Conscience E-Book

Andrew David Naselli

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 211

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

There is an increasing number of divisive issues in our world today, all of which require great discernment. Thankfully, God has given each of us a conscience to align our wills with his and help us make wise decisions. Examining all thirty New Testament passages that touch on the conscience, Andrew Naselli and J. D. Crowley help readers get to know their consciences—a largely neglected topic—and engage with other Christians who hold different convictions. Offering guiding principles and answering critical questions about how the conscience works and how to care for it, this book shows how the conscience impacts our approach to church unity, ministry, and more.

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“I expected this book to be good but found it to be great. Conscience is a much-needed treatment of a vital yet neglected subject. Naselli and Crowley’s overview of the New Testament doctrine of conscience is superb. I was ready to say that that chapter was worth the price of the book, but in fact, I found every chapter to be worth the price of the book! Its treatment of how Christian consciences overlap yet differ and of why we need to calibrate our consciences was remarkable. This book is for everyone with an interest in cross-cultural ministry, as well as for those seeking to become all things to all people that they may win some. It’s also extremely helpful for those living in churches, marriages, and friendships where different convictions aren’t always as black-and-white as we imagine. Conscience would be great to study in a small group.”

Randy Alcorn, Founder and Director, Eternal Perspective Ministries; author, Heaven and Happiness

“How should Christians navigate the complex world of disagreements with other Christians? Can we differentiate the scriptural nonnegotiables, the things we just personally feel strongly about, and those to which we give scarcely a second thought? How can the church best model unity in both love and truth in these matters? Naselli and Crowley bring both cross-cultural experience and scriptural acumen to deftly deal with these issues in straightforward language that almost anyone can grasp. Warmly recommended.”

Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary

“In our culture awash with instructions to follow our own hearts, we desperately need this book. On a personal note, next to the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, the Bible’s teaching on the conscience has become to me a deeply encouraging motivation in my evangelism. In the last chapter in particular, Naselli and Crowley have given a great gift to cross-cultural workers everywhere!”

Gloria Furman, pastor’s wife, Redeemer Church of Dubai; author, The Pastor’s Wife and Missional Motherhood

“It is rare to find a book that is both punchy and practical. It was a delight to read, and now it is a delight to recommend. I believe that the scriptural concept of the conscience has become so fuzzy or forgotten that all readers will find this little book illuminating for issues that touch upon all of life. All will find it life-giving. Some will find it life-changing.”

Jason C. Meyer, Pastor for Preaching and Vision, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota

“I have never read a better book on the conscience. Naselli and Crowley base their view of conscience on a careful reading of the Scriptures. At the same time, the book is full of practical wisdom. The biblical teaching on conscience is applied to numerous situations so that readers see how the Scriptures apply to everyday life. The reflections on how conscience should operate in missionary situations is alone worth the price of the book, but the entire book is a gem.”

Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation and Associate Dean of the School of Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“There is, for too many of us, a casual, maybe even self-righteous, contentment with the current status of our consciences rather than an active cultivating of them so as to bring them more in line with God’s view of things. This book pushes us to that second, better choice. It is a thoughtful and provocative treatment of this hugely important and all too often insufficiently considered subject. I believe you will find it very helpful.”

Mike Bullmore, Senior Pastor, CrossWay Community Church, Bristol, Wisconsin

“Naselli and Crowley have produced a book of deep and broad practical relevance for living the Christian life. We are often far too little aware of the role of our consciences in our day-to-day lives, while the truth is, God has given us those faculties as part of the divinely designed means to keep us on the path of righteousness. I found their discussion of the recalibration of the conscience, and of how to deal with fellow Christians who have different senses of right and wrong, to be filled with biblical wisdom and enormous insight. Here is a book that promises great reward for those who will follow not only its clear discussion but also its biblical admonition.”

Bruce A. Ware, T. Rupert and Lucille Coleman Professor of Christian Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Naselli and Crowley have provided us with a practical, biblical work that cleans out the clutter in the closets of our consciences. There is gospel-centered perspective here that can bring about greater healing in our relationships, holiness in our lives, unity in our churches, and joy in our mission.”

