Vitamin Filter

 

The Gospel and The Twelve Rules

Jordan Peterson’s book, Twelve Rules For Life, offers practical and psychological help to those seeking a better life – or Peterson puts it, Life (existence for the whole planet across time). Taken as they stand, Peterson’s rules provide protection against chaos and wisdom upon which to lean

The rules, however, fall short. As Christians, we understand that real Life originates in and is and upheld by Christ. The Gospel, not personal will or ideals, provides our only hope. Without a Gospel foundation and Gospel support, trial and time erode the wisest of ideals and the strongest resolve into dust. Success comes not through more effort, but through God’s effort – effort expended at Calvary – effort affecting us still.

Filtering Peterson’s rules through the lens of the Gospel transforms them into statements of hope that convict, encourage, and ultimately, reveal the Cross as the only root from which a truly better Life can sustainably grow.

1.      Stand up straight with your shoulders back because YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD.

Peterson makes a strong point: Carry yourself well, adopt the habits and mindsets that people espouse, and your likelihood of success will rise. However, to the Christian, success begins and ends with Christ. In Gospel culture, our success rests on the dignity, innocence and worth we obtain the moment we identify with Christ. Whatever success we achieve after God restores us becomes an extra benefit instead of our reason to strive. Christ in us, our Reason and our Reward, matures us and offers the only assurance of current and lasting success.

 

2.      Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping because ALMIGHTY GOD HAS ALREADY HELPED YOU.

Christ’s sacrifice gives us a moral obligation for self-care. Since Christ has called us beloved, we must act like the beloved we are. Anything less cheapens His gift and the unarguable value He’s given us. Anything less is a farce.

 

3.      GOD WANTS THE BEST FOR YOU. Befriend people who feel likewise.

Christian friendships suffer pitfalls similar all others. “Rescuing” friendships, shallow friendships, selfish friendships, or fragile friendships all fall short of the healthy relationships God intends. While Christians should, and do, befriend others with an eye for serving them, the Gospel compels us to seek out friends who mirror God’s care. He gives us hard, loving truths – and also His constant presence, both of which help us grow. Because of this friendship, we’re empowered to seek and become friends who do the same – not to the exclusion of other, less ideal relationships, but with a clear-eyed discernment that ranks certain friendships as better than others and eschews other friendships entirely.

 

4.      YOU ARE UNIQUELY CREATED TO INHABIT TIME, so compare yourself to yourself, over time – but never forget your Creator.

Peterson’s argument deepens in the light of our identity as creatures, created by God. In Him we find motivation to strive for excellence as well as humility to recognize and grow past our weaknesses. Failure or success can easily derail us even when we’re not comparing ourselves with others. Recalling our Creator reminds us of our identity within His larger story and helps us retain the dignity and humility (both required) for healthy maturation.

 

5.      BECAUSE GOD DISCIPLINES YOU IN LOVE, do the same for your children.

God’s guidance and consequences, both given in love, shape our characters. To deny our children the same advantage, especially when they are young and still unable to recognize God’s chastisement for themselves, is to participate in their own destruction. Christ has loved us, and we must love our children – not for the purpose of making them loveable to ourselves or others, but because they are God’s beloved. When we treat them as such, employing all the restraints and blessings that belovedness implies, loveableness is likely to follow. But rather than being mistaken as our greatest priority or an end unto itself, it will be a beautiful by-product of their security in our love, and in God’s.

 

6.      Set your house in order before you criticize the world, because GOD HAS GIVEN YOU A SPECIFIC SPHERE OF DOMINION.

As God’s redeemed people, we have been ushered into a Kingdom that exists now and into eternity. It is expressed and expanded with every surrendered thought, emotion, and act we perform. We participate in this expansion in our own location, bound by time. Our impact dissipates, however, when we focus on farther realms at the expense of our own. To care for our bodies, our homes, our yards, and our businesses is to beautify time and eternity. To ignore them for the sake of a more public “cause” cheapens the Kingdom and dishonors its King. We must not do this. We must uphold His kingdom as holy with every mundane or monumental task that we face. We must approach our house and our sphere, however mundane, as if it were God’s, for it is. In doing so, we build a platform from which we may rightfully approach and beautify other, larger spheres, too.

