Book Reviews: Becoming Good/Doing Right
Becoming Good is a careful study of Christian virtue or character ethics based primarily on Jesus’ famous description of good character in the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s famous virtues of faith, hope, and love. Gill argues that it is not enough to give people a new set of ethical guidelines; we need a renewal and strengthening of our character and of the communities in which we live. Becoming Good focuses on virtue ethics, the ethics of “being” and character;
Doing Right, on the other hand, studies the ethics of “doing,” of decision and action and is more deontological in nature. Deontological ethics basically asserts that we should choose actions based on their inherent, intrinsic worth; evangelical approaches to ethics like Gill presents here are deontological because it presupposes Scripture as revelation. Doing Right grows from the premises begun in Becoming Good. Gill says that “without making progress on what and who we are, it will be impossible to know and do what is right.” So, character, the sum-total of one’s habits, tendencies and well-being, is a very important foundation when discussing ethics.
David Gill begins Doing Right by exploring the analogy of road maps and our need of them with the Ten Commandments as a map for life. Gill explores the commandments both in their original context and as interpreted through Jesus’ double “Love Commandment” and the Sermon on the Mount. But, contrary to the concept that I grew up with, the Ten Commandments are not simply a list of “do’s and don’ts”, but instead they are what Gill calls “area principles.” “Cover” principles are rules or moral claims that “cover” all of life — and Gill sees four of these principles (or “rules for the road”): loving God, loving others as yourself, pursuing justice and righteousness, and to liberate and redeem. “Area” principles make “cover” principles concrete, relevant and practical. The Ten Commandments are “area” principles.
What I appreciated the most about Doing Right is that Gill explores the Ten Commandments through the lens of how each one of them makes the four “cover” principles concrete. Those who study the Ten Commandments through these four principles will find they have learned more about the commandment, and will find more inherent value in each commandment, than any who studies each as simply rules and laws to be obeyed. Put simply, Gill explores how the commandment to honor one’s father and mother expresses love for God, love for others, justice and freedom.
Deontological ethics is often contrasted with consequentialist or teleological ethical theories, which says that the rightness of an action is determined by its consequences. Teleological ethics is usually understood as distinct from deontology, in that deontology derives the rightness or wrongness of an act from the character of the act itself rather than the outcomes of the action, and from virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent rather than on the nature or consequences of the action itself. The difference between these three approaches to morality tends to lie more in the way moral dilemmas are approached than in the moral conclusions reached. Teleological ethics is not really focused on in either of the books. For Gill, the apparent ends do not justify the means. Gill does an awesome job of relating who we ought to be and, as a result, how we ought to act.
The Beatitudes
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven.
You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
“God is holy – wholly other than what we ordinarily expect” (p. 126) Poor in spirit is the opposite of what the world seeks. God’s Kingdom is an upside-down Kingdom. The world emphasizes being first, God values being last. Jesus says the greatest in the Kingdom is a servant of all. Being poor in spirit means not to have confidence in your abilities. The humanistic wisdom of the world says, “Blessed are the self-reliant and the self-confident. Everyone knows that's how you get ahead!” The world’s viewpoint is , "Stand on your own two feet," "Make something of yourself," "Plan your work, and work your plan," "Be self-assertive,” “You are your own boss. Do your thing!”
And here lies the problem, so please listen carefully. So many of us try to baptize the values and philosophies of the world and make them work within the framework of Christianity, and it doesn't take long for us to realize that those values and philosophies just don't work! Our minds need to be retrained and reoriented to a new way of thinking and living! "This poverty of spirit is a prerequisite to acquiring the other beatitudes. Spiritual beggars who have abandoned pride and self-sufficiency and who rely totally on God for support are in a position to inculcate the mournful, meek, hungry, merciful, pure, and peaceful disposition suggested by the other beatitudes"
Poor in spirit does not mean you have to be financially poor to enter the kingdom. It does not mean having a poverty mentality. Does it mean that God is calling us to give away all of our possessions and take vows of poverty? No! Jesus isn't talking at all about poverty in the material sense, though some have read that into this beatitude. “In the larger biblical picture, poverty is certainly not a self-sufficient end, not an intrinsically good goal of life.” (p. 126) Jesus isn't talking about poverty in that sense. That is why Jesus said it is hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. The wealthy do not see their need.
