Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing
Hey there,
I once watched a group of perfectly reasonable adults nearly come to blows over the “correct” way to load a dishwasher.
One person insisted the plates must face the center. Another was adamant that silverware goes handles-up. A third claimed the whole debate had been settled long ago by “how Grandma always did it.”
No one disagreed that the dishes needed to get clean. Everyone wanted the same outcome. But for a few intense minutes, the method had become the mission.
I think we’ve all seen this debate and it’s funny… until we walk into church and realize we sometimes do the exact same thing with far more important matters.
In almost every Christian community, something that started as a helpful tradition or a simple preference can slowly put on a robe, pick up a gavel, and start acting like doctrine. What was once “this works well for us” over time turns into “this is the only way God accepts it.” It’s an easy slide. We love what is familiar. Familiarity feels safe. And before long, “we’ve always done it this way” starts to sound an awful lot like “thus saith the Lord.”
Scripture actually speaks to this very tendency. Jesus confronted the religious leaders of His day with these words:
“You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men… You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” (Mark 7:8-9)
Paul echoes the same concern when he writes,
“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition… These have indeed an appearance of wisdom… but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” (Colossians 2:8, 23)
It helps to keep three categories clear:
Doctrine – the load-bearing walls of the faith. These are the truths clearly rooted in Scripture: who God is, who Jesus is, the gospel of grace, the call to love God with everything we are and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40), and the authority of God’s Word. These examples are non-negotiable.
Tradition – practices that have been handed down and have served the church well for a long time. They can be beautiful and stabilizing. But they are not the foundation itself.
Preference – the style, timing, atmosphere, or secondary details that help us worship and serve in ways that feel natural. These are more like the furniture and paint color of the house.
In some circles, a well-intentioned approach called “Command, Example, and Necessary Inference” has long been used to help us stay close to Scripture. In simple terms, it means looking for a direct command, an approved example, or a necessary inference from the text to determine what is binding. When applied carefully and consistently, it can be a real help. The challenge—one I’ve seen in myself and in many others—is that we sometimes apply it more strictly in some places than in others. We can end up requiring a clear command or example for anything that stretches our comfort, while giving a little more latitude to the inferences that support what already feels familiar and safe. It’s a very human tendency (we all like our spiritual dishwashers loaded a certain way), and Scripture gently calls us toward greater consistency and humility.
Scripture itself pushes back against that selective approach. In Romans 14 Paul addresses believers who were elevating secondary matters (food laws, special days) into tests of faithfulness. His counsel is pointed:
“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?… Let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother… For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:4, 13, 17)
It’s worth noticing what Paul is and isn’t saying. He is not telling us that every personal discomfort or preference must dictate the life of the church. He is urging us not to pressure a brother or sister into acting against their own conscience. The goal is mutual love and building one another up—not handing any one person’s preferences a quiet veto over everyone else.
So when we elevate the secondary, two quiet dangers appear.
First, we risk adding weight that Scripture never placed there. Peter warned the early church against putting a yoke on the necks of the disciples that neither they nor their ancestors had been able to bear (Acts 15:10). Paul later urged believers to stand firm in the freedom Christ has given us and not submit again to a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1). When traditions or preferences quietly rise to the level of binding doctrine, we can unintentionally burden one another with loads God never asked us to carry.
Second, we can distract ourselves—and others—from the weightier matters Jesus emphasized. He told the religious leaders of His day,
“You… have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” (Matthew 23:23)
In the same spirit, Jesus later summarized the entire law with the two greatest commandments—loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). When secondary things begin to dominate our attention, they can quietly crowd out these weightier callings. Not everything sits on a flat field. Some things truly carry more weight, and when we lose sight of that, the secondary can pull us away from what matters most. Scripture repeatedly calls us to keep the weightier matters at the center and to extend grace where God has given freedom—and where the Bible is simply not explicit. Even the well-known call to “speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent” is only as helpful as our consistent willingness to apply it with humility.
So here’s a simple self-check we can all use:
Am I holding this conviction because Scripture clearly commands or exemplifies it, or because it feels right and familiar to me?
Have I applied the same careful standard to my own traditions and preferences that I apply to others?
Does this issue help people see Jesus more clearly, or does it mostly protect my comfort zone?
Am I willing to hold my preferences with an open hand so that the gospel and genuine love remain front and center?
The church is strongest when we treat the foundation as foundation and everything else as the beautiful—and sometimes rearrangeable—furniture of the house. When we do that, we create space for people who love Jesus and yet express that love a little differently than we do. And that space looks a lot like the grace we’ve all received.
Many of us who have grown up in the church eventually reach a point on our spiritual journey where we begin to ask honest questions about why we do the things we do. Those questions are not a threat—they are an invitation. We rightly should bring them back to Scripture, seeking to discern what is truly foundational from what may be tradition or preference. The purpose of this reflection is not to point to any particular practice, but simply to offer a lens we can use together whenever those moments arise: a way to evaluate with humility, to major on the weightier matters Jesus named, and to hold everything else with open hands.
Let’s keep the main thing the main thing—may God bless you and have a great week!
~ Charlie
