@Stephen Levi I'll leave you with this question to chew on. What was God's purpose for giving the law to the Israelites? Utterly unremarkable degenerates who were no better than any other backwards savage tribe they were contemporary with, what is God saying to us, those who he has redeemed, in His story of their legacy? What did the laws accomplish? Because the law was never an end in and of itself. Any answer that derives value from the law does so by neglecting the purpose of the law. Right now you're the cop slowly writing a speeding ticket for a guy with his wife giving birth in the passenger's seat, the law is not about deriving special graces or greater holiness, it's about using simple rules to illustrate the failure of man and the road to salvation, the immensity of love and grace and the terror of the Father's wrath which has been held back for us. It's time you stop getting caught up in the Greek minutiae of the chapters and verses and approach scripture as it was written -- a narrative. A complex, multigenre story all feeding into a metanarrative that is God's plan for humanity from beginning to end, and the terrain of that journey changes with the promises He leaves.
