Ethics – Page 2

On Fun, Part 1: It’s Good

September 29, 2023 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

For a radical change of pace, I’d like to spend a few posts thinking about having fun—and specifically, how to have fun and do it right.

I’ll note that my colleague Dr. Brian Hand has written a brief book on the subject, cleverly titled Upright Downtime, which I highly recommend. This series isn’t a summary of that book, but of course our thoughts will overlap in places.

I think the best place to begin is with morals. I’m happy to start with a firm and resolute statement:

Fun is good.

We know that it’s good, because God both practices it himself and endorses it for us.

I’d suggest that what we call “fun” consists of both pleasure, or enjoyment, and rest, or relaxation. God engages in both.

God takes pleasure throughout Scripture, in all kinds of things:
- Uprightness (1Ch 29.17)
- The prosperity of his servant (Ps 35.27)
- Those that fear him (Ps 147.11)
- His Temple (Hag 1.8)
- Giving his people the kingdom (Lk 12.32)

In just this short list I note that God takes pleasure in not only the service of his servants (uprightness, fear, the Temple) but also in their pleasure (prosperity, the kingdom). More on that in a few sentences.

God also rests.
- He rested from creation on Day 7 (Ge 2.2). Now, I know that God didn’t rest because he was tired; the passage simply means that he stopped his creative work, because it was finished. But he did stop. The biblical picture of God is not of one who is working feverishly—even though he is working constantly, most noticeably in his providential work. But he is not stressed, and he is never feeling the pressure of getting it all done.
- Jesus, incarnate, rested from his exhausting labors by withdrawing into the wilderness (Lk 5.16). Sometimes he does that to pray, as this verse specifies (see also Mt 14.23); sometimes no specific reason is given (Mt 14.13). If you had three years to save the world, would you be taking days off? Jesus did.

Beyond that, God clearly encourages—even commands—us to take pleasure and rest as well.

He makes Eden’s trees “pleasant to the sight, and good for food” (Ge 2.9). Multisensory pleasure! And we know that Adam was encouraged to eat of every tree that was good for food, with the exception of just one (Ge 2.17).
David notes that “at [God’s] right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Ps 16.11); and again, “[The children of men] shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; And thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures” (Ps 36.8). This metaphor speaks of an abundance of pleasure, of multiple kinds of pleasure, of swimming in it.
All through the Song of Solomon, the kings delights in specifically sexual pleasure. Many commentators have tried to lessen the erotic tone of the book by turning it into a metaphor of God’s love for his church; but I don’t see any evidence in the text that it should be read that way. It was God, after all, who designed sex to be pleasurable.

And rest?

The same Jesus who withdraws into the wilderness for rest takes his disciples with him on at least one occasion (Mk 6.31).
And then there’s the Sabbath, a central feature of the Law of Moses, where God requires his people to rest every seventh day—on penalty of death (Nu 15.32-36).

Rest is serious business; it’s a basic need for those in the image of God.

But I need to temper the title of this post.

The Scripture is clear that not all fun is good. There is pleasure that is evil, and there is rest that is evil. The God who takes pleasure in many things also reveals that he does not take pleasure in certain other things.

So how do we decide how to have fun?—or more precisely, what kinds of fun to have?

We’ll start on that in the next post.

Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash

Part 2: On Purpose | Part 3: Loving Your Neighbor | Part 4: Down with Slavery | Part 5: Question Everything

A Little Interaction with ChatGPT: Can Teachers Spot Fake Student Work? Part 2

February 9, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

In the previous post I presented two questions that I asked ChatGPT, a writing tool based on artificial intelligence, and I included the tool’s response to each question. My interest in trying this was to see if I could spot any evidence that the responses were not written by a student; as a teacher, I want to have some defense against the possibility that a student might use the tool to get out of writing a paper himself.

The first question was “write an essay evaluating Paul’s use of intertextuality in Romans 3.” The second was “evaluate the previous essay for evidence of origination by ChatGPT.”

Here’s my thinking as I read the responses.

The first thing I noticed was how well written it was. The spelling, grammar, and syntax were all nicely polished. The sentences were all grammatically complete. There was no indication that this writer had ever written a text or posted on Twitter (lol). The paragraphs were all coherent. In particular, there were no words that were misspelled but actually spelled other words (e.g. their / there)—that’s evidence of the overwhelmingly common student practice of running the spell checker but not actually proofreading the paper.

