Mysterious Grace: Fulfilling and Abolishing the Law

Ephesians 2:11-22

As I prepare this week's Bible study, I think it would be more helpful to suggest a pair of questions for meditation, rather than a preview of my notes. This is partially because I think it's redundant for me to simply post my study notes for you to read when I'm going to say essentially the same thing, and partially because this week is going to be discussion heavy and I want to focus on specific questions. So here they are:

1. From verses 11 through 22 Paul continues to provide pairs of images, showing the differences between the old nature, old position, old mind, and old habits before a believer's redemption, and the new nature, position, mind and habits of the Christian. Since it is clearly important to Paul that he emphasise this point (again), why do you think he finds it so important? How should his passion and insistence on this point be affecting our attitudes as we meditate on this letter?

2. Paul says in verse 15 that Christ has abolished the law of commandments and ordinences. Matthew 5:17 reads "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." What are we, as Christians believing in the inerrent inspiration of Scripture, to make of these paradoxical, even apparantly contradictory, claims?