Legalism and Lawlessness

Suppose you were six years old and your parents had just given you some new boundaries for riding your bike.

You could ride from one next door neighbor’s driveway to the other next door neighbor’s driveway – a distance spanning approximately two yard widths.

Elated to learn your new boundaries, you hop and your bike and ride as fast as you can to the far edge of your next door neighbor’s driveway – and sit there looking at the next driveway down until your mother calls you in for dinner.

Ridiculous, right?

So what about this one?

Given the same boundaries, you reason that if you get on your bike and start riding down the sidewalk you might not be able to stop and turn in time to avoid outriding your boundaries. So you get on your bike and sit in the center of your own driveway until your mother calls you in for dinner.

Equally ridiculous.

When I was six (or whatever age I was) and those were my boundaries, I’ll tell you what I did. I got on my bike and rode from one driveway to another and back again. Over and over and over again until my mother called me in for dinner.

I trusted that my mother meant what she said when she gave me those boundaries. I trusted that meant I wouldn’t go wrong as long as I was inside them – and that something would go wrong if I was outside them. And so I fully enjoyed life within those boundaries (except the times when I didn’t – because even six-year-old me was a sinner, who sometimes thought life was better outside her boundaries – but that’s neither here nor there as this example goes).

The above scenarios are what I think of when I see Christians who don’t seem to know how to get together without drinking alcohol. They’re what I think of when I see Christians who want to forbid anyone from drinking alcohol lest they cross the line from drinking to drunk.

The above scenarios are what I think of when I see Christians who only listen to secular music. They’re what I think of when I see Christians who get upset because any other Christian is listening to secular music.

My little scenarios are simplistic, I know.

A wise little girl would recognize that she needs a certain amount of space in which to turn – so she leaves herself that space when approaching the boundary. And a wise Christian recognizes that if she has a personal or family history of alcoholism, she may need to abstain.

A loving little girl might recognize that her three-year-old brother has more constricted boundaries than she – so she might choose to play with her brother inside his own boundaries rather than pushing on to play where she legitimately may.

But it seems to me that, so long as I am neither going against my own conscience nor offending my brother, God is glorified when I fully enjoy everything within the boundaries – neither confining myself to the fence nor to the point farthest from the fence.

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