My dad had a knack for delivering wisdom in short, memorable sayings. When a job looked too big or overwhelming, he’d simply say, “Nothing to it but to do it.” When moving something heavy, like his ancient table saw, he’d grin and say, “If you pull hard, it comes easy.” When it came to matters of faith, he would simply say: “Don’t major on the minors or minor on the majors.”
Now, this last phrase was an evolving concept in my youth. In the 60s, while just kids, the “majors” (beyond soteriology) meant a faithfulness to holiness living. We were to be set “apart” from the world, always vigilant for the sin “crouching at the door.” In the 70s, unity became a top-tier value, as our parents reached out across the denominational aisle. This produced yet another one of Dad’s venerable phrases, “in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.”
But the question still lingers, especially in today’s polarized culture. What are the true “majors” of the Christian faith, and how should they shape our values in the public square? And how do we discern “majors” from “minors” when so many voices claim to speak for “biblical values”?
Today, American Christianity spans a wide and often divided spectrum. Some believe the “majors” include preserving a Christian national identity, blending faith with the belief that America holds a divine purpose. Others believe the “majors” lie in resisting cultural decline, rallying behind political “fighters” who will uphold their vision of Christian values in the public square. Still others center the “majors” on the teachings and life of Christ, prioritizing His compassion, love, and self-giving service.
Each of these expressions reflects distinct concerns and worldviews. But more significantly, they reveal fundamental differences in how Christians define and prioritize the “majors” of their faith. In many cases, the divide is not merely about values, but about divergent visions of how the gospel shapes public witness, ethical priorities, and faithful engagement in the world.
Hence, we may all use the exact phrase—“biblical values”—but we mean entirely different things. So, how do we cut through the noise? How do we avoid confusing “our values” with “God’s values”? And how do we ensure we’re not minoring on majors—getting hung up on peripheral issues while neglecting the heart of the gospel?
Those are the questions my dad’s old phrase still pushes us to confront. Because if we don’t get the majors right, we risk losing the main plot, which is to be “Christ’s Ambassadors, as if God were making His appeal through us.”
The answer begins with returning to first principles—those teachings that Jesus and the prophets elevated above all else.
First Order Principle #1: The Triad of Micah 6:8 – Justice, Mercy, Humility
In Micah 6:8, the prophet distills the essence of Old Testament law: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”
This passage condenses 613 Old Testament laws into three critical dimensions: justice, mercy, and humility. Like the color receptors in our eyes that decode visible light into three primary colors, justice, mercy, and humility provide the lens through which we can assess our faith and ethics. Omitting or diminishing any of the three leads to a deficiency in biblical values – a type of moral blindness – just like the diminishment of one of the color-sensing receptors in our eyes leads to colorblindness.
Each command forces a heart check:
- Justice isn’t just an idea to admire—it’s an action. To wit: are we acting justly toward those whom Scripture consistently urges us to defend—the marginalized, the poor, and the voiceless?”
- Mercy isn’t about random acts of kindness—it’s a posture of kindness, of costly compassion.
- Humility isn’t mere modesty—it’s a complete surrender of ego, pride, and certainty of opinion.
Humility may be the most elusive virtue because it requires deep self-awareness. I’m reminded of the famous “gorilla experiment,” where participants, intently counting basketball passes, completely miss a man in a gorilla suit walking through the scene. In much the same way, we can become so focused on being right that we fail to notice the gorilla in the room: how culture, tribe, or ideology quietly shape our beliefs and values without our even realizing it.
This blindness doesn’t just affect what we see—it affects how we believe. Hence, when we claim to stand for “biblical values” without humility, we risk turning the gospel into a mirror of ourselves, reinforcing culturally driven narratives rather than reflecting Christ. We’d do well to heed the words of Augustine, who said, “If you should ask me what are the ways of God, I would tell you the first is humility, the second is humility, and the third is humility.
First Order Principle #2: Love of God and Neighbor
When asked to name the greatest commandment, Jesus gave a two-part answer: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind… and love your neighbor as yourself.” Then He added, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
In one sentence, Jesus reduced the complexity of Scripture to a double command of love. Not a sentimental love, but a sacrificial, life-reordering, others-centered love that reflects our relationship with God. These aren’t two separate commands. They are interlocked. As 1 John reminds us, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.”