Now, I have students who write that well, but they’re in the minority. If my students were to submit something like this, particularly after I’d graded a previous writing assignment, most of them would get caught.

Well, that was easy.

But there are other things to notice as well.

In the first place—and other analysts have noticed this too—the writer doesn’t actually know anything about the topic. The teacher brings expertise to the question and is thus in a position to notice that the tool is just spouting (very nicely) things that he’s imitating from lots of sources; he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.

As one example, the essay notes correctly that a section of Romans 3 cites passages in the Psalms. But it doesn’t mention that near the end of that section, between two citations from the Psalms, is a string of three citations from Isaiah 59. A human would see that and think, “That’s odd. I wonder why he pops out to Isaiah like that. It’s not like he needs more evidence; this is at the end of a long string of perfectly sufficient evidence from the Psalms.” And, as the standardized process of evaluating intertextuality would prescribe, he would examine the contexts of all those citations to see what’s with the intrusion of Isaiah. And he’d find that all the Psalms passages are addressed to “the wicked” or some synonym, while the Isaiah passage is full of pronouns (they, etc.) that don’t identify specifically who’s (not “whose”) being addressed; and the human would need to trace those pronouns all the way back to the very beginning of chapter 58, where we find that the prophet is describing the depravity of “the house of Jacob.”

Aha! Back in Romans 2, Paul is arguing that both Jews and Gentiles are in need of justification, and he begins chapter 3 comparing the two groups. As he lists passages from the Psalms demonstrating the corruption of “the wicked,” he realizes that he needs to document the pious followers of Moses as well—and he goes to Isaiah, to a passage describing not the idolatrous Northern Kingdom of Israel, but the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the Davidic line.

All that is human thinking. Machines can’t do that. And the teacher who reads his students’ work carefully and thoughtfully, and who knows the ins and outs of the topic that he’s assigned, is in a position to spot that kind of major omission.

I also thought the evaluation (the answer to my second question) was off. Obviously, it missed the whole point I’ve laid out above, as I would expect. But it also criticized the essay for not including personal stories, which would be inappropriate in this academic exercise. And its two uses of the conjunction “however” are illogical; the expected word in each case should be “further,” given that following statements are extending the current point, not contrasting with it.

In short, everything it said was true, but it would raise a teacher’s eyebrows at multiple points. This little sample isn’t sufficient basis for a firm conclusion, but as a teacher I’m encouraged by the experiment.

One more thing: this experiment took place in the context of a conversation with several friends on Facebook, which had some entertaining moments. The complete thread is here, dated 2/4/2023. And a well-deserved word of thanks to my longtime friend Joel Lindstrom, who made it possible—and to Scott Buchanan, who added some enlightening content.

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A Little Interaction with ChatGPT: Can Teachers Spot Fake Student Work? Part 1

February 5, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

OK, the subtitle overpromises. I’ve had “a little interaction,” and that doesn’t answer the question with any real certainty. But for what it’s worth, I’ll share what happened.

ChatGPT is an online tool that answers questions, even complex ones, using artificial intelligence (AI). Lots of teachers are concerned that this will hamper their ability to assign writing and maintain academic integrity. Early evaluations are mixed.

Here’s what I did.

I asked the tool to “write an essay evaluating Paul’s use of intertextuality in Romans 3.” I tried to word it to heighten the chance that the essential stupidity of computers would work against the bot. (Yes, they’re wicked fast, which can give the illusion of smarts, but at root they have no intelligence whatsoever, except the artificial kind.) I asked for an essay, and for evaluation; I didn’t call Paul a “saint”; I didn’t mention the Bible, and I didn’t say what “3” meant.

Here’s what it produced:

Intertextuality, the concept of drawing on other texts and literary sources in one’s writing, is a prevalent feature in the New Testament, particularly in the letters of Paul. The apostle’s use of intertextuality can be seen in many of his letters, including Romans 3.

In this chapter, Paul draws on a number of Old Testament texts to make his point about the sinfulness of humanity and the need for righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. One of the most notable examples of intertextuality in this chapter can be seen in verses 10-18, where Paul quotes from the book of Psalms to emphasize the universality of sin and the need for salvation through faith. By using these Old Testament references, Paul is able to connect his message to the Jewish tradition and to make a clear connection between the Old Testament and the gospel message.

