Ethics: The Answer to “Should?”
The only basis for ethics (what one should or ought to do) is the eternal.
This week’s Idea #7 is for everyone everywhere: “should” is universal.
SO WHAT? Getting attention, interest, “buy in”
Gratitude is the source of and standard for ethics. Find the latest Truth in Two video here.
WHO CARES? Relation to student, potential applications
“Slurring” a person based on their ethnicity, beliefs, or social standing is unacceptable. See what I wrote this week about Tim Scott being “slurred.”
Use the search line at MarkEckel.com to look up “ethics” (or any word for that matter!)
WHY SHOULD I? Reasons for investing time, thought
“Social Ethics” is an encyclopedia entry I wrote some years ago that goes into great detail about the biblical basis and rationale for the need of a righteous standard for any kind of justice.
Ethics and ethical issues runs through most of my video teaching.
Example: What is the Basis for Right and Wrong? [Video]
HOW DO I? Ways to be involved
A brand new video series “Ethics in Children’s Books” (Part 1) will be available the last full week of May 2021.
WHO SAYS? Authority, standard, influence
The only basis for ethics (what one should or ought to do) is the eternal. If there is no afterlife, no accounting for what we have done in this life, then why not do whatever we would like now? Psalm 73 is an excellent example of this sentiment from a believer. Asaph, a priest, said “his foot had almost slipped”—that is, he’s almost given up his belief. He saw the wealthy and powerful get away with murder. Then note verses 15-17 and the word “until.” When we understand that what we do in this life will be judged in the next, it gives us pause. So there must be an eternal God to whom we must give an account.
In a fallen world, the best hope for community compliance is commitment to a cogent code given from a personal, eternal, triune creator, the Hebrew-Christian God of the Bible. Social-economic ethics, from a Hebraic-Christian point of view, demands the following. (1) A righteous, revelatory standard founded in the Bible (Ps 119; 1 Thess 4:1-12), (2) a transformed spirit, affecting the being, the interiority of the believer (Ps 19:13-14; Rom 8:5-9), (3) Christian leaders who submit themselves to the standard in word, attitude, and deed (2 Kgs 23:24-25; 1 Tim 3; Titus 1), (4) Christian leaders who prompt the Christian church toward the practice of Christian ethics (Ps 15; Heb 10:24; 13:1-7, 17), (5) Christians who practice Christian ethics in the society where they live (Deut 4:5-8; Titus 2:1-10); and (6) the benefit for a whole society when the group is influenced by Hebraic-Christian social-economic ethics (Jer 29:1-7; 1 Tim 1:8-11).
2 John 5 says, “These written commands which we have had since the beginning” linked to Old Testament instruction (Lev 19:18) which have come to us “through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him” (Rom 16:26). New Testament books such as 2 and 3 John identify the need to compare Truth with falsehood: a standard for ethics.