Principles and Methods

Dear Pastor Lawyer,

I have a roommate whose mother has been living in an care facility for several years. He visits her a couple of times a week, but all he does is hug her and tell her he loves her. He never brings her any treats or takes her out for visits. When I bring his sin up to him, he tells me that he’s doing enough and that his way is not my way and I should leave him alone. What do you think?

Concerned


Dear Concerned,

I’m glad to hear of your concern for this elderly woman. That kind of care seems to be getting more and more uncommon in our society. This said I think I need to point out to you a couple of common errors in your thinking. First, you are confused as to what sin is. All of us grew up thinking that the way we grew up was normal. So, when someone comes along doing things differently from the way we do them, we automatically think they are doing it wrongly, or in the case of many Christians it is therefore sin. We tend to confuse what we think is normal with what God thinks is normative. What we think is sin is really sin only if God thinks it is sin. In your instance, the Bible says to honor your father and mother (Ephesians 6:2). It doesn’t say how to honor your parents; it only says that we should. It sounds like your roommate isn’t disobeying God; he is just not obeying God in the way that you would like him to obey God. If he were ignoring his mother, or beating her we would say that he was disobeying God’s decree, but since your roommate’s care for his mother is simply different from the way you would do it if she were your mother, we can’t say that he is sinning. Sin is sin only when God says it is sin.

This leads me to a second important point. There is a difference between principles and methods. Principles are those commands and decrees that God has given to us in order to serve him and another in the most honoring and glorifying manner possible. Methods are the ways in which we obey those commands. Not following God’s principles is by definition sin. Differences in method come from a variety of areas: differences in gifts, abilities, background, training, education, station in life, maturity, wisdom. Some methods might not be as good as others because of greater wisdom, for example, but they are not sin. In your case, it sounds like you are measuring what you would do as an act of honoring your roommate’s mother in a different way than your roommate is. But what is there to say that you are right? The Bible says honor, it doesn’t say how to honor. It gives principles, but not always methods. It gives motives and attitudes in which we are to come up with methods, but the methods in themselves are not sinful. They are just different.

I hope this helps,

Pastor Lawyer