Another way in which Paul uses intertextuality in Romans 3 is through his allusions to other parts of the Old Testament. For example, in verses 21-22, Paul refers to the Old Testament concept of righteousness being given through faith, an idea that is prominent in the book of Habakkuk. By alluding to these other texts, Paul is able to reinforce his message and make a deeper connection with his audience.

In addition to drawing on Old Testament texts, Paul also uses intertextuality to connect his message to the larger narrative of the gospel. For example, in verse 24, Paul refers to the idea of redemption through the blood of Christ, a concept that is central to the gospel message. By referencing this central idea, Paul is able to connect his message in Romans 3 to the larger narrative of salvation through faith in Jesus.

In conclusion, Paul’s use of intertextuality in Romans 3 is both effective and sophisticated. By drawing on Old Testament texts and alluding to other parts of the gospel narrative, Paul is able to reinforce his message and make a deeper connection with his audience. Through his use of intertextuality, Paul shows that his message is rooted in the Jewish tradition and the larger gospel narrative, and that it is intended to bring salvation to all people.

I then made another request: “Evaluate the previous essay for evidence of origination by ChatGPT.” Here’s what it gave me:

The essay demonstrates characteristics consistent with an AI model’s writing. For example, the language is formal and academic, with a clear structure and well-defined arguments. The use of terms such as “intertextuality” and “allusions” shows a familiarity with literary terminology, which is also consistent with an AI model’s training.

However, the essay also lacks a personal touch or a unique perspective that would be expected from a human writer. The language and arguments are polished and well-constructed, but they lack the depth and nuance that can only come from a personal understanding and connection with the topic.

Additionally, the essay relies heavily on facts and terminology, but lacks personal anecdotes or examples to illustrate the points being made. This lack of personalization and emphasis on facts is also consistent with an AI model’s writing style.

In conclusion, the essay shows strong evidence of being generated by an AI model such as ChatGPT. The formal language, well-defined structure, and reliance on facts are all consistent with the writing of an AI model. However, the essay lacks the personal touch and unique perspective that would be expected from a human writer.

These products are impressive, but I think I would spot the fakery if a student submitted them to me. I’ll talk about that in the next post.

Part 2

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On What You Put into Your Head, Part 3: Toto, We’re Not in Eden Anymore

March 7, 2022 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: Strategic Exposure | Part 2: All the Trees of the Garden

While there’s great joy in romping through fields of wildflowers, we know that the pastoral scenes in novels and movies aren’t really accurate. There are ants at the picnic and snakes in the woods. The world is a broken place; it’s really not a good idea to follow my recommendation in the previous post—“learn all you can about everything you can”—without putting some sensible limitations in place.

We’re not in Eden anymore.

How do we decide which trees in the garden to sample?

Many Christians like to use the guidance in Philippians 4.8—

“Finally, brothers,

whatever is true,
whatever is honorable,
whatever is just,
whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely,
whatever is commendable,
if there is any excellence,
if there is anything worthy of praise,

think about these things.”

I don’t doubt that anyone who focuses his mental faculties on these things will be better for it.

But I note a few things about this list. First, it’s not presented as exhaustive; there’s no command to think only about things on this list. Second, there are times when the Bible itself tells us to think about manifestly negative, even sinful things—to consider the way of the fool, for example. Sometimes it tells us stories that are anything but lovely. And third, I would suggest that because everyone’s different, there are probably even some good things that I shouldn’t dwell on—and you’ll have a similar list, though it’ll probably be different from mine in the particulars.

Why do I say that?

Because the Scripture tells us that we need to make individual adjustments to our mental explorations based on our strengths and weaknesses and our personal characteristics, such as our consciences. Let me give some examples.

Paul says, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient” (1Co 6.12). In fact, he says it twice (1Co 10.23). What does that mean? It means that some things that others can do freely will not get me toward my goal, will not help me fulfill my purposes. I need to stay focused, give primary attention and time to the things that God has called me to do. For example, I’m called to be a teacher. But I’m fluent only in English. When I teach overseas, I often teach through an interpreter, which means I get in only half the content in the same amount of time. Every time I meet a new language, I’m really tempted to learn it so I don’t have to use an interpreter and can cover more material. But the time it would take for me to learn Kiswahili, or Bemba, or Afrikaans, or Xhosa (and those clicks!), or Mandarin, or Chamorro, or even Spanish, would severely limit the time I can spend on my primary calling, which is studying the material and thinking about the most effective ways to present it. It’s not a profitable use of my time, given the time required to gain fluency. It’s not expedient. It’s better to let someone else do that.