Tim Keesee, Founder and Executive Director, Frontline Missions International; author, Dispatches from the Front

“In his kindness God has created each of us with a conscience to bear witness to his supreme authority. The problem for many of us is that our consciences have been subject to cultural, religious, and sinful influences that warp and distort our ability to make life choices. Naselli and Crowley have provided God’s people with a tremendous tool for understanding the Scriptures as they define the conscience, describe its role, and teach us to cleanse and calibrate it according to God’s authority alone. The church is indebted to these two authors for their careful scholarship and practical discussion of this most important topic.”

Dan Brooks, Pastor, Heritage Bible Church, Greer, South Carolina

“If you don’t know the state of your conscience, or if you have never done a serious study of the Bible’s teaching on the conscience, Christian freedom, and Christian unity, then I cannot commend enough Andy Naselli and J. D. Crowley’s book, Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ. I think it might be the most important book written in the last twenty years.”

Thabiti Anyabwile, pastor, Anacostia River Church, Washington, DC;author, What Is a Healthy Church Member?

Conscience

What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ

Andrew David Naselli and J. D. Crowley

Foreword by D. A. Carson

Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ

Copyright © 2016 by Andrew David Naselli and James Dale Crowley

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jeff Miller, Faceout Studio

Cover image: Jeff Miller, Faceout Studio

First printing 2016

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NET are from The NET Bible® copyright © 2003 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. www.netbible.com. All rights reserved. Quoted by permission.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5074-4 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5077-5 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5075-1 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5076-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Naselli, Andrew David, 1980– | Crowley, J. D. (James Dale), 1967–

Title: Conscience : what it is, how to train it, and loving those who differ / Andrew David Naselli and J. D. Crowley ; foreword by D. A. Carson.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2015] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015013812 (print) | LCCN 2015013003 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433550751 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433550768 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433550775 (epub) | ISBN 9781433550744 (tp)

Subjects: LCSH: Conscience—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Christian ethics.

Classification: LCC BJ1278.C66 (print) | LCC BJ1278.C66 N37 2015 (ebook) | DDC 241/.1—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015013812

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-03-04 09:02:36 AM

To Kara Marie Naselli,

Gloria Grace Naselli,

and Emma Elyse Naselli,

and

to Charis Kaimilani Johansen,

Ethan James Dale Crowley,

Anna Kawainohia Pruden,

Jenna Malia Crowley,

Taylor Elliot Alden Crowley,

and Nathaniel Judson Martin Crowley,

May God grace you to maintain a good conscience and to calibrate it wisely so that you can love other Christians when you differ by flexing for the sake of the gospel.

Contents

Illustrations

Foreword

Preface

 1  What Is Conscience?

 2  How Do We Define Conscience from the New Testament?

 3  What Should You Do When Your Conscience Condemns You?

 4  How Should You Calibrate Your Conscience?

 5  How Should You Relate to Fellow Christians When Your Consciences Disagree?

 6  How Should You Relate to People in Other Cultures When Your Consciences Disagree?

 7  A Closing Prayer

Appendix A: Similarities between Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8–10

