Only One Law?

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”- Matthew 7:12

Could it be that in the end, after the thousands of lines of regulatory code and statues and ordinances of our societies, after the myriad lists of taboos, that everything comes down to only one Law? At least in governing our relationships with each other, the answer is a simple "Yes."

I recently watched a movies called "The Kite Runner." One character from the story set in pre-Soviet / Taliban Afghanistan lashed out against the Afghan Mullahs and the Communists, and all their lists of "sins." He tells his son, "there is only one sin, stealing." He explains, when you kill someone, you steal their life, and so forth. I pondered this, as I have heard others make similar observations. Then I re-read Matthew 7:12, and I realized this is a variation on Jesus' summary of the Law.

Stealing is a particularly good concrete example of how you wouldn't treat others as yourself, since you wouldn't (or ought not) steal from yourself! It recognizes the basic right of property, and the equality of that right to all. But perhaps Jesus' summation is more eloquent, as it catches both the one who would try to steal property for themselves, and those who have all their property by rights yet deny others opportunities they themselves sought in the acquisition of their own wealth.

The Simple Life (No, not Paris Hilton's)

The first Church is described as follows:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." ACTS 2:42

That's it. We can make it as complicated as we want, but we ought to at least be doing what they did. And probably not much more, not in terms of Actions but in terms of the basic structure of our fellowship.

Sure, there are activities that require the kinds of organization and bureaucracy that we've all come to know and love, but it seems that it should be ancillary to the above model, an addendum devoted to the specific actions it is needed for. It should not flow its top heavy man made bloat back to the "simple life" of the Church either.