The Mystic Way of Salvation: Landmarks on the Journey of Spiritual Formation

Table of Contents

Contents

Table of Contents

Preface to the Third Edition

Introducing Christian Spiritual Growth

Rules and Commandments: Covenant-Making in the Ancient Near East

The Preamble

The Historical Prologue

The Stipulations and Obligations

Witnesses & The Deposition and Provision for Periodic Reading of the Treaty

Oath & Ratification Ceremony

The Role of Rules

The Three Offices of the Old Covenant

Why is this necessary?

A High-Level Overview of the Seasons of Spiritual Growth

The Four Seasons of Spiritual Growth

Season 1: The Natural Way

Season 2: The Purgative Way

Season 3: The Illuminative Way

Season 4: The Unitive Way

The Natural Way

Understanding the Journey of the Natural Way

The High-Level Overview of the Natural Way

The Salvific Experience – A Journey into Grace

Wrestling with Doubt – Answering Life’s Toughest Questions

Prevenient Grace – The Unseen Hand of God

Repentance –Turning from Illusion to Truth

Justifying Faith – Crossing the Threshold

The Experience of Justification and Regeneration

The Role of Intellectual Inquiry in Faith Formation

Idealism and Perceived Reality – Seeing the World as It Is

Developing a Prayer Life in the Natural Way

Conclusion: The Invitation to Move Forward

The Purgative Way

Introduction

The Journey Begins

The Nature of Spiritual Barriers

The Hidden Work of Grace in the Purgative Way

The Trials of Faith

Spiritual Dryness and the Trials of Purgation

Moral Integration—Aligning Belief and Action

Developing a Mature Faith

The Psychological Battle in the Purgative Way

Spiritual Warfare and the Purgative Way

The Shift in Prayer Life

Building Trust in God

Silence and Stillness in the Purgative Way

The Role of Community in Purgation

The Fruits of the Purgative Way

Preparing for the Next Phase—The Illuminative Way

The Lifelong Return to Purgation

Conclusion: Living in the Process

The Illuminative Way

Introduction

The Transition to the Illuminative Way

Entire Sanctification and the Transformation of the Will

The Awakening of the Spiritual Senses

The Zeal of Illumination

Recognizing and Resting in the Presence of God

The Transformational Power of Prayer

The Dangers of Over-Spiritualization

The Role of Spiritual Community and Mentorship

The Path to the Unitive Way

Conclusion: Embracing the Journey

The Unitive Way

Introduction

Entering the Unitive Way

The Salvific Experience of Glorification

Understanding the Dark Night(s) of the Soul

The Psychological and Spiritual Dimensions of the Dark Night of the Soul

Lessons from the Dark Night of the Soul

The Dark Night of the Spirit: The Ultimate Purification

The Crisis of Faith and Ultimate Surrender

The Prayer of Full Union

Living in Divine Union

The Fulfillment of the Journey: Entering the Unitive Life

Appendix

Preface to the Third Edition

When I first wrote this book fifteen years ago, I had no idea the reach that it would have. I wrote with the hope that it would serve as a map for those navigating the often complex and deeply personal journey of Christian spiritual formation. I knew that I was standing on the shoulders of those who had come before me—saints, scholars, and seekers who had wrestled with the mysteries of faith and sought to illuminate the path for others. What I did not anticipate was how many people would take this book into their own journey, engaging with it, questioning it, and allowing it to challenge and deepen their spiritual lives.

From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to expand upon what I had written in the first edition. There were ideas that felt constrained, concepts that, while foundational, could have been explored with greater depth and clarity. The second edition allowed me to refine and further develop these thoughts. Yet, even then, I knew that there was more to say. This third edition is the culmination of years of lived experience, study, reflection, and conversations with readers who have walked this road with me. It is the result of a lifetime of work living and understanding Christian spiritual formation—something I first learned from my father and continue to practice to this day.

My father, the late Randy L. Scraper, was a United Methodist minister for forty-four years and dedicated his life to exploring the depths of Christian spirituality and formation. He authored Franklian Psychology and Christian Spiritual Formation, a book that remains a cornerstone of my own theological understanding. His wisdom, his scholarship, and most importantly, his example of a life deeply rooted in faith continue to shape my journey. I owe much of my understanding of spiritual growth to him, and in many ways, this book is an extension of the legacy he left behind.

