Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 7
Glenn argued God’s commands are not arbitrary (car battery poster analogy): how does this challenge the way you talk about obedience—do you frame commands mainly as “tests of sincerity,” or as “wisdom for human flourishing,” and what changes if you shift your framing?
Another way to ask: Do you talk about God’s commands more like “tests to prove we mean it” or like “wise guidance for a good life”? What would change if you started talking about them more as wisdom?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the speaker’s teaching, obedience should be framed less as passing God’s arbitrary “tests” and more as receiving the Creator’s guidance for how humans function best. Shifting the framing changes obedience from reluctant compliance to confidence that God is actively seeking our good.
- Glenn says we sometimes imagine freedom as no restraint, but God’s instructions “give freedom to live as we were designed to live.”
- He explicitly rejects the idea that commands are “arbitrary…trying to test us,” and says, “the purpose…is to function best.”
- Car battery poster: safety/use rules are not to “make life difficult” but to “make your life easy…prolong its life.”
- He cites Scripture linking commands to wellbeing: “He who would love life…refrain his tongue from evil,” and “Honor your father and mother…that it may be well with you…live long.”
- He concludes, “God has our own best interest in mind…It’s in your own self-interest to obey God.”