OBEY WHAT YOU HEAR — NOT WHAT YOU READ
Judaism and Christianity are based on the literal words of the Bible which is often referred to as “God’s Law.” It is not well understood, however, that the Bible actually contains two laws: Literal and spiritual. The laws in the literal law are not the same as the spiritual laws spoken by God.
The literal law is based on the literal interpretation of the literal words written in the Bible. This is the law of Old/First Covenant religion that consists of doctrines, regulations and traditions made up by and supervised by men who interpret the Bible literally. These are religious laws.
STUDY TIP: See Religion for more about the literal law.
The Old Testament, specifically chapters dealing with the Law of Moses (i.e. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) are the primary sources of written law for Jews. Christians will also claim these books (at least the parts dealing with the ten commandments) as the sources of their laws, but they also find guidance for their religious practices in the New Testament. Both religions take their instruction exclusively from the literal texts with no regard for the meaning of symbolism and mystery found in parables, dark sayings, proverbs and riddles, figures, words of the wise and riddles, dreams, enigmas and difficult problems, figurative language, dreams and visions, shadows, types and patterns, and symbols, signs and allegories.
Focused exclusively on the written code of law found in the literal text, both religions have subtracted from the law. Deceived by religion that teaches that righteousness is gained by obedience to the written code, Jews and Christians are ignorant of God’s commands to listen to his voice where they will learn to understand his spiritual laws taught by his spirit. These spiritual laws are available only to New Covenant disciples who have spiritual eyes and ears to hear God’s spoken voice.
Instead of listening to God’s voice with faith that expects to hear, religious people have been trained by religion to harden their hearts to the possibility that God will teach them his spiritual laws by his spirit without a human teacher.
The message here for student/disciples is to listen with our spiritual ears while we are reading the written words, and then act on what we hear in faith. Failure to respond to God’s voice with immediate action is rebellion for which he responds with discipline. The right attitude in reading the Bible is to be like an obedient child who cannot read for understanding but can learn directly from God’s voice while reading all the confusing language contained in the Bible. And like a child who wants to please his parents and receive their praise, immediately obeys what he/she has been instructed to do.
Understanding of the spiritual meaning and training in righteousness will not come, however, for people who do not listen, who proudly think they already know what what is best for them because they have memorized many scriptures and do their daily devotions, or think that they can figure it out if they just read more and apply their intellectual knowledge to gain understanding.