Anthony Doerr’s novel All the Light We Cannot See portrays a young German orphan named Werner who comes upon a small radio and becomes entranced with its mechanics. Werner spends hours breaking the radio down, modifying, and rebuilding it and soon becomes proficient enough to fix other household radios in his small mining town. But Werner is reaching his maturity at the same time as the Third Reich and so he finds himself “privileged” to attend a special academy for Nazi Germany. Here, Werner’s mind for science and engineering again sets him apart but he is warned by a Nazi mentor, “A scientist's work is determined by two things: his interests and those of his time.”
Perhaps in another time or place Werner’s fascination with electricity and audio frequencies would have set him up for a satisfying life and career. But Werner’s personal interests are only part of the equation. And as Werner’s story approaches its arch he sits bleak-eyed and shivering in the back of a truck triangulating radio transmissions and watching his team dispose of the enemy broadcasters. “A scientist's work is determined by two things: his interests and those of his time.”
What are the interests of our time? For Americans, and especially for my own “millennial” generation, it would be hard to place anything higher than the interest in what some have labeled, “the designer life.” An acute fixation on a personal lifestyle that fulfills our longings and resonates with our values. This is the interest of our time: to pass our time where we like it, as we like it. True, this has probably always been a pervading interest in any time, but those in the developed world can boast of more resources by which to achieve this and more windows of comparison than ever before. And so the interests of our time beckon us to continually reassess our own identity and our vision for the good life.
Here is my contention: The hyper-focus on individuality and a “bespoke” lifestyle has seeped into the daily interests of Christians and is even now dictating the terms of their faith. By way of example, a minister I know well visited a “downtown” church while on vacation around the new year and was surprised to hear the pastor of that church, preaching to a largely college and young professional congregation, say, “This is the year that you lose those 10 pounds! This is the year that you finally go on that trip!”
Here we have a sermon that has quite surrendered to the interests of its time. We see a similar pattern in preaching that is quick to identify iPhones and social media as the source of problems without challenging the covetous heart. Whose interests are dictating whose?
One stream of thought which captures this tendency to appropriate lifestyle-optimization for Christians is the ‘Rule of Life’ literature of the past two decades. A ‘Rule of Life’ (from the Latin regula meaning ‘guidepost’ or ‘railing’) serves as a trellis, a frame, or scaffolding on which to grow, hang, or build (respectively) principles for intentional living.
An analogy may help: Anyone who has driven a car for any length of time will know that sensation of “waking up” at the wheel. Though you were not asleep, you have no memory of traveling the road on which you came. A ‘Rule of Life’ serves as a prompt to similarly “wake up” and think critically about our time, relationships, money, talents, etc, and therefore fully embrace a vision for the Christian life.
An example of this is found in Stephen Macchia’s Crafting a Rule of Life (2012) which guides the reader into thoughtfully working on what Macchia calls “something to hang on to in the dark.” Writing for Macchia’s foreword, author and speaker Mark Buchanan says,
“Most of us stumble into the kingdom [i.e.: the Christian faith] with nary a clue how to do this. So we thrash about, make reckless attempts, arm ourselves with slogans, goad ourselves with guilt, fail and fail and fail, and finally settle for spiritual mediocrity. …Herein lies another option: to craft a rule of life which perfectly fits your unique temperament, bent, background and passion, and which day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade, makes God real to you in the inmost places.”
Here we find the warning not to fall asleep at the wheel (i.e.: and into “spiritual mediocrity”) but this warning is couched in the imperative for the reader to choose “their own adventure.” It is, frankly, difficult to disentangle this from the lifestyle-arrangement that is typical of our time.
Another example is found in John Mark Comer’s recent Practicing the Way (2024). Comer warns that we are constantly being formed (discipled) by teachers all around us and invites us to follow after Jesus Christ, the only teacher (rabbi) who can offer what we actually want: forgiveness, peace, transformation, and a deeper life with God. It is in the last quarter of the book that Comer furnishes the ‘rule of life’ practice and—similar to his first warning of always and even unwittingly being formed—Comer challenges:
“You already have a Rule of Life. … You have a way in which you live: a morning routine, a typical workday, a network of relationships, a budget, activities you spend your free time on. … Is it working for you or against you? The best way to tell is to take a kind of spiritual self-inventory; an honest assessment of your life.”(author’s emphasis)
It isn’t hard to connect Comer’s argument to Biblical directives. Ephesians says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil(5:15-16).” But it is far harder to imagine that following Jesus culminates in a practice that is primarily self-generated from the desires of the reader. And yet this is exactly how Comer goes on to describe the Rule of Life when he says, “[A] Rule is… self-generated from your internal desires, it has a ton of flexibility, it’s relationship based (not morality based), and designed to index you toward your vision of the good life.” (author’s emphasis)
Macchia’s Crafting a Rule of Life and Comer’s Practicing the Way both represent some of the best versions of the ‘Rule of Life’ literature that directs Christians to live out their faith with intentionality. I even gave my brother a copy of Macchia’s book for his birthday during a season of discernment in his twenties. But I also believe that the thing we are hunting for is actually what is hunting us. This open-ended quest to plumb the depths of our unique temperaments and to align our lives to match that sincerest self… this is an ambition that is never satisfied. The achievement we think is just around the corner tends to inch away just as we draw nigh.
But even after we have been warned that our efforts may be unwittingly playing to the interests of our time, several questions remain, “What ought I to give my attention to? What am I supposed to be doing?” The answer to these questions is found in God’s moral law.
When Herman Bavinck wrote, “The Ten Commandments are a brief summary of the Christian ethic and an unsurpassed rule for our life,” he was almost certainly not alluding to a ‘rule of life’ as referenced above. Nevertheless, Bavinck’s phrase, now translated from his Dutch, “The Ten Commandments are… an unsurpassed rule for our life,” should strike the modern ear. It frames a tension that so many are experiencing.
