LAWYER-SCRIBE

Lawyer & The Question

Grk. Nomikos. Also known as scribe, Grk. Grammateus, or doctor, teacher Grk. Didaskalos.

The scribes read the law and gave the sense. This means more than that they read clearly and properly. It indicates interpretation. These men were expositors of the law.

The lawyer was an expert in the law. He had three duties devolving upon him. One was to study and interpret the law. The second was to give definite instruction especially to the youth of the nation in the law. The third was the exercise of judicial capacity.

The scribe order arose on the return of God's people in the time of Ezra {Neh. 8:8} whose work was to read the law and explain it; becoming the moral interpreters of the scriptures. As time wore on they became more concerned with the letter and attempted to safeguard it through building fences around it which became their traditions. {Matt. 15:6}. Soon not only was the law shut out, but also shut men out from it. Men came to misunderstand the law through the tradition's and teachings and interpretations. Man is always in danger of destroying the very thing he desires to safeguard when he adds to the simplest things of Divine revelation, starting with a passion for the law of God they attempted to preserve and enforce it by the addition of rules and burdens, which were intolerable and destroyed many times the original sanctions. We are strangely in bondage to human opinion, interpretation, and requirements.

Paul fulfilled the true role in 1 Cor. 7:6, 10, 12, 25, 40, giving his interpretation of the laws intent.

Every scribe who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. That is responsibility to reveal the true ideal of the kingdom of God to this world.

The lawyer was called upon to decide questions in the law.

Christ was asked the ultimate question for all life, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"  This was the life of the ages, life that is abiding, life that is full, the life that lacks limitation, life which is as broad as it is deep and as high, as it is long.

This is the question that must be asked today of any teacher, of any philosopher; and upon their answer will depend the knowledge or lack thereof of the one so questioned.