It really is all about accountability – dying to self and living to
Christ.

I would like to add that the combining of Old Covenant and New Covenant
is a bit confusng to me.

The author writes:

 Three examples of interpersonal
moral constraints laid out by God in the Bible are “thou shalt not kill,” “thou
shalt not steal,” and “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Remember when Jesus said that He did not come to destroy the law (Old
Covenant) but to fulfill it (New Covenant)? [Mt. 5:17]

In other words the 10 commandments, the old sacrificial system, et al
(Old Covenant) was superseded by the New Covenant as stated by Jesus in Mt
22:36-40:

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and
great commandment.

39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

This sums up what the law now entails (New Covenant) and it can only be
fulfilled by being born again of the Spirit of God -  through Jesus Christ who came to fulfill the
law now written on our hearts and not on tablets of stone.

I guess what I am trying to point out is that there is no need to
“mix” old and new – the new encompasses all we have to know regarding
our reposnsibility in Christ.
Not disregarding the old – the Scriptures tell us
much is to be learned from the old: For whatever things were written before
were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the
Scriptures might have hope. [Romans 15:4]

In fact, while Scripture is the easiest way to determine what defines moral interpersonal relations, I think that deriving the non-aggression principle from self-ownership (the autonomy that God has given us, free from the will of other humans) is a perfectly valid way to derive this.  In fact, it was my attempts at understanding the principles behind self-ownership that led me to believe that it was an autonomy delegated by God.

God does not “own” humans in the same way that I own my computer and can do whatever I wish to it.  We do not have to obey God’s commands – although there are consequences for not doing so, obviously.  The difference is, that should we choose to do so, we can disobey the Divine Law and temporarily disregard the consequences (although we eventually have to face them).  In this sense, God has given us autonomy of action and thought, and we truly do “own” our selves, in a sense.

God’s laws regarding interpersonal relationships (thou shalt not kill, etc.) then can be derived from a principle of self-ownership, but the leap that was not made by the classical liberal philosophers (possibly because at that time in Europe, it was felt to be so obvious as to not require any explanation) was that this ownership is itself derived from God.  

In my view, this was explicitly stated in the Bible for those that chose not to do philosophizing about it, and just to make it impossible to justify immoral actions such as murder and theft while accepting the supremacy of God.  Because without an actual Law defining what is required, faith is meaningless – just as the fact that Satan knows God exists does not change him.

My question now is this…how do so many Christian thinkers BELIEVE in the above principles, and then advocate a State which, by definition, violates said principles? Yes, I’m even applying that to “limited” government (something I find untenable).