In the first verse in the previous paragraph, Paul also says, “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” We’re all prone to give in to the allure of some activity or other—playing video games, watching TV, eating butterscotch sundaes. Most people can handle those activities in a balanced way, but for some it just becomes addictive. I’ve written about my decision to go cold turkey on caffeine. We need to make the firm decision to stay away from otherwise good things that pull us off balance.

In the second verse above, Paul says, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.” Sometimes we have to decide whether something we’re free to do might get in the way of our spiritual growth—or someone else’s. We need to keep our eyes on the prize and set aside weights that keep us from running our best race (He 12.1).

So as we enjoy God’s good gifts, we do so thoughtfully and purposefully, and that means carefully and cautiously.

Be curious! But be careful.

There’s great freedom in that.

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On What You Put into Your Head, Part 2: All the Trees of the Garden

March 3, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Strategic Exposure

I noted last time that God gave Adam and Eve free access to all the many trees in the garden, except for just one. God is lavish with his gifts, including his gifts for our thoughtful consideration and even our entertainment. There’s evidence for that all through his Word, and all around us as well.

There’s much that glorifies God in the world around us—and beyond it. David, perhaps while watching sheep under a night sky, sang, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Ps 19.1). Just as we learn a lot about a creative person, an artist, by studying his art, so we learn about God by studying his creation—its immensity, its precision, its design, its beauty, its reliability. That means that we ought to study science, at whatever depth we’re equipped to do so.
Perhaps you’ve never thought about the fact that the universe has a design language. Its dimensions and proportions and relationships constitute what we call math (or maths, if you’re across the pond). I know a lot of people who don’t like math and didn’t do well in it in school. OK, it’s not for everybody. But math has beauty and order and precision just like the visible universe that it describes, and it declares the glory of God just as certainly.
The Bible also tells us that God directs the affairs of peoples and nations, and that the heart of the king is in his hand (Pr 21.1). That means that the outworking of history tells us something about God’s mind—and the better we see how God’s mind works, the better we know him. Providence—history—is well worth thinking about as we seek to glorify God.
At the end of the creation week we learn that the last creatures God made—Adam and Eve—he made in his image (Ge 1.26-27). Whatever that means specifically—and there’s a fair amount of debate about that—it means that we resemble God in some significant way or ways. And that means that we can learn about God by studying humans—
- Their languages
- Their literature
- Their art
- Their music
- Their speech
- Their dramatic productions

So the humanities and the arts are places we ought to settle down in and think about.

It’s pretty obvious that I’m talking about the elements of a liberal arts education. No surprise there; I teach at a liberal arts university, where I’ve spent my entire adult life.

I have friends who think college is a waste of money. Learn a trade, they say, and you’ll make more money while avoiding debt.

I think that’s reductionistic. College is just right for some people, and not for others. The trades are honorable employments, and we need people in our society who are good at them. But I shiver at logic that makes earning power the sole criterion for a career decision. And I think we’d all do well to remember that glorifying God calls for a wide variety of people, skills, and knowledge sets. The world is a better place because I’m not an electrician just as certainly as it’s a better place because good electricians exist.

So what’s the big idea?

Romp in as many fields as you like; smell the wildflowers, hear the birdsong, bask in the light and warmth of the sun. Eat from all the trees of the garden to which God has graciously given us access. Delight in what they tell you about his power, his wisdom, his grace. Get to know him better. Seek to become more like his attributes that you see in what you study. Gain knowledge and skills that will make you a better servant in his great plan.

Learn everything you can about everything you can.

Relish the abundant freedom he gives.

Part 3: Toto, We’re Not in Eden Anymore

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On What You Put into Your Head, Part 1: Strategic Exposure

February 28, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

I get a sense that our culture doesn’t think much about what it consumes mentally. We scroll through social media posts, slowing down for something that suits our fancy. We scroll through the menus of streaming services, looking for something to watch: something we like, something that looks interesting, something with a cool thumbnail graphic.

Whatever.

But we all know better.

We’ve all had the experience of seeing or hearing something that we wish we could forget; the woods is full of people who desperately want to get old pornographic images out of their minds and just can’t. For all the talk about being unable to remember things, we find that our brains often remember things far better than we’d like. If we had any sense, we’d be a lot more careful about what we put in there.

We’d be purposeful, strategic about it.

