Not long ago, I received an email from a Christian who asked me, “What can I do to become an educated person in Christian ethics?”I think that’s a good question, of course. Ethics is not, after all, something only academics or pastors should think about. Every Christian has a mandate to be able to articulate the truth of the gospel and apply it at any time in his life.
Here are the three most important things you can do to develop a solid Christian ethic:
1) Know the Bible
Knowing the Bible goes beyond the ability to recite isolated verses. There are many Christians who know specific evidence texts, but do not know how to understand the formative elements of Scripture as a whole. They cannot inhabit the world of the Bible and see how to apply it to the ethical and moral problems of their lives, especially those they find new and difficult.
We live in a time when, because of everything from technology to cultural change, there are all sorts of ethical problems that we hadn’t had to think about before, but we know, as the scriptures tell us, that there is nothing new under the sun, just new applications of old principles.
For example, one question I get from many parents is: what to do with a smartphone for my tying or teen?That’s the kind of question that would have seemed like science fiction twenty years ago, if you’d described what a smartphone is. is and what it does. And we can speculate on the kinds of problems people will face in church in the years to come, such as, “What about artificial intelligence?”What about the children at the Bible Holiday School who were cloned?These are issues that may seem strange to us now, but they deal with very old and very old problems that are being raised in a new way.
2) Meet people
Developing a Christian ethic means understanding human nature, and that means listening and developing empathy for people, especially those who are in a different situation than yours.
One of the things I’ve missed most since I left pastoral care full-time is counsel, when I was a pastor people came to see me every day in crisis situations, it has helped me understand and feel empathy with people in situations that I just don’t have to deal with people who have different points of vulnerability or points of suffering than I have.
I may not have experienced what a lone widower lives, after his wife’s death, but by talking to him and serving him, I can insert myself into his life and develop empathy for others whose loved ones are gone. addicted to gambling or prescription drugs, although these are not my specific areas of temptation, I can no longer caricature these struggles because I’m thinking about how that person can find a cure.
Approaching people can also help us see what’s at stake in our own lives. I remember talking to a couple once when her husband was having an extramarital affair. He was sitting in front of me when he listed all the reasons why he was after all, it wasn’t bad, but next to him was a six-month-old baby in a comforting baby on the floor. He was his son. All I thought was, “Don’t you see what your sin is doing?Can’t you see what it costs you ??. Later, did I find myself thinking about these areas that I don’t notice in my own life?blind spots that those around me may point at me, but I don’t see.
3) Meet great stories
Reading good literature, especially fiction, is more important than being aware of current events. Not that these things aren’t important, but reading good fiction can help you penetrate other people’s minds besides you in a more meaningful way than just knowing what a particular group of TV presenters is saying.
Sometimes fiction can, like the story of the lamb, of the prophet Nathan, awaken parts of us that we become insensitive because of ignorance, laziness, ina lack of attention, or sin. One night in the car, on the way home, I was talking to my 86-year-old grandmother, she told me a story about the last time she saw my grandfather alive, she told me how cold she felt at her feet as she changed her socks in the hospital bed, the way her eyes were fixed on hers. , though he could not speak. She told how, when the nurses told him she had to leave, she kissed him, told him that she loved him and that she could feel him staring at him as he left the house. space for the last time.
I knew I’d lost my grandfather. I know people die. I know husbands love their wives. (Ephesians 5). But this story triggered something in me, she urged me to hug my wife with special tenderness when I crossed the door, he had imagined what it would be like to say goodbye to him in this way, and suddenly all the daily pressures of the children, the bills to pay, the repairs of the house and the trips seemed to fit into a broader context. Fiction often does the same. When I read Ivan Illych’s Death of Tolstoy, I acquire imaginative sympathy for something I could avoid in the haste of life: what it is, in fact, to die. When I read the stories of Henry County, Kentucky, Wendell Berry, I can glimpse what it would be like to deal with the loss of a family farm during the Great Depression. This fiction offers a broader and richer view of human life.
If you want to get acquainted with Christian ethics, start with these three things.
By: Russell Moore. © 2016 Russell Moore. Original: How to Develop a Christian Ethic.
Translation: Leonardo Bruno Galdino. © 2016 Faithful Ministério. All rights reserved. Website: MinistryFiel. com. br. Original: How to develop a Christian ethic
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