Murder in Slow Motion: How Religious Rules Kill Relationships

There's a phrase that haunts me: "murder in slow motion." It describes what happens when we use religious rules to try to create what only love can produce. It's the gradual death that occurs when law replaces grace, when formulas replace relationship, when obligation replaces choice.

I should know. I lived it for twenty years.

The Ministration of Death

Paul wrote something shocking in 2 Corinthians 3 that most Christians either ignore or try to explain away. He called the Ten Commandments—yes, the actual Ten Commandments—"the ministration of death" (2 Corinthians 3:7, KJV).

How can this be? Aren't God's laws good? Aren't biblical principles meant to bring life?

Paul explains that the law itself isn't evil, but it has no power to produce what it demands. In fact, it often produces the opposite. As he says in 1 Corinthians 15:56, "The strength of sin is the law" (ESV). When we try to avoid adultery simply because "thou shalt not commit adultery," we will end up producing adultery.

This is why he says in 2 Corinthians 3 that trying to keep rules—even biblical rules—without the Spirit only releases death. The law was meant to be our tutor to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), not our permanent way of living.

Yet somehow, we've taken Paul's liberating message and turned it back into law.

The Two Trees and the Gift of Choice

Why did God put two trees in the Garden of Eden? If love was the goal, wouldn't it have been simpler to just create one tree and make sin impossible?

But think about it: if freedom wasn't required for love, God should not have put the second tree in the garden. Or He should have at least built a fence around it, put up some barbed wire, or added electricity to keep us away from that tree, knowing it could hurt us.

Instead, Scripture tells us the forbidden tree was actually "pleasing to the eye" (Genesis 3:6, ESV). God made the choice attractive and accessible.

Why? Because the only way love can truly flourish is if we have the freedom to say yes or no. Without choice, there is no love—only programming.

This principle applies to every relationship, including marriage. If marriage becomes a legalistic prison where you can never leave, you begin to suck out the ability for love to grow. There's no freedom, and therefore no genuine love.

Living in the Death Zone

For twenty years, I lived in what I now recognize was a death zone—a place where religious obligation had replaced authentic relationship. I was walking on eggshells constantly, managing my husband's triggers, believing that if I could just be good enough, submissive enough, respectful enough, love would eventually bloom.

But what I was actually doing was enabling dysfunction while calling it faithfulness.

When somebody is walking in narcissistic patterns, it's easy to submit to narcissism when you're used to it. It becomes this codependency thing: if I meet your needs, if I give you everything you want, life is going to be more peaceful. If I stand up for myself or have a healthy boundary, things are not going to go well.

So you learn to create an environment that actually feeds a false spirit. And that false spirit will never be changed by law—only by love.

I was pretty good at manipulating our circumstances so that triggers weren't hit that would cause outbursts or threatening behavior. But this isn't love—it's survival. And survival isn't what God created marriage to be.

When "Biblical" Becomes Bondage

Here's what's insidious about religious rules: they often sound biblical. They use the right language, quote the right verses, and appeal to our desire to please God. But they produce death instead of life.

I was taught that if I would love well enough, I would make the unlovable lovable. If I would respect properly, I would make the unrespectable respectable. There was supposed to be grace within my laying down my life that would guarantee my husband's transformation if I just did it right and gave it enough time.

This teaching attracted sincere people with genuine hearts for change—including me. But it was built on a fundamental misunderstanding of how transformation works. It put the burden on the victim to produce change in the victimizer through perfect performance.

That's not grace—that's law. And law kills.

The Strength of Sin

Paul's revelation that "the strength of sin is the law" means that trying to overcome sin through rules actually empowers sin. When we focus on what we shouldn't do rather than who we are in Christ, we give sin more power, not less.

In relationships, this plays out in devastating ways. When we try to create love through obligation ("wives must submit," "husbands must love"), we actually undermine the foundation that makes real love possible: freedom.

I remember feeling like I was going crazy during those years. Am I making this up? Should life be better than this? Do I have unrealistic expectations?

But I wasn't crazy. I was experiencing the natural result of trying to build relationship on law rather than love. Law creates performance, not transformation. It produces compliance, not heart change.

Where the Spirit Is, There Is Freedom

Paul gives us the antidote in 2 Corinthians 3:17: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (ESV).

This isn't freedom to sin—it's freedom to love. It's the spaciousness that allows authentic relationship to flourish because both people are choosing to be there, choosing to love, choosing to honor each other.

My daily life with Gregory reflects this truth perfectly. He has never attempted to manipulate or coerce me through force, money, or psychological pressure. Not a single time. Gregory is physically imposing—a tall, powerfully built man from a challenging background who wouldn't hesitate to physically confront someone threatening a vulnerable person, myself included. Yet that strength has never been weaponized against me to bend me to his will.

This creates an environment where I want to honor him, where submission flows naturally from love rather than obligation. It's not a "have to"—it's a "get to."

Breaking Free from the Death Cycle

If you're currently living in a situation where religious rules have replaced loving relationship, where you're trying to produce transformation through perfect performance, I want you to know: you're not failing—the system is failing you.

The question isn't whether you're being biblical enough. The question is whether you're experiencing the freedom that comes from walking in the Spirit. If there's no freedom—only obligation, fear, and control—you may not be experiencing God's Kingdom, no matter how much Scripture is being quoted.

This doesn't mean we abandon biblical wisdom. But it means we approach that wisdom from a place of relationship rather than obligation, from love rather than law.

The Resurrection Principle

Here's the beautiful paradox of God's Kingdom: sometimes you have to be willing to let something die in order for it to truly live. Sometimes ending a marriage creates the possibility for real marriage. Sometimes walking away creates the only opportunity for genuine love to emerge.

This isn't about giving up quickly or being unwilling to work through difficulties. But it is about recognizing when you're trying to resurrect something through your own efforts rather than allowing God to do what only He can do.

In my case, the willingness to end my first marriage—to refuse to continue accepting a counterfeit—created space for the authentic love I now experience with Gregory. I had to stop trying to manufacture life through law in order to receive life through grace.

A Different Operating System

God's Kingdom operates on a completely different system than the world's empire-building approach. In the world's system, power flows downward, authority means control, and submission means inferior status.

But in God's Kingdom, power flows in all directions, authority means responsibility to serve, and submission means mutual support. Success isn't measured by who's in charge but by how much love is being released into the world.

When we try to force Kingdom outcomes using worldly methods—including religious rules and obligations—we end up with death instead of life, bondage instead of freedom, control instead of love.

The Way Forward

If you recognize yourself in this description, if you've been living under religious rules that produce death rather than life, know that there is another way.

Start by asking Holy Spirit: "What does love look like in this situation?" Not "What does the rule book say?" but "What would love do?"

Love sometimes means staying and fighting for relationship. But love also sometimes means walking away and refusing to enable dysfunction. Love sometimes means submitting to authority, but love also sometimes means refusing to participate in systems that damage people.

The key is learning to distinguish between the voice of Love Himself and the voice of religious obligation. One brings life; the other brings death.

An Invitation to Life

Paul concludes 2 Corinthians 3 with this promise: "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV).

This is how real transformation happens—not through keeping rules but through beholding Jesus and being changed by His Spirit. Not through obligation but through relationship. Not through law but through love.

If you've been trying to create life through law, it's time to let that system die. Murder in slow motion isn't God's plan for your relationships. Freedom, love, and mutual honor are.

Welcome to the Kingdom where love is the only law that matters, and Holy Spirit is the only guide you need.

For more about walking in Kingdom freedom rather than religious obligation, visit KingdomBrewing.com and chell out my book BLIND SPOT.

Blessings,
Susan 😊