Necessity has no law.br...
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"Necessity has no law."
-- Augustine
Augustine provides a key for us to enter into our scripture. The early church was at a crossroad. One branch led to ministry to Gentiles; the other to keeping the new faith within Judaic ritual law, making mission work extremely problematic. The necessity of the opportunity countermanded the law. Not that there were no standards; Paul kept to the primordial requirement of both faiths -- to oppose idolatry. Beyond that all was secondary in face of the divine opportunity to move the cause of Christ out into the world. Without this "necessity" the church would not have moved from Asia Minor to the Western world.
-- Augustine in Solilogulorum. Animae ad Deum. in Familiar Quotations ed. John Bartlett, 15th ed. p. 129.
-- Augustine
Augustine provides a key for us to enter into our scripture. The early church was at a crossroad. One branch led to ministry to Gentiles; the other to keeping the new faith within Judaic ritual law, making mission work extremely problematic. The necessity of the opportunity countermanded the law. Not that there were no standards; Paul kept to the primordial requirement of both faiths -- to oppose idolatry. Beyond that all was secondary in face of the divine opportunity to move the cause of Christ out into the world. Without this "necessity" the church would not have moved from Asia Minor to the Western world.
-- Augustine in Solilogulorum. Animae ad Deum. in Familiar Quotations ed. John Bartlett, 15th ed. p. 129.
