Nicole’s e-Pistle “Laws & Love”

August 26, 2026

Greetings, Friends!

Nearly every year, the Dalton Rotary Club sponsors an international student through the Georgia Rotary Student Program to come to Dalton to study at Dalton State for a year. This year’s student is from Turkey. He introduced himself to the club during our weekly meeting yesterday, and I had an opportunity to speak to him afterward. He speaks English fairly well, but I joked that it cannot be an easy language to learn with all the grammatical rules that get broken and changed.

Then this morning, I read a devotional that was given to me recently, and today’s passage was comparing human rules to divine rules. Human rules are often changed, hopefully for the better. Take English grammar, for example. There is a rule that one should not end a sentence with a preposition. I confess, after having had an English teacher for a mother, I still catch myself trying to change the wording of my sermons so as not to break this rule. However, to quote the devotional…

“In mockery of the sometimes clumsy rule… Berton Braley has written:

The grammar has a rule absurd

Which I call an outworn myth:

‘A preposition is a word

You mustn’t end a sentence with!’

And in the same spirit of scorn, Winston Churchill said, ‘This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.’”

On Monday, the Lunch Bunch engaged in a deep discussion about Romans 13, which begins with Paul warning us to follow government authority, for all authority has been given to leaders by God. He warns that not to obey civil law and authority will bring harsh judgement upon the offender… We then proceeded to list a myriad of examples in which governments and leaders have fallen short of protecting the common good and talked of when and how Christians should respond to injustices performed at the hands of those meant to protect people.

Yes, laws change. Systems of governments change. Worldly alliances change. The question becomes, what is the relationship between law and love? On Sunday, I spoke about people projecting their own images onto Jesus, attempting to mold his words and deeds to fit their own priorities and biases. Well, regardless of who the world says Jesus is or was, Jesus is God and God is Love. Therefore, any rule or any law that does not seek to provide hope to the hopeless, justice to the oppressed, or an ability for all to thrive in this life needs to be reevaluated.

The devotional says that God’s Law does not change, for it was given for the good of “man,” and that “his needs have not changed.” I agree, in part. I do not think God’s Word changes, nor God’s Law, but when Jesus entered into the world as God’s Word made flesh, a true embodiment of Love, he fulfilled the Law in a way that does not change it but expands it and illuminates it. It is not God’s Law that changes, but it is Love that gives us a new lens with which to interpret it… or to interpret it with. When we seek to live and love as Jesus did and still does, then the Holy Spirit may move through us, opening our eyes to new interpretations and, more importantly, applications of God’s Word for us and for all of creation.

So, friends, may we render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what belongs to God… and if a few rules get broken along the way, well… so much the better.

Blessings and peace,