The tension is this: our relentless fascination with the rules of polity, biology, psychology, technology, sociology, productivity, and history—our fixation on these matters and many others—is merely an attempt to seize some sort of control in our fight for our own lives. This is the highest interest of our time: the dominance of man over his own life. And yet there remains a higher rule, an “unsurpassed” rule, that is the moral law of God as summarized in the Ten Commandments. And it is within this simple rule, this moral framework, this ethical scaffolding that man finds himself not directing his own destiny, but confronted, as Bavinck writes, “to the core of his personality.”
For the absorption of our time is to leverage our personalities to control our worlds, but the law of God works quite in the reverse: it intrudes on the essence of who we are and requires submission, obedience, and trust. And yet–astonishingly–it is through these very means (which can sometimes only be described as ‘humiliating’) that we find the source of true human flourishing. It is only when we are in alignment with God’s moral law that we find our life as we always wanted. In other words, “your best life” proceeds not from forging a rule from the fires of your desires, but rather by laying your desires down to be hammered, bent, and purified by God’s law. This is, quite literally, the imagery in Exodus before the decalogue was given:
“Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.” (Exodus 19:18)
Conversely, ‘rule of life’ proponents go to great lengths to express that they are not trying to establish a moral law. (Indeed, evangelicalism has for some time now been ready to bark at the slightest whiff of legalism.) For example, Macchia clarifies, “[The ‘rule’] implies not so much a system of rules or laws, but rather a way of regulating or regularizing our lives so that we can stay on the path we have set out for ourselves.” We can appreciate the needle that Macchia and others are attempting to thread. They cannot claim that the means–the ‘rule of life’ itself–is morally derived because that would imply universal application. On the other hand, they do claim that the ends–spiritual growth to a virtuous end–comes through these means. It is this insistence to, “stay on the path we have set out for ourselves” that begs the question: where exactly is this path going?
May I speak personally? I, like you, have read books on implementing personal habits, navigating technology and media, simplifying life, and aligning personal values with a “professional” vision. I, like you, have attended spiritual retreats to reflect on my own past and make plans to grow spiritually. I, like you, have taken personality tests to isolate talents and shore up weaknesses. I, like you, have seen therapists regarding personal hang-ups and insecurities.
And in all of these good endeavors I have still found myself fumbling to grasp these many lesser rules. I have not come out along “the path I have set for myself” as I had hoped and am ready to be gripped by something beyond my own contrived map. Moreover, I am beginning to be suspicious of a modern expression of faith that is so optimized–so warp-speed–that it abandons the illiterate, the handicapped, the simple, and the swamped-in-service-of-others to their lives of “spiritual mediocrity.” “But to what shall I compare this generation?” A sleek gadget we spend more time fixing than profiting from.
Now, it must be stated that developing a ‘rule of life’ and obeying God’s moral law are far from mutually exclusive exercises, but we have been warned: “A scientist's work is determined by two things: his interests and those of his time.” Are the interests of our time dictating what is of greatest interest to us? If so, then surrender to God’s rule, not reinvention of our own, is the order of the day.
Consider an example: One sets their will to obey to the tenth commandment:
“‘And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’
The advantages are many. First, this rule has no “overhead” as it has been handed down from on high for all people of every age. Second, there is a sense in which this rule does not even need to be learned. This is what Protestants have classically understood as the natural law–that basic ethical principles of knowing right and wrong are written on man’s heart–as Calvin wrote
“Now that inward law, which we have above described as written, even engraved, upon the hearts of all, in a sense asserts the very same things that are to be learned from the two Tables (i.e.: The Ten Commandments). For our conscience does not allow us to sleep a perpetual insensible sleep without being an inner witness and monitor of what we owe God.” (Institutes, 2.8.1)
Third, there is no doubt as to the effect of this rule. It will slice, “to the innermost essence of [the person’s] existence.” It will be humiliating at times, and it will be very, very freeing. Spiritual fruit of contentment, thanksgiving, peace-making, and generosity will take seed in the heart and flower. So heavenly-minded will this person’s character and conduct become that they often seem to embody the presence of Christ. And unattached to material possessions they will “seek first the kingdom.”
Now consider another, who sets their will to minimize their iPhone usage and to delete social media accounts Monday through Thursday. It is hard to think of many advantages beyond the generic. The rule is precariously placed in time. It requires frequent attention which will not be aided by what Calvin called, “an inner witness.” Second, the rule is not applicable beyond the person who created it. In fact, it is even more narrow than that, since, as a matter of conscience the creator may decide that they have matured beyond their impulses and no longer require the rule! Third, it is doubtful whether this rule will bear much spiritual fruit and in fact may spoil unto pride or pharisaism.
In summary: it is absurd to compare the disproportional effects these practices would have on these two lives. The former commands the heart while the latter thinks only of the hands. Yet it is with the latter that we are too often preoccupied. But while the former can hold and enclose the latter, it also demands that it hold and enclose us. Could it be that “much ado” regarding personal rules is simply a compensation for, as Calvin says, “what we owe God”? Or do we sprinkle a grain of salt in when Jesus says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.”
“Whether as persons we grow and blossom or shrink and wither, whether in character we become more like God or more like the devil, depends directly on whether we seek to live by what is in the Commandments or not. The rest of the Bible could be called God’s repair manual, since it spells out the gospel of grace that restores sin-damaged human nature, but it is the Commandments that crystallize the basic behavior-pattern which brings satisfaction and contentment, and it is precisely for this way of living that God’s grace rescues and refits us.” (Packer, Growing in Christ, 221)