因为我们的有限，我们无法同时遵守神的所有诫命，这种无能也长长带给我们一些错误的罪恶感。一篇讲道告诉我们应当花上数小时祷告，另一篇告诉我们应该为饥饿的人提供食物，另一篇告诉我们要精深的研究圣经，另一篇告诉我们要向邻居传福音，另一篇告诉我们要让孩子学习要理问答，另一篇告诉我们应该积极关心政治。这一切似乎都是建基于圣经的规范之上，但我们经常感觉到要被如此繁重的要求压垮了，我们根本没有足够的时间去做我们被劝勉去做的事。
在此有一个提醒很有帮助：当神命令我们祷告、传福音、帮助穷人等时，他首先是对教会整体说的，然后才是对我们个体所说的。这是教会所必须做的事。教会中的每一个个体都必须完成各自的使命，每个个体如何贡献有赖于他的恩赐及呼召。不是每一个人都被呼召一天祷告六小时或去按邻居的门铃传福音或开始一个政治运动。因此我们每一个人必须以祷告的心，以及在圣经的引导下，在我们团体的规范下制定我们自己的优先秩序，这种说法似乎听起来很危险，对于终极的规范而言怎么可能有“优先秩序”，并且一个人怎么能够对神的法则设定自己的优先秩序呢？我们实际上是可以做到的，因为圣经这样说，而且我们也必须这样做。（约翰·傅瑞姆）
Because we are finite, we cannot keep all of God’s commandments simultaneously. Often our inability to do this produces false guilt. One sermon tells us to spend hours in prayer, another to feed the hungry, another to study the Bible intensively, another to evangelize our neighborhoods, another to catechize our children, another to become politically active. All of these seem to be based on biblical norms, yet we often feel overwhelmed by such huge demands on us. There simply are not enough hours in the day to do all that we are exhorted to do.
It is helpful here to remember that when God commands us to pray, to evangelize, to help the poor, and so forth, He is speaking primarily to the church as a whole and only secondarily to each of us as individuals. These are works that the church must do. Each individual in the church must contribute toward their fulfillment. But how the individual contributes will depend on his gifts and calling. Not all of us are called to pray six hours a day or to ring doorbells in our neighborhoods or to start political movements. Each one of us, then, must prayerfully, under the guidance of Scripture, devise his own set of priorities among these communal norms. That sounds dangerous. How can there be “priorities” among ultimates? And how can a human being choose for himself what priorities he will give to God’s laws? He can, because Scripture says that he can and must.
(By John M Frame)