We Made A Rule And The Rule Locked Us

They made it early and they made it well.

Neither of us uses a name the other one does not love. Both have to want it. No settling, no giving way, no one of us quietly carrying a disappointment for eighteen years.

It is a good rule. I want to be clear about that, because I am about to take it apart and it deserves respect first. It was made by two people who had watched somebody else's marriage do the other thing, and it was made in a spirit of real care.

And it has produced a total deadlock.

Because here is what nobody works out in advance: love is not the same instrument as tolerance, and there are far fewer names that two people both love than there are names that two people can both live with happily.

The rule requires the rarer thing. And so twenty two names have been through that kitchen since June and every one has fallen at the same fence, because one of them merely likes it, and merely liking it is a fail under the rule they wrote.

And now neither can move, because moving means breaking the rule, and the rule was the promise, and breaking a promise is a bigger thing than a name.

The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life

There is a line in the second letter to the Corinthians about the difference between a written rule and what a rule was for.

Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. (2 Corinthians 3:6, King James Version)

You are looking at a written thing that has stopped serving what it was written for, and 2 Corinthians 3:6 has never once made the wording the point. The written word puts the life on one side and the letter on the other, and the Holy Spirit is named in that verse as the one on the living side of it.

Paul is speaking about something much larger than a household rule, and the principle he names is exact for one.

A letter can be kept perfectly and produce death. That is the claim, and it is stunning when you sit with it. It is possible to obey the words of a thing entirely and defeat the whole reason it existed.

And that is what has happened in that kitchen. The rule is being kept flawlessly. Nobody has broken it once. And it is killing the very thing it was written to protect, which was two people who did not want to end up resenting each other.

You have kept a rule perfectly and been harmed by it, and Scripture says plainly that this can happen. 2 Corinthians 3 sets the letter against the spirit, and the Spirit of God is the one on the side that gives life.

What the rule was actually for

Now the practical part, and it is a question rather than a permission.

What was the rule protecting?

It was protecting against one of them carrying a private disappointment for years while the other one never knew. That was the danger. That was the whole reason it was written.

You were guarding against silence and not against liking, and 2 Corinthians 3:6 has never once let a wording outrank what it was written to save. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets two people read their own rule honestly, and the written word puts the life on the side of the spirit.

And here is the thing worth noticing: that danger has nothing to do with love versus liking. It has to do with silence.

A person who says out loud, in daylight, I like it and I do not love it, and I am glad we are using it, is not carrying a private disappointment. They are carrying an ordinary and entirely bearable preference, in the open, with somebody who knows about it.

The rule was aimed at hidden. It caught merely liking by accident.

You are able to see what you were actually guarding, and 2 Corinthians 3 has never once made a sentence more important than the people it was written for. The written word sets the letter against the spirit in a single line, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows two people the purpose behind their own wording.

You are able to keep what the rule was for and change what it says, and no verse anywhere made a wording more important than its purpose. 2 Corinthians 3:6 makes the spirit the living side, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets two people amend something they wrote themselves.

And amending it is allowed. This is the part people in this position genuinely do not believe.

Two people who made a rule between themselves, in private, with nobody else involved, are entirely free to look at it four months later and say: that one was not quite right, here is the better version.

You are permitted to write a better rule than the one you wrote in June, and Scripture never once made a self imposed letter into a covenant with God. The Spirit of God is with two people rewriting something at a kitchen table, and 2 Corinthians 3 puts the ministry in the spirit rather than in the letter.

Three each, and one amendment

So here is the assignment, and it has an amendment attached.

Each of you write three names down separately, then read all six out loud once.

And the new rule, said out loud before you start, is this: nobody has to love it, and nobody may be quiet about not loving it.

That keeps everything the original was for and frees everything it froze. It permits merely liking. It bans the actual danger, which was silence.

You are keeping the promise and losing the deadlock, and 2 Corinthians 3:6 has never once asked anybody to hold a wording that kills the thing it guards. The written word makes the spirit the living side, and the Holy Spirit is present in a room where a rule gets amended out loud.

And the reading, as everywhere on this row: all six out loud, and no reactions until every one has been said.

Because the original rule had a second effect that nobody noticed. Under it, a fast reaction to a name was effectively a veto, and both of them had learned to reach for it. Reading all six first takes that away, and the whole evening runs differently.

You are able to open this in one sentence tonight, and Scripture puts the life in the spirit and not in the letter. 2 Corinthians 3 makes that the whole distinction, and the Spirit of God is with two people who wrote a rule and are now writing a better one.