 

7.      Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient, because GOD INHABITS ETERNITY.

Peterson proves that small, wise choices create grand, generation-spanning Good. The Christian motivation for such choices, however, runs deeper than the knowledge that self-denial now means better Life later. It rests upon the eternity of God. Zoom out on any decision and include the truth of the Gospel, and you discover a paradigm that necessarily places meaning over expedience, generosity over selfishness. Because His gift transforms our deepest nature, we’re compelled to invest in a better present, a Life-filled future, and a Kingdom that extends into eternity. Yet again, God’s love, not human ideals, informs and empowers our behavior.

 

8.      Tell the truth – or at least don’t lie because GOD’S TRUTH HAS SET YOU FREE.

Christians experience painful, transformative proximity to Truth every day. Truth reminds us of our calledness, our belovedness, and our sin. Truth also speaks, as a Person, from His residence within our renewed spirits. As earthen vessels containing this divine treasure, we accept our frailty along with our worth, and telling the truth becomes a natural response to the Truth we have received. We speak difficult truths (when prompted) in love. We speak delightful truths because they overflow us. Because both kinds of truths have set us free, and because Truth (Jesus Christ) makes us freer over time, we speak truth with our lips and lives.

 

9.      Assume whoever you’re listening to knows something you don’t because ONLY GOD IS INFINITE.

Perhaps the only thing the stranger on the bus or the ranting lunatic knows is their own story. But still, it is new information. Jesus Himself walked the earth as a stranger. He, the all-knowing Divine, frequently queried others about their thoughts and motivations. How much more might we, wrapped in our own limitations, do likewise? This posture of humility opens hearts, both others’ and our own, to connection. It creates possibilities for knowledge and relationship that serving solitude never could. It allows us to incarnate, like Christ, into the lives and experiences of those we encounter. It creates space for Grace to unfold, and this is our greatest goal.

 

10.  Be precise in your speech because GOD KNOWS YOU INSIDE AND OUT.

Precision, like Truth, can protect us. Without clarity, how will we (or anyone else) know us (or our desires) from any others? This rule speaks to the necessity of speaking specifically rather than hiding behind “safe” generalities. What, exactly, do we want? Who are we, exactly? What, exactly, makes us angry, or happy, or sad? God spoke these truths clearly through His Word – both the written Word and the Word of God when He walked this earth. The clarity of His speech informs our own, empowering us to use specific, difficult words without fear. Our fearlessness comes not only from His good example, but primarily from His goodness – a goodness that guarantees our security no matter the difficulty of the our particular words.  

 

11.  Do not bother children while they are skateboarding, because GOD ENCOURAGES ALL THINGS TO GROW.

Growth – ours and others’ – involves danger, daring, and discomfort. In allowing us free will, God asserts our freedom to explore and expects to grow wiser as a result. Why, then, would we hamper that freedom in others? Developing comes at the cost of our safety: not developing costs so much more. Over-protected individuals destroy their spheres of influence rather than edifying them. Worse, they’re denied the dignity given to all children of God. Because God gives us the right and responsibility to grow, we must give the same gift to our children. Protecting children’s freedom to mature is part of our divine calling and displays our own adulthood in Christ.

 

12.  Pet a cat when you encounter one in the street, because THE KINDNESS OF GOD STILL LEADS YOU TO REPENTANCE.

Peterson’s final rule is the greatest: all acts of love transform Life. This is true; but this is not why Christians perform them. Our motivation springs not from the hope of betterment, but from the knowledge that betterment has already taken place. God’s act of love has already transformed Life – our own lives, Life across time, and the eternal Life of this planet. His gentle act – more costly and condescending than petting even the most dangerous cat on the street, makes us New. From this newness, we extend ourselves, too – petting cats, washing dishes, saving lives, speaking truth – and Life continues to transform. There is no other purpose. There is no other cause. Rules won’t protect or redeem human lives, but Love will. And Love is a person. God is Love.