House Rules?

I was asked the other day to weigh in on God's "house rules" for life... I don't think that saying God has rules, helps us understand the Bible very well, as that makes for some problems with legalism. Yes there are rules in the Bible, but it is not a rule book. It is a book that tells a story wherein some rules are placed as a part of the story of God's relationship with humanity. The big idea is there are somethings we shouldn't do, like reject God's wisdom for the knowledge a snake wants to share. The rules multiply when Moses shows up, but then Jesus drops the rules down to one, love God and oh, the second is love others.

The Sermon on the Mount is a good starting point for understanding how Jesus calls us to live. So that's found in Matthew 5-7.

I would say the difficulty in outlining all the ways we are called to live and love are multifaceted issues of culture, language, and mental/emotional development.

Culture reorders our understanding of priorities in how to love others based on the norms we are already immersed in. A good book that scratches the surface of culture's dynamic influence on faith  is Strange Virtues: Ethics in a Multicultural World.

Language changes our understanding in much the same way as culture because it totally changes how we understand the world and it is embedded in our culture. When you learn a new language, you are learning a new culture. There is an article written by the New York Times that talks about how language changes our view of the world and the book The Geography of Thought is focused more closely on how Asians and Westerners use their brains rather differently.

As far as mental/emotional development, you can not understand some concepts or relationships until you mature, have certain needs met, and find yourself in a relatively safe place. Living in constant fear destroys certain abilities to reason and connect with others. Children cannot understand certain concepts like conservation of volume until sometime between the ages of 7 to 11. There are other maturing issues that are necessary as well to develop complex logic, reasoning, and healthy emotional attachment. Some resources that might help with how we think about how mental and emotional development affect our faith and relationships with others are the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It's Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature by Peter Scazzero.

There are likely more areas that could be shared, but this is a good beginning. If you know of other books or articles that speak to these ideas, please do share.

Thank you!

Links:
Facebook Live video: https://www.facebook.com/andrewthill/videos/10155779139625677/

Matthew 5-7: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5+-+7&version=NIV

Strange Virtues: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OW5UVM

NY Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html

Geography of Thought: https://www.amazon.com/Geography-Thought-Asians-Westerners-Differently-ebook/dp/B0044R96OQ

Conservation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_(psychology)

The Righteous Mind: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052FF7YM

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01HAKH3IE