Let me share some thoughts about that, something I shared in chapel at Bob Jones University way back on November 6, 2006.

Since what we put into our heads is going to be there forever, and potentially available for recall, we ought to direct our thinking, and even our entertainment, to things that are going to help us become what we want to become and accomplish what we want to accomplish.

I decided a long time ago that the wisest goal for my life was to heed the biblical admonition to “do all to the glory of God” (1Co 10.31). I had discovered that I didn’t have enough mass to be the center of the universe, and what I had experienced of God led me to believe that he would make a wiser investment of my life than anyone or anything else.

And what things would most effectively glorify him?

Knowing him: “This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
Being like him: “We all … are changed into the same image [of the glory of the Lord]” (2 Cor. 3:18); “whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Ro 8.29).
Serving him: “That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2Ti 3:17).

So what things can we devote our thinking to that will further these goals?

The Scripture answers this question, as it does many others, with both freedom and caution. On the one hand, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Ps 24.1). God pointed Adam and Eve to a garden full of all different kinds of trees and encouraged them to eat all different kinds of fruit.

Freedom!

But on the other hand, the world is broken and dangerous. There was one tree in the garden that was forbidden to them, and when they violated that prohibition, the whole garden became off limits. There are many things in the world today that we restrict our children from, and if we have any sense, there are things that we restrict ourselves from as well.

Caution.

In the next post I plan to share some observations about thinking with freedom, romping in broad fields of mental wildflowers; in the third post, I’ll have some thoughts about how and when to be cautious.

Part 2: All the Trees of the Garden | Part 3: Toto, We’re Not in Eden Anymore

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Integrity Matters, Part 2: Case Study

November 4, 2021 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1: Two Commandments

In Acts 5, we read of Ananias and Sapphira, a couple in the church at Jerusalem, who sell a piece of land and donate some of the proceeds to the church.

The Motive: Personal Recognition (Ac 4.32-5.2)

Hidden under the surface of this simple and apparently commendable act, however, are two key facts:

They do this immediately after many other church members, including a highly esteemed man named Barnabas, have done something similar (Ac 4.32-37).
They lie by saying that the money they’ve donated is the entire proceeds of the sale (Ac 5.2, 8).

It’s pretty clear what’s going on here.

Everybody’s making sacrificial donations to the church. Ananias and Sapphira don’t want to appear selfish, and they want a piece of the action; they want the praise of their peers, but they don’t want to make the sacrifice Barnabas and others had made. And thus they’re willing to lie to get it.

Nearly all sin is based in pride and self-centeredness: you want something for yourself more than you want God to be glorified. And this in spite of the fact that God has already given us “all spiritual blessings” (Ep 1.3) and promises much more to come (Lk 6.38).

What would you do for recognition? What would you do to have fellow believers think well of you? If you’d do something God forbids, then you’ve made yourself into an idol that you worship. Can you think of anything more ridiculous?

You know, the physicists tell us that you and I don’t have nearly enough mass to be the center of the universe.

The Sin: Lying to God (Ac 5.3-4)

It’s obvious that Ananias and Sapphira lied to the church; but at bottom, as Peter tells them, they lied to God (Ac 5.4b)—who, by the way, is omniscient.

How hopeless is that?!

Sin, you see, makes you stupid.

Like the bank robber who wrote the holdup note on the back of one of his personalized checks.

They didn’t have to do any of this; as Peter tells them (Ac 5.4a), they were free to do what they wanted with their property and with the money they got from selling it. Did they really think God wouldn’t know what they had done?

That’s just stupid.

The Penalty: Death (Ac 5.5-10)

Ananias lies, and then he dies.

Does this penalty seem harsh?

I’ll confess that it seems harsh to me.

But this is a direct act of God—Peter didn’t call for it—and we know that God is just.

Now, in this country we don’t have the death penalty for lying or stealing. I suppose there are circumstances in which your lying or stealing might get you killed—stealing copper wire from an electrical power substation is pretty risky—but you’re not likely to be executed for lying.

But God is just, and in the end of time all the scales of justice will be balanced, and all evil will be accounted for. Don’t put him to the test.

It doesn’t stop with Ananias. His wife Sapphira doubles down on the lie, and she dies too.

Ananias, who is supposed to be a tender shepherd for his wife, leads her into sin instead of out of it. And her conspiracy just compounds the crime.

