[OBW]

You are seeking more laws than that of righteousness Remember that no such law was spoken by Christ. Because of that, almost any additional burden of rules apparently applied by Paul has to be viewed as contextual rather than general.

And this is one of the errors of evangelicalism. They hear Paul before they hear Christ. They even override Christ with Paul. There is presently a backlash against what might be called a cult of Paul. Some went so far as to simply ignore him. That is too far. But he needs to be understood in both the context of each letter, and in the general context of his part in the NT "story." In the general context, he is not primary. That is the role of the gospels as they tell of the words and works of God trough the Son, Jesus Christ. In the same way that the Jews consider there to be the law and the prophets, then commentary, it is somewhat the same for the NT.

There are the gospels, and there is commentary. That does not mean that the commentary is not scripture. But its part is secondary to the core. The heart of the divine revelation is not Paul or any of his writings. It is the gospels. All these commentators that you mention, including those at prestigious seminaries, are busy playing modern rabbi, trying to read between the lines to force rule upon rule out of what was written. Just like Lee, at least part of most commentary is based upon a declaration that something must mean more than it says. Always looking for something not there.

At least they are not busy dragging ridiculous overlays around to turn scripture into "flesh" like Lee did. But that does not make their personal conclusions correct, even if based on the personal conclusion of someone before them. Just like you said "Paul was delivering ordinances, laws, if you like to the churches" — something implied but not evident from the text — they have made grand declarations that ignore the purpose of a particular writing. If all these letters were to provide general rules to all the churches, then Paul failed. Despite the fact of a few travelling around, churches from Rome to Galatia did not have access to all other letters written within that broad area. It was beyond what they considered the likely span before the return of Christ that they made their way around. If he wanted to detail general rules, he would have written a NT version of Leviticus. But he did not. And he did not speak of everything in the "same way." In one place it was freedom to eat, and in another it was wisdom to not eat so as to protect the faith of others.

We treat the MT as if it is a bunch of pastoral teaching by Jesus but the rulemaking was left to Paul. So we ignore the pastoral and dig through the law.

The law that was to be written on the hearts, not written down and commented on ad nauseam. But that is how these commentators, and you, treat the writings of Paul. As the extra law added after the resurrection to be a stumbling block for everyone.

I know that all of this is lost on you. You will come back with yet another proof text claiming that it makes all your rules iron-clad.

Reminds me of the Pope fighting against Luther's points.