One of the most significant changes in this edition is the intentional inclusion of thoughts and concepts that I felt the first edition was too academic to properly explore. While theological precision is valuable, I have come to believe that spiritual formation is not something that can be confined to the halls of academia alone. It is lived. It is breathed. It is experienced in the quiet moments of prayer, in the struggles of doubt, and in the slow unfolding of grace. This edition seeks to speak to the heart as much as to the mind.

The structure of the book remains intentionally designed for reflection. Each section stands on its own, with an introduction to set the stage and a conclusion to invite contemplation. I encourage readers to engage with it in a way that is most meaningful to them—whether that means reading it cover to cover or pausing at a particular section that speaks to their current season of life. Christian spiritual formation is not a linear process; it is a journey that loops, revisits, and deepens over time. My hope is that this book will serve as a companion along the way, offering insights and encouragement when needed.

As you embark on this journey, I pray that you will find within these pages a reflection of your own spiritual path—a confirmation of what you have known, a challenge to explore further, and, above all, a deepening awareness of the God who is always at work, shaping, guiding, and calling us into deeper relationship. My greatest hope is that this book will serve as a catalyst for transformation, not because of anything I have written, but because of the divine invitation that each of us is offered—to walk the mystic way of salvation, to be formed by grace, and to find ourselves, at last, at home in God.

Matthew B. Scraper

Introducing Christian Spiritual Growth

A High-Level Overview

I wonder whether Tonka® trucks are even still around.

I had this Tonka® front-loader when I was a kid that I played with so often that I am sure my parents were surprised when I went into ministry instead of construction. This little front-loader was great because it had a handle that extended up to the waist-level of an 8-year-old child. I could push it around easily enough, but I could also push down on the handle and in so doing, raise the front-loader so that I could pick things up. I literally had hours of fun with this thing. Suffice it to say, I was easily entertained.

I also spent virtually all my summer outside. Being part of Generation X means that I grew up in a time before hand-held digital communication was a thing. Like my contemporaries, I lived through that transition and have fully embraced the digital age, along with the millions of social media platforms that are apparently integral to modern social interaction. However, my childhood memories are of a time when people had to be together, to be together. So…we spent all summer outside.

To be a child in suburban Topeka, Kansas in the summertime also meant that you had a plastic kiddie-pool somewhere in the neighborhood. In our neighborhood, that pool was at my house. My childhood neighborhood friends and I must have spent hours and hours in that pool, when we were not driving front-loaders around the yard, of course.

In piecing all of this together, I am not sure when it occurred to me that driving the Tonka® truck through the plastic kiddie-pool was necessary for my proper psychological development. I remember that it was getting late one weeknight, which meant that the sun had set to the point that I could barely see what was going on around me, but there was still just enough light to keep me from having to come inside to take a bath. As I was diligently using my front-loader to move piles of dirt from one place to another, I saw the kiddie-pool over on the side of the driveway. It sat there, beckoning me with a temptation stronger than any siren song of Greco-Roman mythology.

As a short aside, I think that it is important to note that PK’s get a bad rap, socially speaking. So often we are portrayed as lawless rebels, ready and willing to break any and every social code because of our apparently repressed and socially-awkward upbringing. I remember over and again hearing from friends while growing up that there were apparently these long-held and fervent beliefs that: 1) my father (the minister) only worked on Sundays, and 2) my family sat around reading the bible all night long. Not that reading the bible all evening would be a bad thing…but no. All of these misconceptions miss the simple truth that most PK’s are relatively normal children (psychologically speaking) who spend a great deal of time at the church, and as a result often have an overdeveloped sense of morality.

It was this overdeveloped sense of morality that saw me marching right up to my front door that fateful evening to find out if I had permission to play in the pool before I came inside. Knowing that my time was limited, my mother told me that I did not have permission. I naturally responded by going back outside, marching right up to my kiddie-pool, and repeatedly driving my Tonka® front-loader back and forth through the middle of it.

I was standing in the middle of the driveway a few minutes later, soaked to the bone, when my mother came outside to tell me that it was time to come inside and take my bath. One look at me and she asked if I had gone into the pool, even after I had been told not to. Like every good PK with an overdeveloped sense of morality I looked right back at her, in the eyes, and promptly lied. I told her that I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Oh, did we have a pool? Look at that. How interesting.

