My Life and Books (11) Torah

My next big challenge was that I needed to change my attitude to the Torah. I had read it at least once a year but was quite ambivalent about it because I assumed that Jesus had made it redundant. Once I realised that this is not the case, I needed to change my thinking.

One day, when I was reading Psalm 119, the penny dropped. I always assumed that it applied to the entire scripture, but I was shocked to realise it was a Psalm in honour of God’s law.

Oh, how I love your law!
I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands are always with me
and make me wiser than my enemies.
I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your statutes.
I have more understanding than the elders,
for I obey your precepts.
I have kept my feet from every evil path
so that I might obey your word.
I have not departed from your laws,
for you yourself have taught me (Psalm 119:57-102).

These verses stunned me. I wanted to be wise in the political space. This Psalm explained that I would only get wisdom if I loved God’s law.

I resolved that I would love God’s law. I understand that love is not just a feeling, but a decision, so I decided I would love God’s law and look for the good in it. I put all the laws into a spreadsheet so that I could sort them by topic and theme to see how they fit together and when they applied.

I decided that I would seek the insights it contains. I believe that everything that had been put in the Torah by the Holy Spirit for a purpose. If I found something I did not like, I would ask the Holy Spirit to show me what he was saying when he put the passage in the Torah. Over time, I began to understand God’s law in a totally different way. Loving it became natural. More important, the Holy Spirit gave me some amazing new insights.

For me, renouncing political power had seemed like a backward step because I had assumed that political power would be essential for bringing in the Kingdom of God. At first, I was quite depressed about the situation. It seemed like the Kingdom of God was an impossible dream in this season as it would be impossible for God to bring in his kingdom without relying on political power and military force.

However, when I studied the Torah seriously, I discovered that God had already given Moses a system of government that does not rely on force and coercion. The system instituted through him had no executive power and no compulsory taxation. There was no capability provided for enforcing the decisions. There was no permanent military force that could support government power. The entire system was voluntary. It is radically different from every modern political system, so it took me some time to understand how it works.