Those of us of a certain age or
older might remember asking our parents why we had to do certain chores or why
we couldn’t do certain things. We might also remember sometimes getting
non-answer answers, such as “Because I said so,” or “If Tommy jumped off a
cliff, would you?” Or even these classics, when we did something really wrong
and got a severe punishment: “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,”
and “This is my house, and it’s my rules.”
Those and many other parent
“answers” may have cropped up in our lives, and at first, they seemed to
satisfy us. But after a while, “Because I said so” just isn’t enough. We need
to know why these rules are in place. If we were lucky, our parents explained
the rationale behind the rules, usually something along the lines of “We love
you, and we just want to make sure you’re safe.”
To some, the Bible seems to be chock
full of rules; so many, in fact, that it seems impossible for anybody to live
up to those rules. To us, some of those rules seem ludicrous, such as the rule
against eating shellfish. But upon reflection, it seems to me that the Bible
has the same over-arching theme our parents had: “I love you, and I want you to
be safe.” Although this doesn’t mean we’ll always follow the rules, as long as
we confess what we did, God will always forgive us, because He still loves us.
And that’s the best rule of all.
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