Rules and laws matter, and we cannot avoid interacting with them. Whether you consider yourself to be a rule-follower (with an overdeveloped sense of morality), or a rule-breaker (with an over-inflated sense of your own importance), rules and laws significantly impact how we interact with the world around us. They govern our interactions with one another, and our relationship to ruling authorities, whatever those authorities may be.

As I prepare to begin this dialogue about practical New Covenant Christianity, I want to offer the disclaimer that rules and laws are necessary for healthy community at any level. On a micro-level, individual rules and laws set the criteria for the formation of healthy boundaries that protect us from the kinds of unhealthy attitudes and behaviors that keep us from living life, and that more abundantly so. Rules and laws also help to create standards of behavior that promote healthy relationships and healthy interactions with one another in community. Again, on a micro-level, these rules and laws help to promote healthy relationships in marriage, between parents and children, with our extended families, and with our various social groups. On a macro-level, rules and laws help to enforce standards of behavior that protect individual freedoms while protecting individuals from the actions of others that infringe upon our own rights and freedoms.

Though minimal, this perspective provides an important foundation for us as we begin a dialogue about practical New Covenant Christianity. No matter what society or culture we call home, individuals are predisposed to understand relationship through rules and laws. We are conditioned to learn, from those who raise us, what the appropriate standards of behavior are, beginning at a micro-level and continuing to a macro-level. As a people, we naturally look for laws that govern our ethics (which I would define as systems of behavior) and subsequently our interactions with one another and with the larger world that we live in.

This means that we are conditioned to naturally interpret relational ethics through the lens of rules and laws. No matter what those relationships may be (marriage, parent-child, extended family, friends, congregational, work-place) our lifelong conditioned response to the role of rules and laws in our lives predisposes us to ask ourselves (even subconsciously) what the appropriate standards of behavior are in any given relationship. No matter the relationship, we are therefore naturally going to ask ourselves:

What are the rules?

Why should I follow the rules?

What happens if I follow the rules?

What happens if I break the rules?

While I would absolutely love to spend some time discussing fidelity (promise-keeping) and the effect that healthy boundary setting has on individual and corporate meaning-fulfillment potential, the purpose of this dialogue is to engage what it means to embrace New Covenant Christianity, from a practical perspective. To do that, we have to understand the role that rules play in our lives and our propensity to look for them as a fixture by which we measure our relational interactions. Unless we do so, we will never fully understand why we (as New Covenant Christians) are so prone to regress toward the legalism that is characteristic of the Old Covenant as a substitute for the relational ethics of the New Covenant.

By way of setting a firm foundation for our dialogue, I also believe that it is important to address the importance of the Old Covenant very early in this conversation. Embracing New Covenant Christianity in no way means that the Old Covenant is, or should be, devalued. It is upon the foundation of the Old Covenant that the New Covenant is built. As we will see, there is much about the Old Covenant that the New Testament writers/teachers, including both Christ and Paul, say is very germane to life in the New Covenant. As New Covenant Christians, we affirm the place of the Old, all that God has made possible through it, and the faithfulness of our forebears who lived it.

So important is the Old Covenant to our lives as New Covenant Christians that the first half of this book will be dedicated to understanding the place of rules and laws in its administration. By discussing the place of the law in Old Covenant life, we prepare ourselves to better understand what Covenants are, why we are always so prone to revert to Old Covenant legalism, and how we can make the transition from the legalistic theology of the Old Covenant to the relational theology of the New.

We begin by looking at covenant making in the ancient world, and the role that rules played in the life of the ancient believer.

Rules and Commandments: Covenant-Making in the Ancient Near East

I was extremely new to theological education when I encountered Dr. Sandy Richter for the first time. I had just enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. The Master of Divinity (MDiv) is the traditionally accepted graduate theological degree required for ordination in most mainline denominations. It typically requires somewhere around 90 semester credit hours (3-4 years) of graduate study and includes a variety of courses ranging from Old and New Testament survey, original language, and exegetical courses, philosophical and systematic theology, pastoral care, worship planning, and missional evangelism…to name a few. I had enrolled in my very first semester of courses at Asbury, choosing the Old Testament survey course taught by Dr. Richter as one of the first core courses that I wanted to complete.