Poor in spirit does not mean that you do nothing. It is not being passive for fear that you would be moving in the flesh. It is not being fatalistic because it has to be all God and nothing of human effort. You still have to get out of bed and go to work, but you trust Him for your daily bread. We have examples throughout the gospels of how God supernaturally comes through while people are doing ordinary things. Following Jesus’ direction, Peter finds money to pay taxes by catching a fish with a coin in its mouth. On another occasion, Jesus tells the disciples where to find a great catch of fish after they had worked all night and caught nothing.
Being poor in spirit is an attitude of humility and total dependency on God. When Jesus talks about being poor in spirit, He means a spiritual poverty--a recognition that we're lost, destitute, needy, and utterly dependent upon God. Poverty of spirit is an attitude that we must take toward ourselves. It's coming to grips with the fact that we can do nothing to commend ourselves to God. It's realizing that we don't always have it all together and can’t make it on our own. It's recognizing that we aren't adequate for every challenge in life. It's admitting that our good works cannot buy our entrance into heaven. To be poor in spirit is to resonate with Jesus’ words, "Apart from me, you can do nothing," (John 15:5).
It is depending on God like a poor person needs others to survive. The person who realizes that he or she cannot save themselves, that they are without an ability to glorify themselves. It is by grace you are saved through faith. You cannot enter the Kingdom without being born again. God then promises that you will be blessed and deeply happy if you live a life of total dependence on Him. We need mental training to learn this attitude of being poor in spirit: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind," (Romans 12:2).
Gill illustrates three practices that express true poverty of the spirit: fasting, praying and giving. Each of these can draw us closer to God while at the same time separating us from a dependence on material possessions. Gill concludes, “Undoubtedly, we need to cultivate poverty of spirit as individuals alone before God. How much better, nonetheless, to live out such discipleship in a community of the poor in spirit.”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness…”
In desert communities such as the one Jesus was addressing, hunger means starvation and thirst means a desperate need for water in order to survive. So when Jesus blesses those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, he is not merely talking about those who think that seeking out righteousness is neat idea. The average working man in Palestine would eat meat once a week. Many lived close to the border between hunger and starvation.
Water was an even more precious commodity (as it is in many parts of Africa today). When the Bible talks about hungering and thirsting, it is in the context of those who will starve if they don’t eat, and die if they don’t drink. Jesus is saying: “blessed are those who long for righteousness as a starving person longs for food and as a person perishing from thirst desires water to soothe their cracked and parched mouth and throat”. These metaphors of hunger and thirst which Jesus and the prophets and the psalmists use, describe the desperate longing of the soul for God and for God’s righteousness, as a matter of spiritual life and death.
Here in this 4th Beatitude, Jesus is blessing, those who desire righteousness as a profoundly urgent priority in their lives, as something of vital importance, and He reiterates this priority in Matthew 6:33: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” before anything else. Surely that is basically the same as saying, “Hunger and thirst for righteousness” as a first principle in life.
The word ‘Righteousness’ is used to describe the nature of God. Included in this term are the qualities or virtues of justice; truth; mercy and love. There are many things the Bible reveals to us about God and God’s relationship with us, but justice, truth, mercy and love are the traits it most often identifies and these are summed up in the word ‘righteousness’. Our text points out that “the Greek philosophers and New Testament writers used one word (dikaisyne) to refer to both” the arenas of personal virtue and social/political. (p. 150). However the Hebrew usage tends to be relational – i.e. righteousness is worked out in relationships. The idea of righteousness as solely an inward virtue is not Biblical but comes from Greek philosophy.Gill argues that we need to move back to that more filling conception associated with individual morality and justice to right social order.
“God’s justice is knowable through his words and acts in human history.” (p. 152). “The content of the justice and righteousness for which we hunger can thus, never be detached from the living God and a quest to know and understand God’s will and decision about what is right and just or wrong and unjust.” (p. 153). So those Jesus blesses in this beatitude, are the ones who hunger and thirst after, who first and foremost deeply desire to identify themselves with the nature of God, with justice truth mercy and love. When we identify ourselves with something, we align ourselves with it, we honor it, we draw strength from it, we make it part of our own experience and we commit ourselves to adopting it and making it our own. This is the challenge in the 4th Blessing: Blessed are you who strive to identify yourselves with the righteous nature of God in all you think and say and do.
