Not on the same page. Now what?

On Sunday mornings where the body of believers I serve meet to worship, part of the teaching time is a Q-A.  People can text questions to 515-209-2060.

This question came after today's teaching:  My colleagues (at the university) do not recognize the Bible or Jesus as the standard of righteousness.  What can I say to these people?  Worse, claiming to belong to a denominational church, they do not acknowledge a Biblical view of righteous living?

LITTLE CONSENSUS ON MORAL STANDARDS

This questioner, a friend of mine, has put his finger on something that is, indeed, so very true in our 21st century milieu.  Like the ancient days in the Biblical period of the JUDGES (cf. Old Testament book, 1350-1050 BC), people "do what is right in their own eyes."  In those days--and in ours--respect for the historical standard of righteousness (i.e., the Torah, or OT Law, or more broadly the Bible) evaporated.  Each crafts his/her own moral code.

Nonetheless, people generally do believe in some code of "right" and "wrong."  As C.S. Lewis argues effectively in Mere Christianity, an ingrained sense of "oughtness" is a unique and undeniable human trait.  He called it the "law of human nature," and pressed the question, "From where does this come?"  For Lewis, this inbred moral code and the logical answer to its origin, was the clue to understanding the meaning of the universe.

Perhaps there is more consensus on a "standard of righteousness" generally among people -- and thus an opportunity to talk about the implications of this -- than we may have realized.  Perhaps the place to start is not with God's or Jesus' standard of righteousness, but with this persistent code of morals which seems deeply stamped on the human heart.  Our tutor in engaging in such discussions would be the former Oxford don, who himself was led from atheism to theism, and eventually to Jesus, because he could not explain away the origin of the "oughtness" in his heart.

WILL THE WRONGS EVER BE RIGHTED?

The other starting place with colleagues or friends who do not acknowledge the Bible's or Jesus' standard of righteousness is to ask, "Lots of human beings have gotten away with lots of evil, for which there has never been justice.  Do you think those wrongs will ever be righted?  Is there no final reckoning?"

Most people believe God exists and most might agree that the injustices need a "righting."  If so, who will do this?  If God is perfect and just, will he not "set things right"?  And if so, how?  On what basis?  What will be the standard?

Such a discussion could lead back to who God is and a future accounting.  In such a dialogue, we might find people leaning their thinking back to the clarity of the moral measuring stick which was the teaching of Jesus and is the Bible.  Especially if we pray that the Holy Spirit will do the convincing (cf. John 16:8-11)