When I get right down to it, I think I just might be an anti-nomian, someone opposed to rules and laws as well as processes and steps. I feel like my whole life is governed by laws and rules and regulations of every kind. There are traffic rules and family laws and school processes and state regulations, many of which are in conflict with federal regulations. There are rules of etiquette, thanks to Miss Manners, and neighborhood rules. And then there are church rules and processes. God, is there no end to all these rules and mores and processes for living! The Jews of Jesus’ time had 619 rules based on the ten commandments. What number of canon law is the Roman Catholic Church on these days? Depressing! Debilitating! Scary! How does one keep all these rules straight? in focus?
And what happens when one really needs one of these rules broken for the sake of a person’s well being, or sanity? All rules cannot be applied across the board unilaterally. Pity the persons on whom some of these rules land!
Doesn’t one know the right way and wrong way of responding to people? Isn’t that written on our hearts, like the Old Testament prophet says? Why can’t we just have one rule: love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself? Can’t people figure out how to be loving to the people around them? Why do people think we need a bunch of rules to tell us how to respond to others? Don’t we know how to respond to others? Isn’t that called “love”?
I have a sneaky suspicion that people who demand or expect a lot of rules in their lives have those rules so they can put limits or boundaries on their loving others. It makes it convenient. I can love you, but not you, nor you, and certainly not you. Sorry, rules are rules, you know, and I didn’t make the rules. Maybe so, but you sure like applying them to others. Will legalists be judged by the rules in the final analysis? Rules make it easy for others to condemn others. You are a rule-breaker. Forget you. You’re excluded.
A word to the wise: those who live by the rules perish by the rules.
Why is this counry so rule-oriented? Who benefits from all of this? What do I get from this? I’ll never escape a rule-infected society. Ugh! God help me. God help us.