Let me pause briefly to say that if you have never encountered Sandy Richter before, stop reading this book now and read everything that she has ever written. Then come back. Sandy Richter is undeniably one of the most profound theologians of our generation, and quite possibly one of the most important theologians in all of Christianity. If you haven’t read her, she will quite literally bring your understanding of biblical theology to life.

The primary text for my first seminary course at Asbury was Dr. Richter’s book, The Epic of Eden. This book looks at the Old Testament from a high-level, making sense of it within the context of Christian theology for anyone who has ever struggled to understand it. While the book itself delves deeply into the varying intricacies of Old Testament covenantal theology, it will be Sandy Richter’s chapter on covenant making in the ancient world that I will rely on heavily to introduce the topic for our purposes here.¹

Much of what follows here will be a fairly technical description of how covenant making worked in the time of the Old Testament writers. Unless you are a contract attorney, you may find some of this information to be tedious. Because of that, I think that it is important to mention here that in order to be fully formed in faith, it is important to connect the head to the heart. I say that because our experience of religion, as of late, has become quite feeling oriented and less intellectually oriented. To be fair, there is a problem when either end of that spectrum is more heavily embraced than the other, and I am hopeful that we will find the cultural pendulum of religious life swinging steadily back toward a sense of balance. Feeling and intellect both have value, and both need to be held in tension with one another in order for faith development to occur. All of that is to say, let’s spend a little bit of time exercising our intellect…

Why study covenant making in the ancient Near East at all? What does an ancient form of contract making have to do with my journey toward building a deep and meaningful relationship with Christ?

Those are good questions. Let’s begin by revisiting a previous assertion; namely that humans are predisposed to understand relationships through rules. If that is true (and I have already said that I believe that it is), then in order to understand the nature of the relationship that we’re trying to build, we have to understand the rules that define that relationship. In this case, we are specifically looking at the differences between New Covenant life and Old Covenant Life…and how one informs the other. If we’re going to understand those differences, then we have to understand the rules that defined the relationship(s) between God and humanity, pre-Christ. We have to understand the Old Covenant.

We cannot understand the Old Covenant without understanding how covenants were made in the ancient Near East; the time period when the stipulations for the Old Covenant are believed by many scholars and theologians to have come into being.

Religious life does not happen in a vacuum. It is undeniably affected by the socio-cultural constructs of the world in which it blossoms. The beliefs about normative ethics that undergird secular social life have a way of seeping into religious life, affecting the mechanisms that underwrite religious practice. We are called to be in the world, not of the world…according to Christ…but we’re still in the world, and the world will affect how we do what we do.

The formation of the Old Covenant was therefore unavoidably connected to some very important normative socio-cultural ethics of the period in which it was created, not the least of which can be found in the format of the covenant itself. According to Sandy Richter, the ancient form of the covenant (or: berit, in Hebrew) was completely secular in [it’s] original associations.²

What does that mean? It means that the form of the covenant that we are about to discuss...the form used by God in the Old Testament to cut (the ancient term for creating a covenant was to cut a berit) a covenant with ancient Israel was originally a secular form of contract-making in the ancient world. Cultures throughout the ancient Near-East would have been familiar with this format as something that they would have made use of in their everyday, secular lives. Clearly, God knew what God was doing when God used a format for covenant-making that would have been familiar to those who would hear or read about it later.

On another note, the term Testament (as in: Old/New Testament) comes from the Greek word diatheke, which is itself a translation of the Hebrew word berit. What you know as the Old Testament, or the New Testament, (in the bible) literally means the Old/New Covenant. More about that later.

The most succinct example of this ancient treaty format actually comes from the Hittite suzerain/vassal treaties of the second-millenium B.C.³ These were predominantly secular treaties between two nations, one of which would be larger and more powerful (suzerain) than the other (vassal). When making treaties between greater and lesser nations, it became commonplace for those treaties to take a specific format. According to Sandy Richter, this ancient covenant format consists primarily of five unique components:

The Preamble or Title

The Historical Prologue

The Stipulations and Obligations Imposed

A Deposition and Periodic Reading of the Covenant Before the People

A List of Witnesses to the Covenant

Oath & Ratification Ceremony⁴

Let’s take a closer look at each of these different components.

