The church of Pergamon is compared to a wheat field that needs timely harvesting, symbolizing the church's need for guidance to reach maturity. The Mosaic code, detailed in the Torah, provides comprehensive legal and ethical instructions for Israel, guiding religious, social, and personal conduct. This code established how Israel was to live in covenant with God.
Antithesis in the Torah shows the consequences of breaking laws, highlighting the need for atonement and repentance. This thesis-antithesis dynamic adds depth to its moral instruction. The Torah uses inductive reasoning to infer principles from narratives and laws and deductive reasoning to apply these principles to specific situations, offering both specific guidance and general wisdom.
The Torah is both prescriptive and descriptive, providing a legal code and a historical narrative of Israel's relationship with God. This duality makes the Torah a rich, complex tradition shaping Jewish beliefs, values, and practices. The Torah tradition centers on Abraham's family, seen as the "kernel" of wheat that produced Jewish history. Christians view Jesus' death as planting this kernel, fulfilling the Torah and connecting it with the Christian gospel through the narrative of death and resurrection.