Treating God’s Clear Word as “Preference” Is the Spirit of Autonomy, Not the Spirit of Christ
The danger of turning the King’s commands into personal taste
The Problem of Preferences
We live in an age where God’s clear Word is often reduced to the level of personal taste. What Scripture calls command, many treat as suggestion. “That’s just your interpretation.” “I don’t see it that way.” “We all have our preferences.” This is the vocabulary of a people who have forgotten they live under a King. Christ has spoken, and His Word is not optional. To shrug at His voice as if it were one opinion among many is not humility. It is rebellion.
The Word of God Confronts
From the beginning, the serpent’s whisper was not, “There is no God,” but, “Did God really say?” (Genesis 3:1–5). Sin entered the world when God’s command was treated as open to preference.
Yet God honors the one “who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2). The Spirit of Christ teaches us to tremble at God’s Word, never to treat it lightly.
Paul reminded Timothy that “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable… so that the man of God may be equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). He then warned of a time when men “will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting their ears tickled, will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires” (2 Timothy 4:3). That warning is fulfilled wherever God’s Word is replaced with the tyranny of preference.
John gave the test plainly: “We are from God; the one who knows God hears us; the one who is not from God does not hear us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:6). To ignore apostolic testimony is not a neutral option. It is to align with the spirit of error.
Preference-Christianity Exposed
Let’s name the error: preference-Christianity. It is the spirit of autonomy. The flesh craves to rule, but the Spirit calls us to bow. Where the Spirit produces meekness, autonomy produces arrogance. James contrasts the two: “Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good conduct his works in the gentleness of wisdom… But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth” (James 3:13–14). The wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, and submissive. The wisdom from below is self-made.
Preference-Christianity is nothing more than worldly wisdom.
Witness of the Fathers and Reformers
The church has long confessed the clarity and sufficiency of Scripture. The Westminster Confession of Faith says: “All things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, are either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” (WCF 1.6). The Belgic Confession adds, “We believe that those Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God, and whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein” (Belgic 7).
At Worms in 1521, Luther stood before emperor and council and declared, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.” He was showing that the Word of God binds every man, no matter the pressure or cost.
Calvin insisted that Scripture carries its own light: “The highest proof of Scripture derives in general from the fact that God in person speaks in it… the Word will never gain credit in the hearts of men until it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit” (Institutes 1.7.4). The authority of the Word does not wait on councils or magisteriums. It shines with the light of its own Author.
The church’s task is not to invent new standards but to continually yield to God’s unchanging Word. We are not free to reduce His commands to matters of taste; we must always bound to conform to His truth.
Contemporary Patterns
The spirit of autonomy shows itself in many places:
The Lord’s Day: God commands His people not to forsake assembling together (Hebrews 10:24–25). Yet many treat attendance as optional, a lifestyle preference.
Truthfulness: Paul commands, “Speak truth each one of you with his neighbor… Let no rotten word proceed from your mouth” (Ephesians 4:25, 29). Yet gossip, slander, and coarse talk are dismissed as personality quirks, not sins.
Sexual ethics: Paul commands, “Flee sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). But in an age of expressive autonomy, even professing Christians justify fornication, pornography, or perversions of God’s design.
Authority and accountability: The church is told, “Obey your leaders and submit to them” (Hebrews 13:17), while leaders are warned to accept correction (1 Timothy 5:19–20). Yet both commands are neglected — members refuse to submit, and elders refuse rebuke.
Children in worship: Parents are charged to bring their children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Yet many treat the gathered worship of Christ’s church as optional for their little ones, sending them away to “children’s church” as though the preaching of the Word were not for them. This undermines the covenantal reality that the Word is for the whole household of faith.
The Path Back
The antidote is the fear of the Lord. “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). God looks to the one who trembles at His Word (Isaiah 66:2).
The Spirit leads us to sit under tested teachers (Ephesians 4:11–16), to repent quickly when we hear the Word (James 1:22), and to adopt the Berean posture of testing all things by Scripture (Acts 17:11). Leaders are to invite correction, as Paul corrected Peter (Galatians 2:11–14), and as Timothy was instructed to receive charges against elders (1 Timothy 5:19–20). Peter himself calls elders to shepherd “not lording it over” but modeling humility (1 Peter 5:1–4).
This is the Spirit’s work: producing trembling hearts and soft consciences.
Exhortation
We must not reduce God’s commands to preferences. The Spirit of Christ produces meekness before the Word. The spirit of autonomy produces rebellion.
Remember:
The Spirit makes soft hearts; the flesh makes soft commands.