Jesus Gave Them a Way to Tell the Difference and Then Left the Sorting to Them

A man went looking for one of his own rules and could not find it.

It was not a big one. It was the kind of thing that had simply always been true, the way a road being where it is is true, and he had never once thought to check it. He had kept it for thirty years. He had, and this is the part that sat badly, taught it to his children as though it came from somewhere.

He looked for about two hours. He found things near it. He found something that could be read that way if you already believed it. What he did not find was the rule.

He sat there with the book open and had a thought he did not enjoy, which was that if he could not source that one, he did not know how many others were in the same condition, and he had been enforcing all of them with the same face.

He is not angry about it. He built a fair amount of that cage himself and handed the key to people he trusted, and they were not villains either.

He names the two things and puts them side by side

There is a conversation in Mark where Jesus is challenged about a practice, and instead of arguing the practice He goes after the category. This is the King James Version:

He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men. (Mark 7:6-8)

The commandment of God. And the tradition of men. Two different things, named in the same sentence, and He assumes His hearers can tell them apart.

Then He says what happens when the second one takes over the first:

Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered. (Mark 7:13)

Of none effect. Not merely cluttered. Canceled out.

That is a strong thing for Him to say and He says it about people who were sincere and careful and thought they were guarding something.

You are held by something other than the rules and you were never held by them at all. Mark 7 has Jesus separating the two categories and naming which one carries weight, and it is the Holy Spirit who does that sorting in somebody without making them contemptuous of the people who taught them.

Paul says the mechanism does not even work

Colossians has a passage that is almost blunt, and it is worth reading twice.

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh. (Colossians 2:20-23)

Two things there.

The first is a shew of wisdom. Paul grants that these systems look wise. They do. That is why they spread and why good people build them.

The second is the last clause, and it is the one that lands: they are not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. They do not do the thing they were built to do. A person can keep the whole list and be exactly as they were underneath it, which anybody who has kept a list for thirty years already knows.

And Jesus describes what it costs the people carrying it:

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. (Matthew 23:4)

Heavy. His word for it.

You have something that was finished before you kept a single one of them, and you were never keeping the thing that holds you. Colossians 2 says the system does not deliver what it advertises, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a longer list who does what the list could not.

The one time the early church had to decide

There is a chapter in Acts where this exact question came to a head, and what they did with it is instructive.

A group was insisting that new believers had to take on the full body of practice. It was a serious argument. Peter stands up and says this:

Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? (Acts 15:10)

And the decision they sent out was worded like this:

For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. (Acts 15:28)

No greater burden. They deliberately kept the list short, said so in writing, and named the Holy Spirit as party to the decision.

Whatever anybody makes of the specifics, the direction is not ambiguous. When the first generation of the church had the chance to add, they subtracted.

You are not carrying something God required and you were never under the difference. Acts 15 has the church itself declining to add to the load, and it is the Holy Spirit named in that very verse as the one who agreed with them.

And He hands the sorting to you, not to me

This is the part where an article about rules could easily become another set of rules, so here is what Scripture actually does.

Paul deals with a live dispute about practices in Romans 14, and he refuses to rule for either side:

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. (Romans 14:5)

Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

And a few verses earlier:

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth: yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4)

That is Paul, an apostle, with the authority to settle it, choosing not to.

So nothing here is going to tell you which of your rules to keep and which to put down. That is not what this is for, and doing it would just be handing you a new list from a stranger.

What you have is the distinction Jesus made, and permission to be persuaded in your own mind, and a Bible you can read.

You are able to tell commandment from custom and you were trusted with the sorting rather than handed a verdict. Romans 14 gives that to the individual on purpose, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than anybody's ruling who makes a person settled about it.

What the yoke is supposed to feel like

And there is a comparison Jesus offers, which is useful as a check without being a rule.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

He does not say there is no yoke. There is one, and it is His, and He says what it is like: easy, and light, and it comes with rest attached.

Set that beside heavy burdens and grievous to be borne from Matthew 23 and you have His own two descriptions, in His own words, side by side.

You have a yoke with rest attached and you were never meant to be under the other kind. Matthew 11 is His own description of it, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an easy yoke something a person can actually feel the difference of.