The Preamble

The Preamble of the ancient covenant lists the names, titles, and personal elements of grandeur of the greater party. ⁵ Recently, I found myself binge-watching the Game of Thrones series produced by HBO, only to be dramatically and profoundly disappointed by the horribly written final season. However, throughout the series the viewers would frequently encounter a queen whose title sounded something like, Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons. These titles, in a Covenant, would comprise the Preamble.

In the Old Testament (Covenant), you would primarily find these titles listed in Exodus 20:2, and Deuteronomy 5:6. They would mention something like: I am the Lord your God... The Preamble begins the Covenant by listing the greatness of the greater party.

The Historical Prologue

Much like the Preamble, the Historical Prologue focuses on the greatness of the greater party...particularly the reasons why the vassal should participate in the proposed covenant and accept the suzerainty of the great king.⁶ The basic underlying assumption is that because the greater party (suzerain) has done something to the benefit of the lesser party (vassal), the lesser party should feel confident in accepting a treaty with the greater party. In the Old Testament, you would find the Historical Prologue in essentially the same places (Exodus 20:2 / Deuteronomy 5:6). They immediately follow the preamble, and would read something like: ...who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

The Stipulations and Obligations

In an ancient suzerain/vassal treaty (covenant), the stipulations and obligations imposed on each party differ significantly. Given that the greater party (suzerain) was more powerful, they had the ability to bless or curse the lesser party (vassal) according to the vassal’s obedience or disobedience to the treaty obligations. For instance, this section of the covenat would offer (in great detail) the suzerain’s expectations regarding military and economic obedience as well as his expectations of complete loyalty on the part of the vassal.⁷ If the vassal held to the obligations imposed by the covenant, they could expect blessings from the suzerain. If they did not hold to the obligations of the covenant, the vassal could expect to be punished. What might it look like for a vassal to be punished? Sandy Ricther writes that although the treaties routinely speak of the gods bringing about a long list of plagues and adversities, what typically happened was that the suzerain would express his wrath by turning his military against a disloyal vassal.⁸ A military encounter like this could result in anything ranging from a loss of power to complete annihilation of the vassal state.

In the Old Testament, you primarily find this part of the Covenant in Exodus 20:3-17 and Deuteronomy 5:7-21. You would know this section of the scriptures as The Ten Commandments.

Witnesses & The Deposition and Provision for Periodic Reading of the Treaty

As the Treaty comes to a close, it is necessary to list the witnesses to its creation as a means of validating its existence. Normally, the witnesses would have included the deities of the covenanting parties; deities who were called upon to ensure the loyalty of the parties involved.⁹ The Treaty would then have included a list of the places in which its copies would be deposited, normally in the temple of the deities already listed. In the Old Testament, these provisions would be found in Exodus 25:21 and Deuteronomy 10:5. They would sound something like: The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. Then I came back down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made, as the Lord commanded me, and they are there now.

Finally, it would have been considered normal for the provisions of the Treaty to be read periodically in front of the people of the lesser (vassal) nation. Mostly, this practice was meant to remind them of their subordinate status, lest they forget that they were obligated to the greater party (suzerain). In the Old Testament, you would most easily find this in Deuteronomy 31:10-12 or Exodus 24:7. It would sound something like: Then Moses commanded them: At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Festival of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing. Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law."

Oath & Ratification Ceremony

In order for the Covenant to be considered valid, a ratification ceremony must immediately follow the creation of the Covenant. The ceremony most frequently involved representatives from the suzerain and vassal states (most commonly the leaders of each) eating together at a banquet that featured an animal that had been sacrificed for that very purpose. Grotesquely (to us) it was common for both parties to witness the sacrifice of the animal together, and then engage in what (today) would be considered truly bizarre behavior.

Immediately after the sacrifice of the animal that would soon be eaten, the arms, legs, and head of the animal would be separated from its torso. The lower ranking party (vassal) would then be expected to to walk between the separated pieces reciting an oath that would sound something like: If my nation should fail to live up to its Covenant obligations, then may what has happened to this animal happen to me/us.¹⁰ This process was most likely designed as an intimidating reminder to the vassal nation of the power of their suzerain. They had better not fail.

While this can be most easily found in Exodus 24: 5-8 ( "Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.) it is in Genesis 15 where something truly wondrous occurs that will affect the course of human history forever.

