love and law

Last night's readings (note: I somehow screwed up my calendar, so I think these should really be this evening's readings.  whatever.):

• Psalm 119.97-120
• Psalm 81
• Psalm 82
• 1 Samuel 2.12-26
• Acts 2.1-21
• Luke 20.27-40

This morning, rather than continue with Luther, I opted to read all of Galatians to try to get a better bird's eye view of Paul's writing.  I keep coming back to the ideas of love and law, except this time, in Psalm 119, it is the law that is loved, the Word is hope and knowledge.  Honestly the Psalmist begins to sound like a bit of a 'biblicist', proclaiming that he has more understanding than his teachers and the older folks around him because he meditates on the law.  I think it's fairly obvious that the psalmist is simply using 'teachers' and 'elders' to compare the surpassing wisdom of God's Word--not his interpretation of it (an obsession of a later time, I imagine). In other words, this passage should not be used to defend brash youthfulness or individualistic 'biblicism' that generally amounts to nothing more than anachronistic readings of Scripture.

Galatians is Paul railing against circumcision and the Law with regard to salvation and justification.  I've yet to land anywhere in the justification debate (though as a general rule, I love me some Tom Wright), but reading through Paul's ideas here is helpful and confusing--we're getting ready to start a series on the Ten Commandments at Intown, so I'm trying to think through a couple of rather large themes:

1. How does the decalogue fit within the narrative of the Pentateuch?  Another way of asking that question is to ask, when Jesus and Paul and others read the Pentateuch, how did they understand it, and how did they understand the Ten Words within it?

2. How do ethical commands fit with the gospel of grace?  Running along with Luther or a guy like Robert Farrar Capon, I'd have to say that these are two different categories, categories that shouldn't mix: the gospel is grace through and through, and the law is to show you your need, and then much later, it can be used to help you understand what 'right living' is all about, but don't for a second think you actually need to do any of it (slight caricature? :) ).  I'm more inclined to take the view that both Law and Gospel include law and gospel (ie, the gospel includes the command to 'repent and believe' and the law includes the gospel that YHWH brought his people out of Egypt).  We'll see how my thinking straightens out as I dig into studying for this series.  

Josh, you tend to have a great ability to synthesize large categories, so if you could help me out here that would be awesome!