Bizarre Laws

“Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” [Psalm 119:97]

There are some pretty strange laws on the books of different states and cities in the United States. For instance, did you know it is against the law to:

And if those don’t make you wonder, here are a few more interesting law facts. Did you know the Chico, California City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits? Did you know there are about two million laws in the United States? If a man could review them at the rate of two a day, he could be qualified to act as a law-abiding citizen in about 6,000 years. In ancient Rome all the laws were ordered by Emperor Justinian to be compiled during the 6th century A.D. With 16 assistants, Tribonian came up with 2,000 volumes after three years.

Here’s a final strange history fact on law. According to Robert Ripley, the French statesman Ferdinand Flocon was the only man who succeeded in making a poem out of the law. He took the whole French Civil Code, with its 2,281 articles, statues, annotations, and amendments, and converted them into an immaculate poem of 120,000 words – perfect in rhyme and meter. He did it ostensibly to make the many laws more palatable!

Someone once said the more lawless a people, the more laws they will need. Yet in 10 simple principles any child could learn, God was able to summarize the whole duty of man toward God and his neighbor. But how sad it is that many pastors are teaching the Ten Commandments still have too many laws. The Bible says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). Every commandment of God is important. None of them are bizarre or to be set aside.