Even Paul Had Preferences
For the purposes of our series, we have said that a conviction is something you are convinced about, and a principle is a general expression of God’s will, often with a wide application. Our convictions come from the commands of Scripture (“Thou shalt…”) as well as the principles from Scripture. For example, if you live by the principle that church attendance is important, then attending church becomes “a thing you do that helps you make 100 decisions at once.” Each service becomes an automatic “yes” rather than a “should we…?”
Our biblical beliefs might not have one easy “book, chapter, and verse” to point to, but you can still be convinced by a number of principles strung together. Other examples of principles that we covered last week were the principle of “Put off… put on…”, the principle of whether a Christian ought to use drugs, and the topic of divorce from the principle of being one flesh.
A preference has no “Thou shalt…” commands, and only a few biblical principles. You might have good reasons for what you believe, but perhaps would not elevate it to the level of a conviction. Simply put, a preference is something you think is best. That does not mean it is a bad decision. If you were given the choice of any car on the lot, you would choose the best one. That would be your preference.
I have plenty of preferences, and so did the Apostle Paul. He had strong personal opinions about being single, for example, yet was careful to not be so dogmatic about his thoughts that they were elevated to doctrine.
Would anyone dare to accuse Paul of waffling on an issue? Of being wishy-washy? No, of course not.
But not everything is so cut and dry, even with Paul. I am not advocating for softness on key teachings of our church, but there are things about our style of ministry that we cannot elevate to the level of doctrine. Admitting our preferences is perfectly biblical, particularly when we have plenty of evidence on our side—biblical or otherwise.
I thought we could get to this last week, but it proved too much to handle in one sermon, so we’ll continue the thought tonight. -Pastor Ryan