{"id":1229,"date":"2014-10-27T21:41:59","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T21:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/?p=1229"},"modified":"2014-10-27T21:42:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T21:42:00","slug":"silly-little-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html","title":{"rendered":"Silly Little Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent conversation with a five-year-old, it came out that using a pen, in kindergarten, is a prohibited activity. Violation of\u00a0this particular\u00a0law results in the punishment of putting one’s head down on the desk.<\/p>\n

\"Pens<\/a>
A pen, a pencil, a crayon — some tools are better than others, but is there the ultimate tool that must always be used, no matter what? Rules are funny things. Photo credit Steve Henderson Fine Art.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What strikes me most about this issue — other than that it still is an issue, because 46 years ago, when I was in kindergarten, using a pen at school was also disallowed for those under the age of 8 — is how petty, small, and unnecessary it is. While I’m sure that there are all sorts of reasons why young children should use\u00a0chubby\u00a0pencils and not ballpoint pens, many of\u00a0this five year old’s\u00a0(and incidentally, my) generation\u00a0successfully\u00a0employed\u00a0pen technology at the age of 4, 3, or 2. The kids pick up, and use,\u00a0the resources in their homes.<\/p>\n

What also strikes me is that\u00a0the punishment allocated\u00a0is\u00a0a perversely humiliating one: perverse, because it looks harmless, but when your head’s burrowed in your arms, and you’re in the\u00a0midst\u00a0of your peers, everybody knows that you’ve done wrong. In an arena where peer pressure reigns supreme, the\u00a0grown-ups in the room\u00a0really shouldn’t use it as a weapon for their convenience.<\/p>\n

I’d say that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, only that there is no actual crime — just a violation of a silly, little, rule.<\/p>\n

Religious Rules<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So it is, far too often, in the walk of many Christians: we obsess about the\u00a0infringement\u00a0of rules,\u00a0violation of\u00a0statutes,\u00a0transgression of dictums, except that, as theoretical vessels of grace, we never admit this outright: we simply spend a lot of time castigating ourselves because “we don’t have enough faith,” “we don’t trust God enough,” “our thoughts are not pure,” “we don’t have an attitude of worship,” “we’re too anxious,” or “our words are not seasoned with praise.”<\/p>\n

In franker terms, we watch the “wrong” movies, read inappropriate books, swear, think a negative thought, speak aloud a negative thought, allow our bra strap to show, sleep in on Sunday because we feel like it, ingest an impermissible food, make a snippy comment, throw away a religious tract we find in a public bathroom — if\u00a0the infractions are\u00a0sounding minor and inconsequential, it’s because they are.<\/p>\n

If they’re not sounding minor and inconsequential, then it’s time to get out of the Old Testament for awhile, and pay attention to the New:<\/p>\n

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death,”<\/em>\u00a0Romans 8:1-2 tells us.<\/p>\n

“What Does This Mean?”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll never forget being in a Bible study (as a guest in another’s house, I had no choice) when the members mused, with great confusion, “What does it mean, that\u00a0‘there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus’<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

\"Diaphanous<\/a>
What does freedom feel like? What does it look like? Aren’t these better questions than, “What rule did I break today?” Diaphanous, original oil painting by Steve Henderson; licensed print at Great Big Canvas, Framed Canvas Art, and Vision Art Galleries.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“What it SAYS!” I wanted to shout.<\/p>\n

There. Is. No. Condemnation. In. Christ. Jesus.<\/p>\n

Now while at this point some helpful voice inevitably reminds us that we do need rules, after all, and if we don’t have them, there will be anarchy, Paul\u00a0addresses\u00a0this\u00a0matter\u00a0throughout\u00a0chapter 6 of Romans, concluding:<\/p>\n

“For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”<\/em>\u00a0(6:14)<\/p>\n

Grace. We say the word a lot, but when it comes to allowing it, realistically, to flow in and through our lives, we resist: God loves us, that’s true, we tell ourselves, but He expects us to be good and obedient and law abiding.<\/p>\n

Law Breakers<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And in those last two words lies the problem: as long as we focus on the law, and whether or not we keep it, we don’t live grace. We simply break laws, because we are incapable of not doing so, no matter how hard we try to be good. We may as well expect ourselves to walk on water.<\/p>\n

Jesus did that. He’s the only one who can. He’s also the only one who can live a sinless life, which He did, and His point in coming to the earth, living that life, dying that death, and being resurrected from it was not to damn us, and condemn us, and berate us, and consistently put us down because we are not perfect.<\/p>\n

For all we quote John 3:16 —\u00a0“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,”<\/em>\u00a0we stop before John 3:17:<\/p>\n

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Rigidity<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In our efforts to simplify things and make them fit onto a gospel tract, we like to make a clear-cut\u00a0outline\u00a0of what Christ did, and within evangelical circles, this generally requires us to make\u00a0a rigidly constructed\u00a0statement of faith (“I accept the Lord Jesus Christ as\u00a0my\u00a0Savior and Lord”) in exchange for which we receive eternal life, the rest of the world, quite literally, being damned if they don’t fulfill this formula\u00a0to the letter\u00a0— \u00a0but all we really know is that Christ has overcome the world (John 16:33) and whatever He came to do 2,000 years ago,\u00a0is\u00a0finished (John 19: 30).<\/p>\n

