traditional count, and the New Testament adds hundreds more. Not all of them are addressed to you. Four filters sort out which are.

The Four Filters, 2 minutes, no sound.
What happens in the video

The Torah holds 613 commands by the traditional count, and the New Testament adds hundreds more. Not all of them are addressed to you.

Every command passes through four filters, shown as gates that commands fall through. Commands particular to one person or group are removed, such as building the ark or conquering Canaan. So are sacrifices fulfilled in Christ, instructions only for priests, and penalties carried out by courts.

A stone tablet reads "Do not commit adultery". Beneath it the court penalty, death (Leviticus 20:10), shakes loose and falls away, and the tablet glows: where only the penalty is removed, the command still stands.

What remains is counted out: 107 commands to obey and 17 optional Torah practices.

The 107 appear section by section, filling a grid: the summary commands; God and worship; family and authority; life and the neighbour; sexuality and marriage; property and justice; speech; and character.

A wheel of seven segments lights one, and a row of ten bars lifts one: two rhythms to keep, one day in seven and one tenth.

A timeline runs from Noah (Genesis 9:4) through Sinai (Leviticus 17) to the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:29): abstaining from blood is older than the Law and was repeated to the church.

A blue thread carries the optional practices: clean foods, Passover, Sukkot, tzitzit, beard corners, mezuzah, tefillin, sha'atnez and new moons. Freely kept, never imposed: "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Romans 14:5).

Two pillars rise, love God and love your neighbour: on these two hang all the Law (Matthew 22:40). The closing recap reads: four filters, two loves, one day in seven, one tenth.

Every command in the Old and New Testaments was passed through four filters. A command is set aside if it is particular (said to one person or group in one moment, like Noah's ark or Timothy's wine), fulfilled in Christ (the sacrificial system and what the New Testament treats as a shadow of him), priestly (given only to priests and Levites), or penal (a sentence carried out by a court).

Two working rules keep the filters honest. Where only the penalty is removed, the command still stands: adultery is still forbidden, even though no believer executes the adulterer. And an Old Testament case law that survives is kept by its principle, as Paul does with the ox and its muzzle (Deuteronomy 25:4 in 1 Corinthians 9:9).

What passes through falls into two groups. 107 commands to obey, in eight sections from the great commandments to the inner life, including the Sabbath and the tithe. And 17 optional Torah practices, such as the feasts and the food laws, which may be kept freely as devotion but are never to be imposed.

All of it hangs on two commands: love God, and love your neighbour (Matthew 22:37–40).

Where I stand

This list is my method and my conclusions. Several of them are points where Christians in good faith disagree.

The four filters are a way of reading, not a verdict handed down, and the count of 107 depends on how overlapping commands are grouped. I have tried to show the working: every command carries its references, and the items the filters cannot settle are listed openly rather than quietly placed on one side.

Three conclusions on this list are held by many Christians and rejected by many others. I hold that the Sabbath principle of one day in seven still binds, because it belongs to the Ten Commandments and to creation; many traditions see it as fulfilled in Christ. I hold that the tithe still stands; many hold that New Testament giving is generous and proportionate rather than a fixed tenth. And I hold that abstaining from blood still applies, because it is older than Sinai and was laid on Gentile believers in Acts 15; most Western churches have read that as a temporary arrangement for table fellowship.

If you land differently on those, you are in good company, and the rest of the list still stands or falls on its own references.

Over to you

Which of these commands surprised you, either by being on the list or by being left off it?

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