How to Create Guiding Biblical Principles of Faith for Life → A More Beautiful Life Collective

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Have you ever faced a situation that you didn’t know how to handle? Did you wish there was a guidebook, or some big idea or motto, that would help you to navigate those tricky situations? In today’s post, we talk about how we can create guiding biblical principles of faith for life based on our statement of faith and core Christian virtues. You’ll walk away from this episode empowered to develop your own biblical principles, ready to face all that life can throw at you in a good and righteous way. This is part of our series on Why What You Believe Matters.

S2E15 – What You Need to Know about the Christian Creeds – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast

In this episode, we are talking about the high-church confessional documents and why you should engage with them. No matter what denomination you belong to, these confessional texts – like Christian creeds, confessions of faith, catechisms, and liturgies – have been incredibly influential in the history of the Church. We need to wrestle with what they say and determine how it fits in with our own personal statement of faith. Today, we are going to talk about why you should read these texts, and then, turn our focus to the Christian creeds in particular. Read more on the blog: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-christian-creeds/ Get a PDF copy of the Christian Creeds here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.kit.com/d080819cc1 Get the Doctrine and Theology Cheat Sheet Here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.ck.page/bd897d28d0 Get a list of the names of God here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.ck.page/43d2d5cf6b Get a copy of our personal statement of faith creation guide here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/we-believe-your-personal-statement-of-faith-workbook-pdf-download/ Get “Building Our Foundations: 10 Week Study” here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/building-our-foundations-11-week-systematic-theology-book-bible-study/ Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you can learn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast, A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources at A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop. Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

This is episode 32 of A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast! Be sure to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to Podcasts to help others find the show!

We are in the middle of our series on Why What You Believe Matters. What we are focusing on is creating a method of living. A method is guided by principles. It is flexible and encompassing. It is holistic.

To create a method of Christian living – what I’m calling Practical Theology, we first have to figure out what we believe. We have to create a statement of faith.Then, we have to develop a list of Christian Virtues.

Then, we have to use that statement of faith and those virtues to create the guiding principles of living. These principles inform our practice; ultimately, the principles create our entire lifestyle. These are ideals that we strive to reach in our lives.

Today we are focusing on this third step: Creating guiding principles for faith and life. By doing this, we will create a code of life that can become the basis for our daily actions.

What are biblical principles?

A quick Google search on principles will show you that this is something that people desire. They care deeply about living a principled life, even if they are misguided as to how to actually make that happen.

Principles are the ‘fundamental truth or basis that serves as the foundation for something, whether a belief, behavior, or chain of reasoning.” Generally, principles are related to morally correct behavior and attitudes. Principles often govern those behaviors and attitudes.

Principles are not necessarily rules or laws. They seem to be the unspoken guidelines, the subconscious truth that is working in our interactions with others and ourselves.

So many people are attempting to create their own life principles. There are so many different numbers and methods for creating principles of life, from Tony Robbins 7 Areas of Life to 101 Life Principles to Live By.

Like I said in the last post, people want to be told what to do, contrary to popular belief. We are all sheep in need of a shepherd.

But, many of us have developed life principles that are not biblically based. So, we are blown and tossed by the wind with the breath of every popular influencer, podcaster, and social movement.

Just like our personal statement of faith, we need to create a personal set of biblical principles that we live by. It is our Code of Life. We must create our own set of principles or ideals. We need to create these ourselves and not just rely on someone else to tell us what principles we should follow.

You can download a PDF workbook walking through this process on our shop. The newest workbook is called “Creating your Code of Life” and it will help you to create these guiding principles.

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How are biblical principles different than doctrine?

2 episodes ago, we focused on creating a statement of faith. This statement of faith is based on doctrine, another form of fundamental truth. Though principles and doctrines are both true, there are some important conceptual differences that we should agree on in order to keep these concepts clear in our minds.

Doctrines:

Focused on spiritual, scriptural truth
Universal truth
Explicitly Biblically based

A doctrine: “The word of God is self-sufficient, inspired, and infallible.”

Principles:

Focused on practical questions of life
Formulated in conjunction with cultural context
Biblically based, but may be implicit

A principle: I read God’s word daily for instruction, conviction, encouragement, and edification.

Though there are many similarities between the two, it’s helpful for the sake of clarity to draw a dividing line between doctrines and principles. Doctrines concern spiritual matters like your statement of faith. Principles focus on lifestyle and practical application.

Principles are best understood as ideals that we strive towards in our lives. Importantly, they are something we are working towards, but they may not be something that we can achieve or see the fruit of in this lifetime. Just like the word ideal signifies theoretical abstract perfection, some of our principles are also slightly theoretical. However, principles can still guide the way we live even if we don’t live up to them completely.

(To see a list of Charlotte Mason’s 20 principles, which has inspired me to create my own principles of living, click here.)

Doctrines are clearly right or wrong (even if we disagree with others on their interpretation of doctrine, our goal should be to always have the most correct understanding of doctrine as possible). Principles are also right and wrong, but they are decidedly more messy to understand than doctrine. One reason why is that it is hard to parse out the difference between a principle and a promise of God.

2 Methods for Creating Biblical Principles for Life

The Jumpstart Method: Your Guide to Practical Theology

Practical Theology, the branch of theology that tries to bridge doctrinal truths and theory with ministry and life, has specific questions that it attempts to answer. Richard Osmer articulated four questions:

What is going on? (the descriptive-empirical task)
Why is this going on? (the interpretative task)
What ought to be going on? (the normative task)
How might we respond? (the pragmatic task)

What we must do to create principles of life is utilize our statement of faith and doctrinal beliefs to inform our principles.

First, we need to ask ourselves what is going on in our life. Our code of life should be related to the areas of life that pertain to us. Whereas a personal statement of faith is universal to all believers, different believers will have a different code of life simply because their life will be made up of different roles and responsibilities. As a young adult, your code of life would focus on living as a single person. As you get married, your code of life would need to expand to include how to navigate marriage with biblical principles. Same for when you have children.

Then, we need to determine how we are currently behaving in this situation. Ask yourselves what principles or scripts you are currently living by. At the same time, we should be assessing what should be happening in this situation. What is the biblical principle in this situation?

Finally, we look at how we can respond to the situation in order to act in a way that is mature and God-glorifying. The response to that situation that is God-glorifying can be abstracted to create a guiding principle for life.

Following those steps will help you to start to create your code of life while also guiding your current situation towards being more biblically principled. By doing this, you can start making more biblically informed decisions today.

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The Comprehensive Method: Your Code of Life

Now, some of us – myself included – wouldn’t want to settle for a piecemeal approach. We want a comprehensive approach to creating a code of life. So how could we systematically create a code of life?

Your code of life should be based on the following:

Doctrinal Belief -> Christian Virtues -> Guiding Principles -> Choices, Habits, and Actions

Creating a comprehensive Code of Life with Biblical principles:

Create a personal statement of faith. Your statement of faith should inform your principles. If you have a question about what you believe about a certain topic, the first place you should look is your statement of faith to see if one of your core doctrinal beliefs speaks to the principles you have.
Create a list of roles, responsibilities, and other areas of life.
Create a list of Christian virtues that you find in the Bible.
For each of the virtues listed, write out a guiding principle for that value based on the current roles, responsibilities, and areas of life you have identified.

If something is truly comprehensive, it can often grow to be unwieldy. We want our code of life to have sticking power as well. We want to remember our ideals in order to work towards them.

So, we have to practice editing and revising our code of life to narrow down our ideals in order to refine and clarify it.

You can download all of our workbooks that walk through this process on our shop, including our newest workbook, “Creating your code of life.“

Visit A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop for bible studies, planners, and other resources.

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Where should I look for biblical principles?

Obviously, the whole Bible is full of biblical principles, but the following sections of scripture are very fertile ground for developing your biblical principles.

The 10 Commandments and Law in general
The Book of Proverbs
Parables of Jesus
The Epistles, especially the book of James

How do I create biblical principles for areas not mentioned in the Bible?

The education of your children, your choice of work, and whether you vaccinate your kids, are not things mentioned in the Bible. For situations where there is not a clear right or wrong answer, you should study scripture and determine if there is any overarching ideas that could pertain to your situation. Principles are not like doctrines.

In certain cases, you have to rely on the conviction of the Holy Spirit (like in the case of the education of your children). You can still discern biblical principles (as in the case of Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs 22:6), but you shouldn’t judge others on the basis of those principles.

Are these promises or principles?

As we get into the discussion of principles, you will also find some talk about the promises of God. This is because some statements in the Bible, particularly in the book of Proverbs, are principles, but they are not promises.

One very common example of this is found in Proverbs 22:6. It says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This verse is an example of a principle, not a promise.

If you believe that training up your children perfectly will ensure that they don’t turn away from God, you will be sorely disappointed. Training them up right will help them start on the right path. They may be more likely to not turn away from God. But, there is no promise of God that says if you do everything right, your children will turn out alright too.

We read this verse and we understand that there is a principle of training up our children. We try to live according to this principle even if we don’t see the fruit of that training in our lifetime. We do it because it is the right thing to do.

We have been given promises in the Bible – and much of our understanding of doctrine informs what those promises are. We are promised to be raised up in the last days. We are promised to be given a new heart. We are promised to receive the Holy Spirit.

But many of the transactional statements in the book of Proverbs and elsewhere in scripture (train up a child so that when he is old he won’t depart from it; the reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life) are principles. This means we aren’t promised to receive a reward in this lifetime just because we act in a certain way.

So should we follow the principle even if we don’t have a guarantee on the outcome?

So if the principles aren’t necessarily promises, should we follow them?

That’s a question you must answer for yourself. Of course, our answer should be a resounding, “Yes!” But why? Why should we follow them?

#1 – A biblically principled life is a life of clarity and purpose.

When we have principles, we can pick and choose our courses of action based on a set of values. We have a reason for why we are acting that guides us.

I was a teacher before I stayed home, and I was often frustrated when I had to discipline a student. If I overheard a student saying mean things or disrespectful things, I would try to correct them. And, then they would give a response like, “Why? Why can’t I say that? My mama told me to always be honest, and what I said is the truth.”

Principles guide our actions, and everyone operates on a set of principles. For this person, saying mean, ‘honest’ things was valued. It was a principle. My hands were tied as a teacher because the highest principle as a teacher is to be impartial, removed, and stoic. To just be a conduit for information and state standards.

When we live a biblically principled life, we base the way we live on the absolute standard of the Bible, and it helps us to make decisive decisions that glorify God.

#2 – A biblically principled life is a life with boundaries and guardrails.

In keeping with this, we also are given boundaries that we should not cross. In a book I was reading, the author described walking on a jungle path. The guide had stressed, “Do not wander off the path!” A child did and got covered in itchy bumps. I can relate to this as well walking through the dense woods of SC with its poison ivy and poison oak.

When you stay off the path, it seems like freedom because you can go anywhere you want to. But, that freedom only comes with consequences – like briars, snakes, and fire ants.

A biblically principled life functions as the guardrail. By establishing what your principles are, you are communicating what you will and will not allow – both for yourself and for your family. Articulating your principles gives a clear black-and-white answer to the sticky, messy questions and decisions of life. It will make your paths clear.

#3 – A biblically principled life is a holy life, a life set apart.

As Christians, we are a ‘royal priesthood, holy nation.’ A people set apart. Our beliefs do set us apart: As Christians, we believe differently than others around us. But, those beliefs truly only matter in the context of our actions. To be a set apart people means we have to act in ways that truly set us apart. “Faith without works is dead.”

When we discern what our biblical principles are, we can live that set-apart life. We have taken the time to figure out what a Christian life should actually look like.

Now you try:

Today, we focused on the importance of Creating Biblical Principles to live our lives by.

To create biblical principles, you should:

Create a Statement of Faith
Determine Biblical Virtues
Create Guiding Principles that apply these virtues to the roles and responsibilities we have in life.

Though principles do not equal promises, having a biblically principled life is beneficial because

It creates a life of clarity and purpose.
It gives us boundaries and guardrails.
It makes us into a holy nation, a people set apart.

Download our workbook, Creating a Code of Life, to walk through this process step-by-step.

Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.

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