Joseph Parker

“Then came to him the disciples of John, saying,
Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft,
but thy disciples fast not?”
Matthew 9:14

“Here is another instance of sectarianism being thrown into disadvantageous contrast with the magnificence of Christ Life. It is hard for the little sect to comprehend the universe, but easy for it to condemn all who are not enclosed in its shallow limits. Men are known by the inquiries they propound. Great men put great questions, tiny spirits perplex themselves with tiny riddles. The persons in the text put a question about “fasting,”– they were still in a very material and grovelling condition,– it is noticeable, however, that men who could abstain from food could not abstain from censoriousness; so true is it in all human experience that it is easier to restrain the bodily than the mental, easier to conqueror dust than spirit…

Our spiritual life is not to be partly Christ and partly something else,–old and new, but all Christ; independent, solitary, alone, because Divine. The Christian is free of the old law in its formality, but never free from law as an expression of love. We do not keep the Decalogue (ten commandments) because of its outward form and claim upon us, but we keep the commandments because we love the Commander. “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”
– Joseph Parker

“Love worketh no ill to his neighbour:
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law“
Romans 13:10