The Law of our Hearts

“What’s your view on homosexuality?”

It came out of nowhere… a random question in the middle of the day. I looked at my friend – a thoughtful guy with some sort of Sunday School background and leftist persuasions - and quickly realised that no matter how articulate my answer it was bound to be misunderstood.

So instead of starting an eloquent monologue on the theology of natural law, biblical hermeneutics and the ethics of love, I answered with another question: “How do you determine what is right and wrong; what is ‘good’ behaviour and what is not?”

The conversation moved from ethics to philosophy to the notion of absolute truth – “there is some truth out there, but we haven’t found it yet.” And then, “Christianity is just a bunch of rules anyway.”

In the end our conversation never really addressed the issue of homosexuality. It ended with my comment; “Oh if you really knew God and how fantastic he was, you would really like him. You’ve just been around some really bad advertising.”

A lot of people have. Why is it that Christianity is known as ‘a bunch of rules’ when we are the only world religion which has grace at it’s a core? Where the punishment that we deserve for our wrong has been taken by someone else simply because we are loved? Why are we known for judgmentalism* when our own judgment has been removed?

Jesus said the whole law is summed up in two things. Love God and love people. These ‘laws’ are now written on our hearts rather than on ‘tablets of stone’ (2 Corinthians 3:3). In place of a long list of external rules is the person of the Holy Spirit who inspires us to act out of love. We live for others not because anyone is telling us too, but because we want to. It’s a new heart that transforms us and motivates us to walk in grace.

Where the Spirit is absent, we need laws. We revert to hard legalism. We head back to the pre-Pentecost days where rules were needed to regulate behavior. But a quick overview of the Old Testament reminds us that it never worked then. So why do we think it will work now? We were promised something better.

We should be known as the most loving, gracious, non-judgmental people on earth. People who love unconditionally and refuse to throw stones at the guilty; who humbly walk in the Spirit and live undeniably holy lives set apart for his glory. People who love others with such passion and unconditionality that people are drawn – to like our God - and perhaps even to love him.

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Cor. 3:3)

*See the research findings of David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyon’s book, UnChristian.