God: The Reason for the Law

Anna Venger has a great post on the topic of rules, the law, and their purpose. Here is a teaser:

Laws. Rules. Boundaries. There is something in the heart of man that balks at having to obey rules. We feel that we are being confined, restricted. We feel less free. No doubt there are some man-made laws that are intrusive and annoying. Many are outdated and should be repealed, having served their purposes. Yet properly enacted laws are a blessing, providing a more harmonious environment for all of us and in the end bestowing greater liberty and peace of mind upon us.

Go read it all.

The whole concept of rules and freedom comes up a lot. And to explain it, I often trot out the airplane analogy.

People are airplanes. We are supposed to fly. It is what we were made for. But most of us can't. Either we're weighed down by cargo or we don't have enough power to take off. Christ removes that weight and gives us the power we need to fly. Without him we can only taxi about on the ground and live in the shadow of what we are meant to be.

In return for flying we have rules that don't make sense to the airplanes that never leave the ground. The grounded planes don't need to pay attention to airspeed or altitude. They don't really need to worry about weather conditions or anything else. They don't understand the flyers and say that we don't know freedom, we're all about those rules. After all they can drive around on the ground all they want and have much fewer rules to worry about. And our rules don't make any sense to them anyway, because they aren't living the kind of life those rules were meant for.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject. Have you read Anna's post yet? Go do that.