Knowing all of this, you now know that in God’s covenant with Israel, it was Israel who was to have paid the price for breaking the terms covenant...which they did (break it)...repeatedly. This should have been the case. Israel could not (ever) live up to the terms of the Covenant. They should have been punished...shouldn’t they?

In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with Abram. The process outlined above is followed...almost to  a T. In verses 9-10, the covenant made, God tells Abram to sacrifice a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon...part of the ratification ceremony. Then, almost inexplicably, Abram falls into a trance. Good students of biblical theology that we are, we know that in the Old Testament, a trance like this is indicative of the presence of God. As Sandry Richter writes, a survey of the Old Testament demonstrates that darkness [a trance] is often an aspect of theophany (an appearance of the deity in physical form). ¹¹

While Abram is asleep, God condescends to Abram’s place in time and helps him to have confidence in the promise.¹²

Genesis 15:17-18: When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram…

Did you see what happened? It wasn’t Abram (the vassal) who was required to walk between the pieces of the sacrificed animal as part of the ratification ceremony, it was the God of heaven and earth! In case this is lost on you...remember what the vassal was normally required to say when passing between the severed pieces: If my nation should fail to live up to its Covenant obligations, then may what has happened to this animal happen to me/us. By taking on the role normally reserved for the vassal in the ratification ceremony, God also takes on the responsibility of enduring the punishment, should the vassal fail to live up to the terms of the Covenant.

In short...if Israel breaks the Covenant (which they do), then God will pay the price (which God does). But if the price for breaking the covenant involves death (may what has happened to this animal happen to me), how does an immortal God fulfill such a requirement?

There really is only one option: the immortal God must voluntarily become mortal and willingly volunteer as a sacrifice. In case you’re not keeping up...that is the story of Jesus.

From the very beginning of the Covenant, it was always God’s plan to pay the price for the failure of God’s people to keep it. This will be important later when we talk about the ratification of the New Covenant. For now...let’s take a closer look at the role of rules in the Old Testament.

The Role of Rules

In late 2002 I attended the Army’s Warrant Officer Candidate School located at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Located within the rank structure of the U.S. Army somewhere between enlisted soldiers and commissioned officers, warrant officers have long been hailed as the technical experts of the armed forces.

For six weeks, I learned the ins and outs of being an officer in the Army, to include proper military etiquette, command structure, formal military writing...you get the idea. After having lived through that experience, I can certainly say without a doubt that everything that you’ve ever heard about officer candidate programs is likely to be true. It was rigorous, unforgiving, and included many idiosyncratic behaviors unique to military officer training programs.

Because warrant officers are expected to be technical experts in their fields, a training in the importance of attention to detail is a major component of warrant officer candidate school. For us, this took the form of an immensely large manual filled with intricate details about every aspect of cadet life ranging from how many inches should be between the hangars in our wall lockers, to the width of our rolled under garments properly displayed in cascading drawers open exactly four inches more than the drawer below. There were rules and regulations about the degree angle that wall locker doors should be left at for daily inspections, the width of the white sheet folded over the wool blanket on the top of our bunks, which had to be made with hospital corners measuring exactly forty-five degrees.

Rooms were inspected daily by TAC officers (Training, Advising, and Counseling), any deficiencies resulted in a spot report which would require specific corrective action and often an additional punishment. (Just so you know...I never received a single spot report throughout the entire program. Not one...not that I’m at all arrogant about it.)

Ridiculous as some of these regulations seemed (I actually had to iron the crease in my folded sheet the day of final inspections), they taught us an important lesson: as the technical experts in the U.S. Army, everything that we would ever need to know about how to do what we were eventually supposed to do could be found in the various manuals applicable to our job fields. The rules would be our guides, and those rules could be found in our manuals.

Having spent some time better understanding the structure of covenant making in the Ancient Near East, I want to build on that knowledge so that we can use it as a foundation for better understanding the role of rules in the ancient world...particularly the world of the Old Testament..and where those rules could be found. Much like my experience in Warrant Officer School, the rules of the Old Covenant could be found in the manual, specifically, the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Old Testament. The laws contained within the Pentateuch, all 613 of them, would be Israel’s guide in a time when the average Israelite did not have direct access to God.

I recently led a study on the Book of Hebrews for my congregation. A great introduction to practical New Covenant Christianity, Hebrews does a fantastic job of explaining how we (citizens of the New Covenant) have access to God, through Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. I began that study discussing the Old Testament