This love must extend beyond our tribe. When asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. He made it clear that our “neighbor” includes the outsider, the other, the one we’re least inclined to care about.
So any claim to uphold “biblical values” that does not simultaneously elevate the dignity of our neighbors, especially those who differ from us politically, racially, nationally, or culturally, falls short of Jesus’ command. In scripture, worship without justice is not worship; piety without such “other-centric” love is not Christian.
These two commandments form the goalposts of our lives. A true biblical worldview must run between them.
First Order Principle #3: The Anchoring Example of Christ
Years ago, while building a house, I installed additional steel hold-downs into the concrete foundation the day before the drywall went up. Each one, anchored with epoxy, could withstand 28,000 pounds of force. When the Alaskan winds came howling the following day and in the years to come, I slept well. I knew the foundation would hold.
In the same way, every part of our Christian life must be anchored in the person of Jesus, not in cultural assumptions, nor even in doctrinal correctness or in “Christian tradition” divorced from Christ’s example.
We must return to the old question: What Would Jesus Do? Not as a slogan, but as a radical, soul-searching test of whether our values and actions align with His kingdom.
And here’s the challenge: Jesus was countercultural, often defying expectations. He eschewed political power as His Kingdom was not of this world. His priority of love led him to heal on the Sabbath, confront the religious elite, and elevate the outcast. He broke purity laws to touch lepers. He extended mercy to women shamed by scandal. He praised the faith and actions of the religiously impure. Our task then, using the language of NT Wright, is to be “image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians” who are “planting flags in hostile soil, setting up signposts that say there is a different way to be human.”
So, like constitutional law, where strict scrutiny, the highest standard of constitutional review, requires the law to be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling state interest, let’s apply the highest standard possible to our values. If they don’t look like Jesus—if they don’t carry the tone of grace, the humility of service, the courage of compassion, the priority of people, and the unbounded love—they fail the test.
First Order Principle #4: The Witness of the Fruit of the Spirit
Over lunch one day, Tammy asked a friend, an experienced theologian, why the “Christ in us” is often invisible to the world. It’s a fair question. If we’re called to be image-bearers of God, why does the church sometimes look nothing like Christ?
Jesus answered this in the parable of the sower. Many seeds don’t produce fruit. Some are stolen. Some lack roots. Others are choked out by competing desires—consumerism, political idolatry, or the seductive lie of Christian nationalism which turns the “good soil” of the gospel into the idolatry of “guns, god, and country.”.
But some land on good soil. And when they do, Jesus said, they produce fruit—thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.
Paul later defines this fruit in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
This is the “major” outcome Christ is looking for—not church attendance, political alignment, or even theological precision, but inward transformation that produces an outwardly visible people of God, marked above all by the fruit of the Spirit. Lives that radiate the beauty of God’s Spirit. People who embody the “language” of Christ and thereby reflect His nature.
As Jesus said, “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8).
The Call to Recenter
When Christians shout about “biblical values” but neglect love of neighbor, especially when that neighbor is the “other,” show little concern for spiritual fruit, fail to prioritize humility, justice, and mercy, and fail to “strictly” follow the example of Christ, they’ve abandoned the true “majors” of our faith. It’s not that the other issues are valueless, but they are secondary concerns that must bow before these first-order priorities.
This distortion is clearly seen in culture war Christianity—a version of faith that majors on issues never prioritized in Scripture, exchanges the power of the cross for the power of the state, and measures spiritual fidelity by political allegiance rather than devotion to the true “majors” of the faith. In weaponizing a form of the gospel for ideological battles, it denies the gospel’s power to transform hearts and heal communities.
It’s also clearly seen when public policies become divorced from gospel verities. The commands to welcome the stranger, care for the sojourner, and show hospitality are not fringe concerns but central expressions of God’s justice and mercy. When Christians subordinate such commands to the priorities of their political party or national identity, they reveal a disregard for the majors of the faith. When Christians welcome or even tolerate the demonizing of refugees, it puts them in opposition to the heart of God.
Such majoring on minors and minoring on majors yields a version of Christianity that looks nothing like Jesus. But when we major on the majors, and let the minors be minor, we become a people known, not for what we oppose or for our indifference to the marginalized, but for whom we follow.