9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.

It is true that moral laws and rules are meant for the unrighteous and not for the righteous. But Christians today cannot claim to be too morally advanced for governance by rules. Within the church, both the young in age and the young in faith are filthy from wallowing in the cesspools of modern cynicism and hedonism. They desperately need not only positional cleansing through Christ but also practical cleansing through the Holy Spirit. Rules are a tool that the Spirit can use to instruct the ignorant in the everyday meaning of righteousness. In past generations, He could appeal to someone's knowledge of conventional morality, which in large outline agreed with the Bible. Today, however, as ethical values in Western culture are being swept away by storms of lawlessness, morality must be defined by good rules.

An ordinary woman in Victorian times would never have thought of wearing a bikini. Even if the law had not strictly limited her choice of clothing, her own modesty and good sense would have kept her from considering swimwear in a modern style. Thus, in her day, there was no need for a rule against mixed bathing. As Paul says, "The law is not made for a righteous man" (1 Tim. 1:9). But women today, participating in a culture from which they acquire a deficient sense of propriety, need prohibitions against immodest clothing. Like all sinners, they need the law.

But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully [that is, properly].

The need for law, the need for rules generally, is in proportion to lawlessness in the world and in the church.

The suggestion that we should submit to rules recalls our experience with government bureaucracy. We see a jumble of red tape forcing us to waste time and energy on foolish exercises or putting arbitrary clamps on our necessary pursuits. But rules derived from the Word of God are not comparable to the rules devised by the minions of Caesar.

1. Biblical rules do not suffocate us with positive demands. Unlike every religion outside the light of truth, genuine Christianity denies that works are a ladder to heaven. The believer is exempt from any rosary or confessional, any pose of meditation or bed of nails. Salvation is free. The only works recommended to the believer are good in their essence, not merely pious in their appearance. No meaningless ritual clutters his life and cramps his freedom.
2. Biblical rules do not surround us with restrictions constantly interfering with our liberty of movement. A particular rule—the rule against drinking alcoholic beverages, for example—may require the new believer to give up an old habit. But once the habit is gone, he enters a new lifestyle and moves freely within its generous limits without ever approaching the barrier to drinking. Drinking, for him, is no longer a possibility. As he accepts the other standards against worldliness, he moves ever farther into the Christian life until finally his former life, closed off by Biblical rules, is distant and almost forgotten.

Modern fundamentalism is not the only Christian movement that has attached importance to rules. The early church had its rules also. One list, compiled by the first council in Jerusalem, declared that all Christians everywhere should refrain from eating blood, from eating meat offered to idols, and from fornication (Acts 15:20). The first rule alerted Gentile believers that, although they were free from circumcision and from the ceremonial law of Moses, they were still bound by the divine commandments given to Noah and his descendants.

3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

The last two rules attempted to curb the worldly practices that were most threatening to the witness of the church.

Some think that the Jerusalem council did not necessarily act in accordance with God's will. In fact, their rulings against fornication and against eating meat offered to idols were given authoritative backing by Christ Himself, when, in John's vision on the Isle of Patmos, He rebuked two churches in Asia for tolerating these practices.

14 But I have a few things against thee [Pergamos], because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. . . .
20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee [Thyatira], because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.

Some may object that the Jerusalem council dealt with more flagrant sins than the ones identified by the negative rules of modern fundamentalism. A rule against fornication, for example, is hardly one step away from the commandment against adultery. Some of the old-fashioned fundamentalist rules, such as, "Do not attend movies," seem arbitrary by comparison. Yet, in Paul's letters we see that the first-century Christian did not readily understand that fornication and adultery were in the same class of sins. Fornication was commonplace because of the prostitution officially sponsored by pagan temples. A new convert to Christ may not have understood that relations with a temple prostitute were the same as stealing another man's wife. Moreover, he may not have realized that such relations were greatly damaging to his own family. So, he was in need of Paul's instruction that fornication of this kind was equivalent to marriage (1 Cor. 6:15-20). It was a particularly objectionable marriage because, involving a pagan votary, it adulterated not only the man's relationship to his lawful wife, but also his relationship to Christ.

Fornication and eating meat were not the only worldly practices condemned by rules in wide use throughout the early church. Paul wrote to Timothy that women should not adorn themselves "with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array" (1 Tim. 2:9). It is sometimes said that Paul is merely picking out a few examples of improper costume to illustrate the general principle that dress should be sober and seemly. But, interestingly, a virtually identical exhortation appears in the writings of Peter. This apostle says, speaking of women,

Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

Notice that the two writers list the same three practices in the same order.

How should the coincidence be explained? We may surmise that the Holy Spirit caused Paul and Peter to publish an identical list of prohibitions against ostentatious dress because He wanted these prohibitions to be literally obeyed. We may surmise further that these prohibitions were adopted as rules by many first-century churches.

In all subsequent periods of church history, vital witness has been combined with rules. Rules were prominent in the Calvinist and Puritan movements. Methodists were derisively so named because of their insistence on methodical rule-keeping. The missionary church of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries unapologetically upheld rules. Today, also, the church needs rules if it is to survive as an effective instrument of God's purposes.

The Bible clearly predicts that a contempt for rules will reign in the Last Days, the days in which we live.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. . . .
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

Although the church has been plagued with false teachers from the start, never have there been so many who plausibly and insistently peddle liberty as there are today. A host of pseudospiritual objections to rules circulate all about us. Scripture warns us that if we let these objections lure us away from holy living, we will be like a dog returning to his vomit, or a sow returning to the mire.

However uncomfortable the reader may feel with the term "rule," he should remember that it is merely a synonym for the Biblical terms "law," "commandment," "testimony," "statute," and "precept." In our innate self-will, we hate all rules imposed upon us by the will of another. But if a rule is based on the Word of God, we should not hate it. According to the psalmist, we should love it.

O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.

Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.

Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them.

I have inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end.

Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O Lord, according to thy lovingkindness.