The Good Life, pt. 1
Notes
Transcript
Intro.
Intro.
In 4th century BC, Socrates famously said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." This highlights the importance of self-reflection in living ethically. An ethical life requires us to question our actions and their implications. Just like Socrates, we must strive to live with intention, examining our morals and decisions daily, ensuring they align with our values and beliefs.
Ethics is a branch of Philosophy which seeks to understand morality, how we understand what is moral, and we live according to what is moral.
Are consequences of our actions the only thing that matters? Or, do the actions themselves matter? Do the intentions of our actions matter?
How can we know there is a universal morality?
What does an ethical life look like?
These are some of the questions asked by philosophers, which have been studied and debated for centuries. Each one of us, as Christians and as citizens of our communities, has a desire to do the right thing — a concept which we have spoken of many times.
For the next five weeks, we are going to dive into the Scriptures and hopefully discover part of what a godly ethic looks like.
I want us to come away from this study in ethics better as people, better as Disciples of Christ, and better as examples of morality and virtue in our modern world. God has not left us without the ability to this; in fact, He has given us the moral responsibility to do this! The person who abides in Christ and is transformed according to Rom. 12.1-2 is a person who is learning and practicing how to live a better, more ethical life according to God.
Ethics Eliminates Evil
Ethics Eliminates Evil
13 Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, 15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct; 16 because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
“The unexamined life is a life not worth living,” says Socrates. What does he mean? He believed that each person, in his/her own life, should take time to be introspective and examine what they believe and why. Socrates believed that this was essential in one’s pursuit of truth.
In a study of ethics, one is asking “What is good/right?” In the case of biblical ethics, we take these questions a bit further, asking what God has to say regarding what is right/good and wrong/bad.
When we look to the Bible and all that God condemns, we could use a few different words to categorize what God condemns:
Sin
Wickedness
Evil
Evil is defined as something, or someone, being “profoundly immoral.”
Now, naturally, one could ask, “what makes something immoral?” The answer to this question is going to help us along for the rest of the series: “BE HOLY AS I AM HOLY”.
7 ‘Therefore, you shall set yourselves apart as holy and be holy, for I am Yahweh your God. 8 ‘And you shall keep My statutes and do them; I am Yahweh who makes you holy.
To live an ethical life is, under the Old Testament and the New, to live according to God’s will.
It is worth asking, “Why it doing the will of God what makes a person ethical? Isn’t that rather arbitrary on God’s part?” The answer, once given thought, is, “No, it is not arbitrary. A life given to God’s will and heart that commits to the spirit of the commands as well as the obedience is the only completely ethical life.”
How can I know that? Because God calls us not to be holy according to some randomized standard. The plumbline held up against us is not one God made up for the human experiment; rather, the standard for our holiness is God’s own holiness!
Therefore, a life that would be truly ethical, or a person who would live a truly moral life must live their life in conformity and submission to Who God is. Without knowing Who God is, we cannot lead a completely ethical life as we are meant to. We are made in His image, and in part that means we are supposed to lead lives that reflect His character and nature as the moon reflects the sun’s light. However, if we are in sin and do not know God, we cannot learn to reflect the wholeness of His character. Our sins, our evil, are the things we do/say/think which are not reflective of God’s character and nature; these things are naturally contrary to the life we are literally designed to lead in the light of God and His Word! Sin is not something which God randomly told us not to do; it is a deviation in our behavior from the character of God. Sin is a deviation from the Image we were created in!
God has a plumbline against which He examines the uprightness of nations and people. That plumbline, I am convinced, is His own holiness which we are purposed to imitate and reflect!
1 Thus Lord Yahweh showed me, and behold, He was forming a locust-swarm when the spring crop began to come up. And behold, the spring crop was after the king’s mowing. 2 And it happened when it had completed eating the vegetation of the land, that I said, “Lord Yahweh, please pardon! How can Jacob rise up, For he is small?” 3 Yahweh relented concerning this. “It shall not be,” said Yahweh. 4 Thus Lord Yahweh showed me, and behold, Lord Yahweh was calling to contend with them by fire, and it consumed the great deep and began to consume the farm land. 5 Then I said, “Lord Yahweh, please stop! How can Jacob rise up, for he is small?” 6 Yahweh relented concerning this. “This too shall not be,” said Lord Yahweh. 7 Thus He showed me, and behold, the Lord was standing by a wall made with a plumb line, and in His hand was a plumb line. 8 And Yahweh said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am about to put a plumb line In the midst of My people Israel. I will pass over them no longer. 9 “The high places of Isaac will be desolated And the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste. Then I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
The Biblical Basis
The Biblical Basis
Over the next few weeks, we are going to look through various parts of the Bible to discover what God has revealed to us as ethical. Our study is not to declare an exact and universal rule of conduct.
Rather, we are going to look at what God says is good/bad or right/wrong, and we are going to view these passages with God’s holiness in view as if He were saying, “You must be like this because I am in some way like this!”
Ethical Inquiries
Looking to Moses’ Law for what it reveals about ethics and holiness
The Ethics of Wisdom
Looking at the Wisdom literature of the OT
The End of the Unethical
Looking at the Prophets
Expanding Ethics
Looking at Jesus’ remarks on the Sermon on the Mount
Ethics in the Epistles
Paul, Peter, and James
Conclusion
Conclusion