The Outcome: Fear (Ac 5.11)

And now the body, this body so eager to care for one another, this body so generous with their belongings, this body surrounded by the grace and power of God, is afraid.

That’s what sin does—even to innocent bystanders.

It corrupts and disturbs and poisons everything it touches; it turns a delightful situation into a fearful one.

Now, this isn’t how God wants us to live. “Fear not,” Jesus said repeatedly (Mt 10.28; Lk 5.10; 8.50; 12.7, 32; passim). Perfect love, John says, casts out fear (1Jn 4.18). We sons and daughters of God should live as adults, not little children; we should be motivated by love, not by fear.

Sin keeps us from doing that. Living a lie keeps us from doing that.

Integrity matters, for so many reasons more than just reputation.

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Integrity Matters, Part 1: Two Commandments

November 1, 2021 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Everybody knows about the Ten Commandments. Not everybody knows what they are, and nobody obeys them perfectly, but the term is pervasive as an expression for Doing Good.

It’s been often observed that the commandments come on two tablets—not just literally (Ex 31.18), but logically as well. Commandments 1-4 address our relationship with God, answering to the Great Commandment (“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” Mt 22.36-38), while commandments 5-10 address our relationship with other humans, answering to the Second Commandment (“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” Mt 22.39). And within that second table, many have noticed that the last 4 seem to be related:

¹⁴You shall not commit adultery.
¹⁵You shall not steal.
¹⁶You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor (Ex 20.14-17).

Adultery and coveting (especially coveting your neighbor’s wife) seem of a piece, bookending the prohibitions on stealing and lying, or “bearing false witness.”

I’d like to spend a post or two on these last-mentioned two as connected. Stealing, I’d suggest, is really just a form of lying—which is why the two so often travel together.

Stealing, as we all know, is taking something that doesn’t belong to you. We know instinctively that that’s wrong, but it’s worth our time to think systematically through the reasons why.

Like all the other sins listed in the Second Table, stealing is failing to love your neighbor, since you’re depriving him of something that he has earned:

⁸Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law (Ro 13.8-10).

But when you do that, you’re engaging in a whole list of lies. You’re saying that
- Your neighbor is not in fact in the image of God, deserving your respect;
- What you’ve taken really and rightly belongs, or should belong, to you;
- God, your abundantly generous heavenly Father, hasn’t given you everything you need;
- You need more—and God doesn’t care enough about that need to give you what you need in a legitimate way;
- If you’re a believer, you’re saying that you haven’t taken off the cloak of ungodliness and put on the cloak of righteousness (Ep 4.17-25). You’re saying that God hasn’t fundamentally changed you from your unbelieving days. As a believer, you’re living as though you’re still by nature a child of wrath (Ep 2.3). That’s like being a square circle—it doesn’t make any sense at all.

So when you steal, you’re lying, in multiple and obvious ways. It’s no surprise, then, that Paul mentions both together:

²⁵So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. …²⁸Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy (Ep 4.25-28).

Note his requirement that thieves work “honestly” with their hands, in contrast with the lying way they had “worked” before.

When you steal, you’re not telling the truth, and you’re not living the truth. And there’s nothing good down that road. Since you don’t like it when other people do that to you, how can you possibly excuse it in yourself?

In the next post I’d like to look at an incident of lying and stealing in the Bible.

Part 2: Case Study

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On the Fruit of the Spirit, Part 10: Self-Control

May 27, 2021 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

The last fruit on the tree of Spirit-empowered Christian character is self-control. Besides its appearance in this verse, it appears in only two other verses in the New Testament, and they don’t help us much with the meaning in context:

“And as [Paul] reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee” (Ac 24.25).

“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; ⁶And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness” (2P 1.5-6).

All of these occurrences are in lists, which are notoriously unhelpful in providing the kind of context that’s useful for drawing out the meaning of the word.

The adjectival form appears one time, in Titus 1.8, but that’s a list too:

“For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; ⁸But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate” (Ti 1.8).

But fortunately for us, the verb form appears in two verses in 1 Corinthians, both of which give us some helpful context:

“But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn” (1Co 7.9).

“And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible” (1Co 9.25).

The first is in a context of marriage, specifically as a sexual outlet. Paul says that if a young couple is unable to control themselves with regard to their sexual impulses, then they should get married.

The second is in an athletic context, specifically running a race (1Co 9.24). When an athlete is in training, he needs to exercise self-control over every area of his physical and mental life: he works out even when he doesn’t feel like it, he carefully controls his diet, he visualizes what he’ll need to do to be a winner.

