Wise Or "Right"?

Being "correct" may feed your ego, but it won't nourish your soul unless you long for something more!

It took me a long time to finally understand the profound difference between wisdom and legislation. For most of my life, I was a rule-keeper. After all, I was the firstborn son. I was responsible for obeying the rules. I was supposed to be the “good boy” who would grow up as a “good leader” who taught everyone to follow the rules.

It was a painful lesson to learn that I wasn’t strong enough or “good enough” to be “right.” Discovering that “rule-keeping” wasn’t strong enough to change me truly shook my faith in God and myself. I needed to develop wisdom for that kind of life change, and wisdom required a much more intimate relationship with Jesus than merely keeping His rules!

Don’t get me wrong! Rules were essential when I was 3 years old. But when I entered my teens and 20-somethings, I discovered that there would be something much more profound that I needed to be more than just a “rule-keeper.” I needed to grow up from the sickness of mere “correctness.”

I needed the deeper “why” behind the rules if I was ever going to see my life genuinely transformed by love for God and my neighbor.

I discovered the weakness of rigidity and the power of firmness based on love rather than merely being “correct.” But the wisdom preserved in the “rules” became the path to wise living.

So, being proud that you don’t follow the rules is a sure way to foolishly squander your potential.

Look at our lesson today in Galatians 3:23-29; 4:1-5:

Brethren, before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

So, St. Paul is trying to get these Galatians, most of which were not raised in Jewish homes, to not buy into the heresy that they had to be Jewish before they could be Christian. It’s kind of like the false notion that you have to be Greek, or Russian, or Serbian, or Romanian, or (fill in the blank of your favorite ethnicity) before you can become Orthodox. That notion is, has always been, and will forever be, false.

And yet…

St. Paul refuses to call the Jewish practices of the Law that had become second nature to the Jews harmful. St. Paul insists that the Law, the ritual rules, and regulations were our “custodians” until Christ came.

This means that the “rules and regulations” are vital to our maturity and development and always will be. There is a great benefit in the humble honesty of realizing you need boundaries not just to keep you safe (that’s too small a motivation to produce anything else but slavery) but to train your inner self to recognize the dangers in life when they come. Most of the biggest mistakes in my life have come when I was asleep to the “cliffs” of my intoxicated actions, devoid of the wisdom of maturity. I bet you can see that in your life as well.

So, the purpose of the “rules and regs” is to train you, form you, and teach you to recognize when your passions are out of control. They serve as the “custodians” until we grow up enough to value our relationship with Jesus ABOVE our immediate desires! And that “grown-up” place isn’t some “magic moment” when “poof” “I’m saved” as much as it is a day-by-day choosing, from my freedom, to realize the treasure the Faith gives me in giving me, Jesus! That treasure is nothing less than actually “putting on” Christ at my baptism, becoming “Abraham’s offspring” and “heirs” of the promise of new life in Christ. The Treasure is when rules become wisdom, and my motivation to follow them flows from that stronger motivation of love rather than my ego’s desire to be “correct.”

St. Hilary of Poitiers was born to pagan parents in Gaul and received the finest education of the day. Hilary saw through the weaknesses of paganism and abandoned this idolatry for the Christian Faith. Unfortunately, during this time in the early 4th century, the heresy of Arianism was widespread in the Empire, even receiving support from the Roman Emperor. St. Hilary saw this heresy's spiritual and intellectual poverty and fought against it, even writing an appeal to the Emperor pointing out all the theological dangers of Arianism. As a hero of the Orthodox wisdom of the Holy Trinity, Hiary was made bishop of Arles in southern Gaul to replace the heretical bishop who had been teaching Arianism. The Emperor exiled Hilary for defending Orthodoxy to Asia Minor, where he wrote his most significant theological work called “On The Trinity.” Hilary struggled against heresy his entire ministry, not to be proven correct, but to protect the Treasure of the Faith because a diluted theology proves inadequate to heal our souls! He reposed in peace in 368.

Today, don’t despise or dismiss the wisdom of the rules and regulations.” You do so at your peril. Embrace them as valuable tools to show you the dangers of undisciplined desires. Then, don’t stop! Keep growing up until you realize the unspeakable joy of a Normal Orthodoxy that leads you to have a Normal Orthodox Life!

P.S. Enduring exile for the Faith delivered to the Church of Christ, * you withstand the deceit of the Arians, O holy Hierarch Hilary. * By your prayers and your teachings, * O defender of Orthodoxy and right belief, * convert the Western lands and entreat Christ for us, who honor you.

Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV

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