We are not Jews. We do not live under Old Testament law, and there is nothing in the good news of the gospel that encourages us to make a New Testament one.<\/p>\n

Understanding Christ’s love and compassion is a worthy and essential pursuit, because as long as we persist in creating, finessing, perfecting, and imposing rules\u00a0on ourselves — and others —\u00a0to earn that love, we will\u00a0project\u00a0a false, harsh God,\u00a0one who does not love, unconditionally, but who commands that we bury our heads in our arms, on the desk, because we used a pen, when the rules say to use a pencil.<\/p>\n

Thank You<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you for joining me at Commonsense Christianity, where I encourage you, always, to read the Bible for yourself and grow in grace, wisdom, love, mercy, and knowledge as you immerse yourself in the entire message — and that message, the one we call the gospel, does mean “Good News.”<\/p>\n

If it’s not sounding good, then it’s time to find out why.<\/p>\n

Posts complementing this one are<\/p>\n

Practical Christianity: Tangible Things We Can Do to Live Our Faith (Part 1)<\/a><\/p>\n

Practical Christianity: Tangible Things We Can Do to Live Our Faith (Part\u00a02)<\/a><\/p>\n

Practical Christianity: Tangible Things We Can Do to Live Our Faith (Part\u00a03)<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent conversation with a five-year-old, it came out that using a pen, in kindergarten, is a prohibited activity. Violation of\u00a0this particular\u00a0law results in the punishment of putting one’s head down on the desk. What strikes me most about this issue — other than that it still is an issue, because 46 years ago,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":561,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,88,50,5,1026,1212,13,2,10,11,58,3,15,12,7,8,6],"tags":[1644,298,34,103,305,1292,378,73,26,22,62,122,1293,1290,31,203,614,613,828,440,328,1291,30,21],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-bible","category-children","category-christianity","category-church-2","category-education-2","category-encouragement","category-faith","category-family","category-home","category-hope-2","category-inspiration","category-lifestyle","category-parenting","category-personal-growth","category-spiritual-growth","category-spirituality","tag-bible","tag-bible-study","tag-christ","tag-christianity-2","tag-commonsense","tag-condemnation","tag-evangelical","tag-faith-2","tag-god","tag-grace","tag-jesus","tag-jews","tag-john-316","tag-kindergarten","tag-law","tag-love-2","tag-new-testament","tag-old-testament","tag-peer-pressure","tag-punishment","tag-religious","tag-romans-81","tag-rules","tag-sin"],"yoast_head":"\nSilly Little Rules - Commonsense Christianity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Silly Little Rules - Commonsense Christianity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent conversation with a five-year-old, it came out that using a pen, in kindergarten, is a prohibited activity. Violation of\u00a0this particular\u00a0law results in the punishment of putting one’s head down on the desk. What strikes me most about this issue — other than that it still is an issue, because 46 years ago,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commonsense Christianity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-27T21:41:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-10-27T21:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/files\/2014\/10\/Hailey-pens-and-pencils-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carolyn Henderson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Silly Little Rules - Commonsense Christianity","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Silly Little Rules - Commonsense Christianity","og_description":"In a recent conversation with a five-year-old, it came out that using a pen, in kindergarten, is a prohibited activity. Violation of\u00a0this particular\u00a0law results in the punishment of putting one’s head down on the desk. What strikes me most about this issue — other than that it still is an issue, because 46 years ago,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html","og_site_name":"Commonsense Christianity","article_published_time":"2014-10-27T21:41:59+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-10-27T21:42:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/files\/2014\/10\/Hailey-pens-and-pencils-300x200.jpg"}],"author":"Carolyn Henderson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html","name":"Silly Little Rules - Commonsense Christianity","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/files\/2014\/10\/Hailey-pens-and-pencils-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2014-10-27T21:41:59+00:00","dateModified":"2014-10-27T21:42:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/#\/schema\/person\/9fc7691cd5954d024fa9f6c17b756fde"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/files\/2014\/10\/Hailey-pens-and-pencils-300x200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/files\/2014\/10\/Hailey-pens-and-pencils-300x200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/2014\/10\/silly-little-rules.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Silly Little Rules"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/","name":"Commonsense Christianity","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Carolyn Henderson","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/#\/schema\/person\/9fc7691cd5954d024fa9f6c17b756fde","name":"Carolyn Henderson","description":"Carolyn Henderson is an author, home educator, and business owner who integrates Christianity with real life, and common sense with Christianity, in her writings. Her lifestyle blog, This Woman Writes (www.ThisWomanWrites.areavoices.com) addresses contemporary Christianity, family finances, homeschooling, food, and encouragement, from the perspective of a normal person who is passionate about the value and power of ordinary people. Featured within Carolyn's posts are artwork by her husband, Steve Henderson (www.SteveHendersonFineArt.com) who focuses on the beauty of God's landscapes and people. Carolyn is the author of Live Happily on Less -- 52 Ideas to Renovate Your Life and Lifestyle and Grammar Despair: Quick simple solutions to problems like, \"Do I say Him and Me or Me and Him?\" Both books are available through Amazon.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thiswomanwrites.areavoices.com\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/author\/chenderson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/561"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonsensechristianity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}