Do Small Rules Matter?
It's easier than we would like to let our obedience to rules become the foundation of our walk with Christ, but doing so changes the gospel and makes an idol of the very rules that should be pointing us to Christ.
I love board games.
One of my favorites is Pandemic, a game where either everyone wins together or everyone loses together. The very first time I played, I was freshly out of college, sitting at a table with three friends. Together, we were an accountant, a pharmacist, and two engineers. We had degrees, confidence, and absolutely no idea what we were doing.
We skimmed the rulebook; no need to read the whole thing. We assumed we would figure it out as we went, so we jumped straight into the game. We chose medium difficulty, obviously. We were college graduates with careers and résumés and the self-confidence that assumed we had it handled.
We lost. Badly.
So we regrouped, skimmed the rules a little more carefully, and tried again. And lost again. Someone looked at the clock. To this day, I don’t take pride in this, but we knew we only had time for one more game and, well... we switched to easy mode. It was humiliating, but we were desperate.
We actually won that game (after bending the rules a few times). And yet, we walked away from that experience wondering if our performance should invalidate our degrees. The next day, we revisited the rulebook – actually reading it this time – and found a single sentence we’d missed.
We’d thought we needed to eradicate the diseases (clear the entire board). But that wasn’t what the game required of us. It made winning nearly impossible. Our job was never to eradicate. We just needed to find the cure. Small rules, it turns out, can make a big difference.
That’s what Paul was saying when he wrote to the church in Galatia. Keep in mind that the Galatians didn’t reject Jesus completely. They still believed in Him and praised Him. But they added requirements. Jesus plus Jewish ritual, or circumcision, or cultural expectations. In adding to Jesus, they changed the gospel itself. Paul says in Galatians 1:6-9,
"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!”
Distortion isn’t the same as rejection. It comes from assumptions and additions. When you add rules the maker didn’t write, you don’t just change the experience. You change its substance.
In Christ Alone
This is the heart of Paul’s warning. The Galatians probably didn’t think they were walking away from grace. They were trying to be good, faithful believers. They were trying to do it right. But in adding to Jesus, measuring themselves by their own effort rather than the grace of Christ, they made the game unwinnable.
There’s a reason Christ gave His life – we’re incapable of atoning for the broken covenant on our own. We know this, in our minds. And yet, the temptation to form rules or metrics persists in my life. Going to church can become like punching a time card. Building something with God can twist to become my own achievement. Even reciting scriptures or speaking powerful prayers can become a point of pride.
The Pharisees did these things, yet they missed Jesus when he was right under their noses. We don’t add to Jesus because we’re rebellious. We add to Him because we want the reassurance of something measurable, something that makes us feel like we’re making progress. So we build systems, metrics, and expectations.
If Jesus isn’t enough in Himself, though, no finish line exists. There will always be more to prove or maintain. Adding anything to Jesus doesn’t strengthen the gospel; it replaces it. It’s not up to us to eradicate sin. We just need to keep our eyes fixed on the cure.
The Cure
Spiritual disciplines matter. Church, scripture, and prayer are gifts, but they aren’t the gospel. They’re responses to grace, not replacements for it. When those habits help us see Jesus, they’re anchors. But when they become about us painting a self-picture for others, even they can become idols.
Paul asks: “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Are the things we do leading us toward Christ, or just making it look like we’re headed the right direction? Are we striving to eradicate sin, or surrendering to the only hope we have?
Small rules can make a big difference – not in themselves, but in regard to what they point us toward. Rules don’t have the power to save our souls or eradicate sin. For that, Christ is the only cure. Anything added to Him subtracts from grace.
He alone is the gospel.
