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"if ye suffer for righteousness' sake,
happy are ye"
(I Peter 3:14)
 It seems that the distinction was first made by attorney David Gibbs
years ago in a speech he made many times in churches and
fundamentalist conferences all over America. He told the story of an
Amish man named Yoder who defied his state government by refusing to
send his children to public schools. His case made it all the way to
the Supreme Court, where his lawyers argued that since his objections
to obeying the compulsory school- attendance laws were based on his
religious beliefs, his right to disobey those laws was protected by
the First Amendment's guarantee of the "free exercise" of religion.
Interestingly, the Court found for Yoder, Gibbs told us, because the
man had demonstrated that his disobedience to the law was really based
on his religious convictions. The genuineness of his convictions was
proven by his willingness to suffer severely rather than comply with
the requirements of that law. Theoretically, Yoder was willing even
to die for his belief, and thus he confirmed that he was acting on
what he understood to be a mandate from God. He refused to
compromise. He was in jeopardy of imprisonment, but he wouldn't
budge. The Court declared that if he were willing to obey the law on
any basis at all, if he would abandon his supposed convictions under
the threat of any level of punishment, his objection to the law would
be deemed a preference, and not really a religious conviction, and
would not qualify for constitutional religious-liberty protection.
Mr. Gibbs in this context emphasized the distinction between a
conviction and a preference. If imprisonment or torture or financial
disaster or even death would change what you would do, your reason for
disobeying the law is a preference and not a real conviction. Of
course, this legal principle parallels the Bible's teaching, and the
attorney was making an important point for Christians facing growing
government power.
However, the conviction/preference distinction was changed and
unintentionally perverted as others tried to use it to make other
points in sermons preached in the years since Gibbs made his point.
Very prominent fundamentalist preachers began to use it to describe
the different weights of importance we should give to various Bibles
teachings. The most essential Bible doctrines were said to be worth
dying for. They called for us to have a conviction about obeying
them. Lesser doctrines call somehow for less commitment, and some of
them are low enough on the scale of importance to call for only a
preference to follow them. Can you see the problem in this reasoning?
Jesus taught us that everything in the Bible is important. He said
that those who "break one of these least commandments, and shall teach
men to do so" will be judged "the least in the kingdom of heaven,"
while those who "shall do and teach them" (the least commandments)
"shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:19). Even
the least teachings of the scriptures are important. However some
Bible truths are more important than others. By calling some
statements in scripture "these least commandments" Jesus was saying
that some truths are more important than others. This is also what He
taught in Matthew 23:23, when He compared the command to tithe with
what He called "weightier matters of the law." Everything in the
Bible is important, but some things are more important than others.
Therefore they are all worth dying for, although the emphasis we give
them must vary with their importance.
Unfortunately, the confusion created by unsound reasoning is giving
some a way to persuade us to forsake some of our time-honored
standards. They are saying in so many words that such cardinal
doctrines as the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection of Christ are "worth
dying for," but that such lesser matters as music standards or modest
apparel are "not worth dying for." Therefore, they imply, Christians
should be willing without much trouble to give up the smaller points
of doctrine or practice that are widely criticized today. If they are
not worth dying for, we might as well give them up. To a discerning
person, however, this reasoning is neither logical nor scriptural, and
it undermines good character!
In the Bible, good people risked their lives for seemingly small
points of divine principle. Daniel put his welfare and even his life
in jeopardy by refusing to violate the dietary stipulations of the
ceremonial law ("he would not defile himself with the portion of the
king's meat") or an application of a principle in the Book of Proverbs
("nor with the wine which he drank", Daniel 1:8, Proverbs 20:1). God
blessed Mordecai's willingness to die for refusing to bow before a
wicked man (not an idol), and delivered him from the death penalty
(Esther 2 - 7). Who would disagree that these were lesser matters of
the law that the servants of God risked their lives to follow? The
apostles got into trouble for refusing, not to deny the Faith, but to
stop spreading the Faith, in Acts 4 and 5. Obedience is never an
issue of whether a commandment of God is important enough to obey.
The original divine stipulation to man was "thou shalt not" eat the
fruit of a certain tree! The issue of obedience is whether or not we
will be subject to God and His wishes. The relative importance of
those wishes is not at issue. If it pleases God, we must do it; if it
displeases Him, we must not, no matter how minor the matter may seem
to us.
The book of Titus addresses "the things which become sound doctrine"
(2:1). These are personal standards of conduct that go along with
("become") or befit "sound doctrine." Titus is told,
"Rebuke them
sharply, that they may be sound in the faith" (1:13).
Practical
purity goes along with doctrinal purity, and wrong practice undermines
soundness of doctrine. Read about this in all three chapters of
Paul's epistle to Titus. Again the Bible contradicts the concept of
dropping standards because they are not important enough to keep.
For the older generation of fundamentalists, the issue of standards
for church music is not one of preference. Neither are the issues of
dress or media standards. Ecclesiastical separation is a matter of
conviction, but so is personal separation. These lesser commands do
not fall into the category of mere preference, or something nobody
should die for. If they did not come from divine truth or mandates,
we never should have taught them as if they did. If they were simply
personal preferences, many fundamentalists were guilty of "teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:9). Preferences
(as opposed to convictions) are not lesser matters of scriptural
teaching; they are human ideas and not biblical truth. If we have been
unscriptural in our teaching, we should not only abandon the wrong
ideas and the practices, but we should also repent publicly of ever
preaching them as God's will for His people. Nobody should be
contemplating whether he would die for a concept. The question is not
how important the principle is, but rather if it is scriptural. If it
is based on the Bible, then we should all be willing to die for it,
and should never give it up. There may be changes in how a Bible
principle is applied as the world changes and the devil switches his
tactics against us, but we must hold on to the principle. Whatever
proceeds from the mouth of the living God is worth dying for.
And the traditional fundamentalist standards now being criticized are
indeed based on Bible principles. Without question the style of the
music used in church reflects the concept of God that is being
portrayed. That style, therefore, must reflect the order, holiness,
and majesty of God's nature as presented in scripture to fit a
reasonable description of the spiritual music God's people are
admonished to sing (Ephesians 5:19). The issue of clothing is
addressed throughout the Bible, from Genesis 2-3 to Revelation 21, and
scriptural requirements for the covering of our nakedness are given no
small prominence. Therefore preaching that standards of propriety and
modesty in dress should be maintained by Christian people is biblical
preaching. The command that we "have no fellowship" with wicked works
(Ephesians 5:11) supports the setting of guidelines for Christian
living that draw a distinction between the children of light and the
children of darkness. The truth is that the old standards of personal
separation make sense and are based on Bible principle. Therefore we
should not be rating them according to their importance in order to
decide whether or not to keep them. Good men would die for the right,
no matter what the issue is. To say that a man may forsake some facet
of eternal truth because the particular matter at issue is not worth
the cost of maintaining it is like saying that every man has his
price. Give every truth its scriptural emphasis (don't major on the
minors), but never forsake or deny anything taught in the Bible.
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