The Guideline Triangle

Fiction guidelines form a triangle.

At the bottom is the Bible. Immoveable, this baseline provides the foundation of the triangle. If you try to change this, the whole triangle with shift and likely fall apart. We have laid this baseline in the past weeks through a detailed study of Philippians 4:8.

Built on this baseline are the other two sides of the triangle, which we will be looking at in the coming weeks. These two sides are maturity and personal limitations. Unlike the baseline, these sides can and will vary in length, size, and proportion for one simple reason: no two people are the same.

Sometimes one line will be longer. Sometimes they will be equal. But together your maturity and personal limitations will shift as one side accommodates for the other, leaving room for personality, culture, and growth.

Together these three lines provide a safety net. On the inside of the triangle lie the stories safe for you. On the outside, the questionable. This doesn’t mean that you never venture out of your triangle. Nor does it mean that the triangle itself doesn’t change. In fact, you will need to occasionally adjust the lines of maturity and personal limitations, anchored by the unchanging Biblical baseline, because who you are today is not who you were nor who you will be.

But this triangle provides an island of safety in the midst of the strong currents of fiction, a point of reference to keep you from being swept away.