Where the Rubber Meets the Road
If tire ads are any indication, car folks take tires for granted. “Power is nothing without control,” they say. Or, “How important are tires? Well, they’re the only part of the vehicle that touches the ground.” Tires can’t be tuned, chopped, lowered, or turbocharged, but they are nevertheless indispensable.
Tires top the list of most important track-day upgrades, safety upgrades, and in snowy regions, pre-winter checklists. They’ve improved dramatically throughout automobile history, and their improvements over the last two decades might even be exponential. You might spend $300 on a new set, or you might spend $3,000. But you gotta have tires.
Tires are literally where the rubber meets the road.
In his encyclopedic letter to the Romans, Paul systematically and brilliantly explained a variety of doctrinal themes with profound insight. Yet when he came to the point of suggesting how a person ought to live in response to all of that understanding – what to do when the rubber meets the road – he made it really simple:
“The commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ Do not steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:9-10)
There it is. If you want something deep, transcendent, mystical, or new, you won’t find it here. It’s that four-letter word found in sappy romance movies, sentimental greeting cards, and tired pop songs. It’s love.
Except it’s not the same love that’s described in pop culture. It’s entirely functional, in any circumstance, in any relationship, with regard to any challenge. It sums up the law, which means it is the extent of how God wants people to live. The type of love Paul is talking about here is at the root of other expressions of human kindness, including compassion, empathy, mercy, servitude, justice-seeking, and generosity. A heart that’s loving, empathetic, considerate of the needs of humankind, and oriented toward the justice God desires won’t lead you to violate the laws described in the Bible: sexual immorality and adventure-seeking (adultery), conflict and physical violence (murder), selfishness and inequality (stealing), or lust and greed (coveting). If you face any of these challenges and have abstract ideals on how to handle them, consider where the rubber meets the road and see how inviting God’s love into your heart could lead you to the right behavior.
That’s the human side of things, the description of love that flows through human interaction. But when Paul wrote about love as “the fulfillment of the law,” he was recalling something he wrote a few chapters earlier. By God’s law, no human has a chance at redemption. All humans have violated all of those commandments at some point, and a just God couldn’t allow that. So out of love, Jesus took the punishment destined for humankind. With love motivating his every step toward the cross, Jesus died in your place. After speaking about love and acting lovingly toward people his whole life, he faced his final act of love. It was where the rubber meets the road.
It really is all about love. Does that sound unremarkable? Simplistic? Boring? If you’re looking for something grandiose or technologically advanced, think instead about tires. Think of your relationships as contact patches. Most cars have four. Most humans have a lot more than that. Love is an old concept, but it’s never been as important as it is today.
Back in the golden age of drag racing and hot rodding of the 1950s, a highly competitive car would have been a 1932 or 1933 Ford with nearly 300 horsepower and tires almost seven inches wide. Seven decades later, the rear wheels on a new C8 Corvette Z06 are 13 inches wide – from the factory – and the tires themselves are a lot stickier. They’ll also take you down the road quieter, more safely in the rain, and for thousands of miles longer. Tires can do a lot for a person. But love can do even more.
John V16 is the intersection of God and cars. Please support our work and donate a V16-powered 1940 Cadillac Series 90 Sixteen to John V16. Or share this article with a friend.
