25 & 26 Oct 2025 (Pastoral Page) THE LAW IS LOVE

by Dn Paul Ng

A couple of weekends ago, I had the privilege of serving as a musician for the English Service Worship Services, during which Senior Pastor Beh preached from Matthew 22. As a result, I sat through all three of our weekend services. I’m not sure how many in the congregation are aware of this, but very often, even though we have one speaker, preaching from one passage, we sometimes can end up with 3 different versions of the same sermon each weekend. The versions are being thoughtfully tailored to the unique audience at each service.

At one of the services Pastor Beh spoke with gentle empathy toward retirees, weaving in reflections about purpose and legacy in the later seasons of life. At another, his tone shifted naturally toward parents of school-going children, recognising the challenges of nurturing faith in the midst of exams and grades (“for you are saved by grades!” intentional pun for those who might have missed it). And while I wasn’t at Teenacity, I can only imagine that his message to the teens would have been similar, framed in language that reflected their present reality.

It was a living reminder that God’s Word meets us where we are. The same truth, the same Scripture, yet expressed with a shepherd’s heart attuned to the different seasons of our lives.

The Law was Given for Love

As for me, one phrase from Pastor Beh’s message continues to echo in my mind: “The law was given for love.” A very long “What?!!!” was my initial response, and hence I’m glad to have heard the sermon three times, so that I had more time to grasp and demystify the message.

He had drawn from the passage in Matthew 22, where Jesus summed up the entire law in two commandments, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind,” and to “love your neighbour as yourself.”

It’s a passage many of us know by heart, some of us (like me) might even have it nailed to our door post. But it takes on new meaning when we consider how the law, so often viewed as restrictive, is in fact rooted in love.

When I talk with friends and colleagues who aren’t believers, they often find the idea of voluntarily living under “God’s laws” rather puzzling, or even off-putting. “Why would anyone want to be constrained by so many rules?” they ask. The Ten Commandments, not to mention the 613 additional laws recorded in the Pentateuch alone, can sound like a long list of prohibitions designed to take the joy out of life.

But as Pastor Beh reminded us, the law was never meant to bind us in fear. It was meant to free us through love. The heart of God’s law is not control, but care. It points us toward a life rightly ordered in love; love for God first and then love for others flowing from that.

Love That Liberates

The Apostle Paul captured this beautifully in Romans 13:8–10:

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.”

Paul’s words help us see that love isn’t a replacement for the law, it’s the completion of it. When we live by love, we no longer ask, “What is the minimum I can get away with?” but “How can I bless more, love more, give more?”

That’s the liberating beauty of God’s law: it transforms our “have to” into “want to.” It frees us not from responsibility, but from self-centredness. It calls us into a deeper, truer obedience that is born not of duty, but of delight.

Contrary to what many in the world, like my colleagues, believe, the law was written in the language of love. When Christ came to fulfil the law, He embodied love in its purest form. On the cross, He showed us that love’s fulfilment is not about rules obeyed, but lives redeemed.

So, as I reflect on that weekend, hearing the same sermon spoken three times, I’m reminded again that God’s truth is always personal, always relational, always loving. Whether to retirees, parents, or teenagers, or to us musicians quietly sitting at the side pews waiting to get back on stage, His law of love still speaks, still frees, still calls us to live for others as He lived for us.

Now I can’t wait for another conversation with my colleagues, if they ever mention the Ten Commandments again.