In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint), the verb form appears once, when Moses tells Pharaoh,

“For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still, ³Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain” (Ex 9.2).

Here it speaks of an external restraint—Pharaoh not “letting my people go.” Similarly Herodotus writes of the Greek generals having an area “under their control” (Histories, 8.49). In a more spiritual sense, an OT apocryphal book speaks of someone who “takes hold of” the Law (Sir 15.1) and of one who “restrains himself” from lust (Sir 18.30)—which reinforces the use in 1Co 7.9 above.

Also in the Septuagint the verb form is used of Joseph “composing himself” before going before his brothers (Ge 43.31).

So “self-control” can include the sexual sense, but it’s broader than that; it speaks of personal discipline in general. So it includes our thoughts and plans, our goals, our words, our actions. It includes our responses to people we don’t like. It includes the way we drive.

In one of many ironies in the Christian life (dying is living, the servant is master, the first are last), our “self-control” emerges not from ourselves, but from the Spirit who empowers us.

Jesus said that we’ll be known by our fruits.

Who are you?

Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash

On the Fruit of the Spirit, Part 9: Gentleness

May 24, 2021 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

The eighth of the nine fruits of the Spirit is gentleness. The KJV uses the term “meekness..” The Greek lexicons include ideas such as meekness, mildness, even-temperedness, even friendliness and humility.

The Greek word is relatively rare in the New Testament—it appears just 11 times—but those few uses give us a fairly robust picture of it by their context—

It’s used in parallel with compassion (Co 3.12), humility (Ep 4.2; Co 3.12), kindness (Co 3.12), patience (Ep 4.2; Co 3.12), peaceableness (Titus 3.2), reverence (1P 3.16), tolerance (Ep 4.2), and love (1Co 4.21; Ep 4.2).
It’s used to describe the attitude of a believer who is
- correcting those who have fallen into error, in hopes that they may be restored (2Ti 2.25);
- restoring a fellow believer who has fallen into sin (Ga 6.1)—and that word “restoring” is used in secular Greek literature of a doctor setting a broken bone;
- “receiving” the Scripture (Jam 1.21);
- doing good deeds (Jam 3.13).
It’s contrasted with “boldness” (2Co 10.1) and with the attitude of a person intent on maligning someone (Titus 3.2) or disciplining someone for bad behavior (1Co 4.21).
It’s said to be a characteristic of Christ (2Co 10.1).

I’ve been going to dentists since I was a boy. My first dentist practiced in an age when the profession didn’t give a lot of thought to the pain involved; pain was just kind of understood to be a part of the experience. He didn’t use a topical anesthetic before he came at me with that 9-foot-long needle that had the real stuff in it. It never occurred to him during a filling that the patient might like a little break 20 minutes in. I learned to just tough it out or focus my thoughts on my happy place (which was most certainly not the dentist’s chair).

As an adult, in another part of the country, I had to establish a relationship with a new dentist. The one I ended up with was, shall we say, enlightened. His training had included some simple techniques that would significantly lower the pain inflicted. A decade or two later, when he retired and sold his practice to a young guy right out of dental school, I realized that by then the training was focusing even more on techniques to lower or even eliminate the pain.

Just had a crown done last week. Piece of cake.

Good for dentistry.

Now.

Dentists are dealing with tiny fragments of bone in our heads, and their motivation derives from the simple desire to have their patients come back, so the practice can be profitable and therefore stable. (And yes, I’m sure that many dentists, and others in health care, have an altruistic motive as well.)

Most of us, though, are not dealing with tiny bone fragments. We’re dealing with the souls of men and women in the image of God, who are going to live somewhere forever, and in the case of fellow members of the body of Christ, are going to live with us forever—and who, as members of Christ, are deeply treasured by him.

We ought to think seriously, then, about the pain we inflict. Some pain is necessary, no doubt; but much of the pain we inflict with our words and actions, even when confrontation is called for, is unnecessary. Some of the pain we inflict comes from our own impatience, or frustration, or self-focus. I’ve done that, many more times than I’d like to admit. And recently.

That’s not a result of the Spirit’s work in us.

We all—all who follow Christ—have within us an omnipotent person who is influencing us to be gentle. We can do this.

And we ought to.

Part 10: Self-Control

Photo by Gabriele Lässer on Unsplash