Which Old Testament laws are we going to obey and which ones are we going to ignore as "out of touch" with reality, superceded, or not fair? May we now commit adultery, steal, lie or worship idols? Of course not, but what about the rule of not cooking the meat of a young goat in milk, not wearing clothing of mixed materials, not eating pork, wearing tassels or not touching a cadaver? There are according to some counts 613 individual laws in the OT. Are we expected to keep them all? In my opinion, yes, but not in the same way as ancient Israel. Let me explain.

One of the purposes of the law was to teach us that we cannot keep all the OT laws in the letter or in the flesh. Some attempt to. Various forms of what is known as Galatianism exist today. The Galatians were particularly corrected by Paul for commanding physical circumcision, observance of food laws and keeping day laws (clean and unclean meats and sabbaths). Yet, even the Galatian style churches today do not keep ALL of the OT laws. Even they pick and choose.

Another popular theory among theologians is to divide the law into parts, such as ceremonial, sacrificial, civil and moral laws. Not all theologians agree with this and I am one of them. For instance, how can someone say the various sabbath laws are only civil, or ceremonial, or moral? They contain aspects of all three do they not? Such a division of the law is an arbitrary invention and I do not believe it is supported in Scripture. Paul did not talk about the civil, or ceremonial, or sacrificial, or moral law. Rather he wrote about the law, without any qualifying adjective. Generally, the first 5 books of the Bible were known as the law, and contain many individual laws.

So, I argue that we are to keep the whole law, but not in the letter or the flesh in every case. I believe that we keep it in spirit, in principle. Circumcision of the flesh is certainly an option for health reasons. Apparently the wives of circumcised men have 8½ times less incidence of cervical cancer than those of uncircumcised males, but it is not required under the new agreement with God, the new covenant. The old covenant or agreement between God and Israel ceased at the cross, where the new covenant, also written in blood was sealed. We are however, to be circumcised in the heart. In my opinion, that same principle applies to every OT law. For instance, we are to be clean of heart, not just eat clean foods for the flesh, and we are to rest in Christ, not just a day of rest for the flesh.