When Religious Rules Replace Relationship
I once knew a pastor in South Louisiana who had been married nine times. Nine. When he came to the Lord, the church he joined believed that if you were remarried, you were living in adultery—unless you either remained single or went back to your first wife.
So this man, driven by sincere desire to please God, went from wife number eight back to wife number one. They remarried and stayed together until he died.
The church had scripture for it. They quoted Nehemiah, pointing to how the Israelites had to put away their foreign wives and children. "I'm sorry that it's messy," they'd say, "but you've got to stand for righteousness."
That story still makes my heart break. Not because the man wasn't sincere—he was. Not because the church didn't have good intentions—they did. But because somewhere along the way, we confused following rules with following Jesus.
The Heart Behind the Law
People who insist on strict interpretations of biblical passages about divorce, remarriage, or any other issue aren't trying to be mean. They genuinely love God and want to honor Him. They have a real heart for righteousness, a real heart for marriage, a real desire to please the Lord.
But here's what I've learned through my own journey out of legalism: when we turn the teachings of Jesus into another law—another set of rules to follow perfectly—we've actually missed the entire point of the Gospel.
Jesus didn't come to give us a new form of law. He came to set us free from the law.
What Paul Really Taught Us
I find it fascinating how Paul handles this in 1 Corinthians 7. He's dealing with situations that Jesus didn't specifically address—like believers married to unbelievers. Watch what he does:
First, he says, "This is what the Lord said." Then, a few verses later, he admits, "The Lord didn't talk about this, but I think I got it right. I think I'm saying what the Lord would have me say here."
That gives us a biblical pattern for how we should operate. Paul, writing under divine inspiration, shows us that we should take the teachings of Jesus seriously as guiding principles—but we shouldn't turn them into rigid laws that bind us.
Instead, like Paul, we should say, "Well, the Lord didn't give us a specific legalistic ruling on this particular situation. Let's go to Holy Spirit and say, 'God, what are You saying in this moment?'"
The Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Scripture?
The evangelical church has sometimes been accused of having a Trinity that goes: Father, Son, and Holy Scripture. We've elevated the Bible to the level of Holy Spirit Himself, turning it into an owner's manual rather than what it was meant to be—a way to introduce us to the living God who still speaks today.
This bibliography (yes, that's actually a word—the worship of the Bible) has created a theology where people believe Holy Spirit doesn't speak anymore. That the only way you can hear Jesus is to read your Bible. Period.
But that was never what the Bible was meant to be.
Scripture itself tells us that Jesus looked at the Pharisees and said, "You search the scriptures because you believe in them you're going to find eternal life, but they speak of me" (John 5:39, paraphrase). Even Jesus warned against replacing relationship with Him with rule-following.
When the Letter Kills
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:6 that "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (NIV). What he's saying is that if you take the letter of the law—whether the law of Moses or Christian doctrine—and make it what you live your life by, it becomes an administration of death.
But Holy Spirit makes alive. Holy Spirit has to interpret, explain, and apply truth to our unique situations.
Look at Acts 15. The early church faced a situation not specifically addressed in their "rule book"—what to do with all these Gentiles coming to faith. So they came together and said, "It seemed good to us and to Holy Spirit" (Acts 15:28, paraphrase).
There was partnership there. They weren't just looking through the book for a rule. They knew they had to reinterpret everything in light of Jesus.
Freedom to Follow Your Conscience
One of the most liberating passages in Scripture is Romans 14, where Paul essentially says: Follow your conscience. If you can eat meat, eat it in the name of Jesus. If you cannot eat meat, then abstain in the name of Jesus. And don't judge each other, because both of you have to be led by Holy Spirit.
I remember driving down a freeway, struggling with whether certain activities were worldly or godly. I cried out to the Lord about one particular issue, and I heard Him say as clear as anything: "Yes, if you make it."
Then immediately I thought: and so is money, and so is sex, and so is fashion, and so is business, and so is religion.
It's what you make it. It's the heart behind it.
That moment delivered me from fear and helped me understand that there isn't always a hard and fast rule. Sometimes we have to walk in the Spirit, follow our conscience, and trust God to guide us through the process.
The Danger of Spiritual Fear
Religious people often live gripped by fear that they're going to get it wrong, displease the Lord, and face judgment. But this fear actually keeps us from the very relationship God desires with us.
When we're constantly worried about following rules perfectly, we miss the beauty of walking in partnership with Holy Spirit. We miss the joy of knowing that God wants relationship with us, not mere rule-following.
The truth is, there's a lot that's not spelled out in Scripture—on purpose. God really is supposed to drive you to relationship with Him. It's not about following rules; it's about knowing Him.
Moving Beyond Bibliography
The minute we make our faith about law instead of relationship, we've actually diminished what Jesus did on the cross. He died to make sure we had complete access to the Father and that we would understand how valuable we really are.
Religion keeps perpetuating the same lie that Satan convinced Adam and Eve to believe in the garden—that we're not enough, that God doesn't really love us, that we have to perform to earn our way to Him.
But Jesus came to set us free from that lie.
A Living Relationship
God is not dead. He didn't leave us a testament—a last will and instructions that we have to very carefully follow without any further communication from Him. He's alive, and He still speaks.
The Bible is there to show us the author, not replace the voice of the author. It creates bookends and provides a plumb line so we can discern when we're hearing from God versus when we might be deceived. But it was never meant to replace ongoing relationship with Him.
When we learn to hear God's voice through Scripture, through prayer, through the counsel of other believers, and through Holy Spirit's direct communication with our hearts, we discover something beautiful: God's way is actually easier than religion's way.
His yoke is easy, and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30, NIV). When we're operating from relationship rather than rules, from love rather than law, we find the freedom and peace that Jesus died to give us.
The Bottom Line
The teachings of Jesus should be our guiding ideals. But then we, with Holy Spirit, work through each situation and ask: "How do we apply the heart of Jesus' teachings here?"
Sometimes that means staying in a difficult situation while God does a work of healing. Sometimes it means making hard decisions that religious rule-followers might not understand. But when we're walking in genuine relationship with God, we can trust that He will guide us into all truth—even when that truth looks different from what the rule book seems to say.
That's not relativism. That's relationship. That's walking by the Spirit rather than by the letter of the law. And that's exactly what Paul modeled for us in the pages of Scripture itself.
Blessings,
Susan 😊