“thou shalt not covet…”
To covet is to have the strong desire for the possession of others' specific personal properties or relationships; going beyond simply admiring someone else's possessions or thinking "I'd like to have one of those." It's not wrong for a man to desire a house, wife, car, pet, or job etc... “Such ambition can be a powerful force for good. Ambition to prosper through hard work and wise investments is not improper, if we take seriously Proverbs, Jesus’ parables and apostolic teaching.” (p. 307).But it's wrong to desire your neighbor’s house, wife etc... this level of desire plants the seeds of willingness to: hurt, steal, kill. Coveting is desire run rampant without control. It will injure, hurt, and even destroy to get what it wants! “But even if one does not directly act on it, a covetous attitude poisons relationships and the unseen atmosphere in which we and our neighbors live. (p. 311)
Coveting is at the root of the carnal mind - inner principal of sin. God helps us find balance. Paul points the importance of transitioning from the carnal nature in Ephesians 2:2-3 "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." As believers, our mind has been transformed by the Spirit. As children of God, we must continue to “die daily” even in this area of our lives.
Coveting stems from the thought and attitude that, “ what I have is not enough, I must have more.” These days, the word “covet” is not common place, but is still used as a normal synonym for ‘desire’. The word seems to have lost much of its original impact that it had when the Ten Commandments were written. Coveting is often thought to focus on wealth and riches, but it encompasses much more than that. People can covet appearance, talents and personality traits aw well. When a person covets, they are displaying signs of ungodliness and selfishness. In 2 Samuel we read the story of David, who covets another man’s wife. His coveting led to adultery and eventually murder to cover up his actions.
When we place a desire of things, power, or people above those things of God, we are neglecting our divine purpose in this life. Not only are we breaking the one commandment, but in placing anything higher in status than our relationship with God, we are breaking the commandment “Thou shalt not have any other gods before me.” Covetousness is rooted in our failure to accept ourselves as God created us and our wish for us to be in the place of God. (p. 308).
To grow in Christ, we need to seek the Spirit and begin with prayer. We need to ask God to take away any feelings of envy and to replace them with an awareness and appreciation for our blessings. We also need to pray for God to give us strength to say ‘no’ to our covetous thoughts. “Overcoming covetousness means developing self-control and learning to say no to temptation and to our appetites. The best antidote to wrongly directed love and desire, however, is rightly directed love and desire, starting with our love and desire for God.” (p. 317).
“Thou shalt not bear false witness…”
Our world is full of falsehoods! “Speaking the truth in love is countercultural.” (p. 290). Some feel lying is an art form to be developed: many businesses lie to get sales, some politicians lie to get votes, some preachers lie to get offerings. Examples of lying, or bearing false witness, are everywhere in our modern society: turning back the odometer on the used automobile in order to ask a better price; misrepresenting the age of a child in order to buy a less expensive ticket; cheating on tests; charging for work that was not done. We have developed into a culture where moral relativism is rampant. Even our courts (which should be champions of truth and honesty) are prey to sharp tongued lawyers that manipulate the truth. “The ninth commandment is not just about randomly spouting false information. It is about harming our neighbor through our falsehoods. The big problem here is the offense against our neighbor, not just the offense against the facts.” (p.282).
Peace, happiness, security, trust, and tranquility are in jeopardy when this commandment is ignored. The danger may be as obvious as the punishment of an individual for crimes he did not commit. It may be as subtle as the teaching of our children, by negative example, that shading the truth just a bit is acceptable so long as there is no chance of getting caught.”The direct victim is not the only person harmed by false witness. (p. 288). Bearing false witness erodes the souls of individuals and snips away at the cords of common trust that must bind any society together if it is to survive.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness” plainly is more than a prohibition against inventing falsehoods. The language of the commandment requires that an honest and straightforward answer be given whenever we are asked to share our knowledge of the truth, as in a court of law when being questioned under oath. Lying under oath is called perjury. Our words are to agree with the facts.
The ninth commandment’s broad injunction forbids this and all other forms of giving false evidence or manipulating information. The ninth commandment is a strong declaration against covenant breaking, oath breaking, and all forms of untruth, including exaggeration, gross understatement, fabrication, or the willful giving of any explanation not supported by the facts. Even sharing the truth can have the effect of lying when we tell only half-truths that do not give a full picture. We can also be guilty of bearing false witness and lying if we say nothing, particularly if we allow another to reach a wrong conclusion while we hold back information that would have led to a more accurate perception. In this case it is as though an actual lie were uttered.
As Christians, it is of the utmost importance for us to be known as truth-tellers. I f we are not known for telling the truth, then how can we expect people to believe us when we try to tell them the gospel message. One of our first priorities is the edification of our interpersonal relationships in our homes, churches, business and schools. “We need a balance of quiet and sound, of thinking and conversation, of listening and speaking, of time alone and time with others.”
