Principles vs Methods

Should my kids wear a school uniform?

Have you notice that in the Bible there are a lot of principles… but there aren’t a lot of things that tell us HOW to do things… why do you think that is?

Well… I think its because God gave us tools like our conscience, the Holy Spirit and church community to guide us to make the right decision and come up with methods that best suit our needs… based on where we and our community around us is at.

The Bible says “Parents train your children…”

Ok is there a special schooling you would like us to follow?

Does it have to be a Christian school?

Is a school uniform important?

Is that home schooling?

God doesn’t give us that information why? Because he is giving us the freedom to do that ourselves based on Gods timeless principles based on the Word of God. The Bible

What seems clear to me is to listen and really lean into the principles and stay true to them… but be flexible on the methods.

We start looking and becoming just ‘religious’ when we start to say that we have to do things a certain way.

Have you been in a ‘debate’ with someone who has the same principles as you but doesn’t agree with you because you don’t do things a certain way… and more importantly do things THEIR way.

It may because they are blinded by they way they were taught by someone they look up to. I personally believe there are many ways to bring people to Christ and I will use a different ‘technique’ based on the situation… but I know others who stick to the same method and don’t budge on that… because that is the way it HAS to be.

I have 5 kids and treating them all the same just doesn’t work… We have basic principles in our house like “you must clean your room” however we have lots of methods to help stick to this based on the different child’s needs.

1 principle – different methods

Wasn’t that the differnce between Jesus and the Pharisees in relation to the Sabbath… they had lots of rules… Jesus didn’t.

They had the same principles about the Sabbath being Holy… Jesus agreed with them on this… but they wanted Jesus to conform to their METHODS

The bottom line is… different people have different methods of doing things  and not everything they do is going to fit in with the way WE do things… they have their own methods.

However if they are following the basic principles that are in the Bible but not the same method as you then you need to trust that maybe God is doing something different for them.