When Congress met in New York City in March of 1789, they were tasked with a legislative objective of monumental proportion – to clarify and restrict governmental authority as granted in the recently-established Constitution. The product of their work was a Joint Resolution of Congress proposing twelve amendments to the Constitution (yes, the state legislatures ultimately only supported ten, which we now recognize in the Bill of Rights). What we might find shocking is that the original joint resolution contained less than 850 words, and that includes the preamble and the names and offices of those who attested to its proper recording.
On the other hand, the One Big Beautiful Bill passed and signed into law in 2025 covered 870 pages. And lest you think that only a Republican Congress could be so verbose, the Affordable Care Act produced by a Democrat controlled Congress and signed by President Obama in 2010 covered nearly 1,000 pages (with thousands more pages in supporting regulatory text). Congress no longer produces legislation that can fit on a page or two of paper and be easily digested in one short setting. Now, the bills that are generated, debated, and signed into law reflect the lengths necessary to appease a majority of the members of Congress. Sometimes this is referred to as “sausage making” but it always represents the limits of what is politely referred to as “compromise”.
We recognize the importance of compromise in so many areas of our lives. A healthy marriage takes compromise. In business, the economic law of supply and demand is about finding the right compromise in the marketplace when pricing goods and services. And clearly, politics at any level requires a significant degree of compromise. Yet what does it say about one single piece of legislation when it takes 800-1,000 pages to identify all of the finer points that need to be included to create an acceptable compromise position – particularly when some of those finer points have absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of the legislation?
Contrast that with God’s Law. Translated into English, the Ten Commandments take up fewer than 350 words. With God, there was no compromise – simply an expression of pure righteousness and justice from the only voice qualified to speak. There was no dissension, no need for persuasion. And if you want to consider the length of the entire Bible as representing God’s legislative works, 1,000 pages will suffice for an English translation, with nothing that is off point or placed there to convince people to support it.
Frankly, it seems that if we kept God’s uncompromising Law close to our hearts, we wouldn’t need thousands of pages of thoroughly compromised laws, codes, and regulations that clutter our local, state, and federal legislative bodies. We would be much more unified on what is truly important, and respectful of those around us. To the extent that those words and pages of man’s law reflect the condition of our hearts, they don’t offer a flattering opinion. But at least they take a long time to say it!
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron