For those of us who have a more “conservative” position of the Bible, there is a rather common delusion we can fall prey to, namely that we believe our interpretation of the Bible is always the correct one.  We may not even be aware that we are interpreting the Bible.  After all, we take the Bible as God’s Word, and gladly do what it says.  At the very least, our approach is far superior to the liberals who see all kinds of human elements and mistakes in the Bible.

I actually came up with some alliteration to convey a common dynamic I’ve seen in conservative or “Bible-centered” environments.  What I have seen is how easy it is for us conservatives to make a personal preference a priority which then slowly becomes a biblical precept.

For example, take a Christian school which has a preference for a certain type of uniform dress.  It is easy for that preference to slowly move to a priority which slowly becomes an issue of whether one is willing to commit to the commandments of Scripture.  Granted, there are passages of Scripture which speak of things like modest dress, but it is still a preference (not biblical precept!) to have all the boys in khaki pants and blue blazers.