Appendix B: Conscience Exercises for Cross-Cultural Effectiveness

Acknowledgments

General Index

Scripture Index

Illustrations

Figures

 1  Shoulder Angel vs. Shoulder Demon

 2  Two Consciences

 3  Human Conscience and God’s Standards

 4  Consciousness of Truth Often Grows Faster Than Obedience to Truth

 5  The Spectrum of Conscience

 6  Two Consciences

 7  Human Conscience and God’s Standards

 8  Missionary Conscience and Local Conscience

 9  The Overlap of God’s Standards and Paul’s Conscience

10  Two Sources of Conscience Standards

11  Where Do God’s Moral Judgments End and Mine Begin?

12  God’s Will, the Missionary Conscience, and the Local Conscience

13  God’s Will, the Missionary Conscience, and the Local Conscience Illustrated

14  God’s Will, the Missionary Conscience, and the Local Conscience

Tables

 1  The Multiple Functions of the Conscience

 2  Three Disputable Matters in Romans 14

 3  The Strong and the Weak

 4  Potential Conflict between the Strong and the Weak

 5  Seeds of Heresy among the Strong and the Weak

 6  Paul’s Solution of Love

 7  Christian Liberty according to 1 Corinthians 9:19

 8  Similarities between Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8–10

Foreword

As Charles Taylor reminds us in his impressive book A Secular Age, we live in the “age of authenticity,” in which individuals feel they have the right to pursue and do whatever they want: that is what makes them “authentic.” Inevitably, that stance makes one suspicious of all voices of authority that seem to tug in any direction different from what makes our lives “authentic.” The source or nature of that authority does not matter: government, parents, tradition, religion, morality. Nothing trumps my right to be “authentic,” which from a Christian perspective is nothing other than the siren call of the supreme idol: Self. Combine this with a strong emphasis on individualism and the stage is set for the overthrow of a great deal of what was received from the past. Ironically, the voices that call for this destruction of the past and this construction of a new reality are highly selective in their treatment of authority. If they seem set to trim my authentic living, they are antiquarian, obscurantist, old-fashioned, and doubtless bigoted; if they are busy establishing the new consensus, using all the authoritative powers of the media and the cultural imagination to approve certain stances and not others, then they are prophetic, wise, liberating, and in line with history.

Small wonder, then, that this is an age that gives little thought to the nature and functions of conscience. Conscience is easily trampled if it gets in the way of authentic living. More dangerously, conscience is malleable and is easily reshaped to conform, in substantial measure, to the dictates of our age. We crush conscience in order to toss off what now appear to be the shackles of a bygone age, and then we immediately resurrect conscience in new configurations that establish new shackles, new expectations, new legalisms, new failures, new pools of guilt. For example, by determined suppression a new generation silences the voice of conscience in many sexual matters, and teases it alive when it comes to the importance of finding out where your coffee beans were grown and what we should do to protect the most recently highlighted victim.

Christians, of course, are not exempt from these pressures. But one of the things we must do to think clearly about such matters is regain biblical perspectives on the nature, nurture, and proper functions of conscience. This short book by Andy Naselli and J. D. Crowley is designed to meet this need at a popular level. It is a pleasure and a privilege to recommend it. A proper focus on conscience, especially conscience that is shaped and strengthened by Scripture, will incite us toward holiness, teach us what to do with guilt, drive us toward the gospel, draw from us something of the joy of the Lord, help the church to be a countercultural community, and even prepare us for cross-cultural missionary work. Read this book yourself, and give a copy to your friends.

D. A. Carson

Preface

Buy One, Get Ten Free

Some subjects in Christianity are so fertile, so abundantly promising and useful on so many different levels, that studying them reaps a harvest far beyond expectations. It’s like buy one, get ten free. Conscience is one of those subjects. It touches on salvation, progressive sanctification, church unity, evangelism, missions, and apologetics. Yet hardly is a topic more neglected in the Christian church:

When was the last time you heard a sermon about conscience?Have you ever mentioned your clean conscience in your testimony, as Paul did?Did those who discipled you talk much about keeping a clean conscience?How many ministry books emphasize the unbreakable link, as Paul did, between getting your conscience under the lordship of Christ and achieving success in church ministry and missions?Did you know that a proper understanding of conscience is a key to church unity?

We’ve written this book to help you get to know your conscience better, to put conscience back on your daily radar. Many Christians have neglected their conscience, quite possibly you as well. And as the two of us found, this neglect is serious, a failure to give a priceless gift from God the care it deserves. For most of our lives, we didn’t spend much time thinking about our conscience. Then certain events forced us to take a closer look.

For me (J. D.), conscience started catching my attention when I came back from Cambodia on home assignment and found that I couldn’t make myself step over someone else’s outstretched legs. I was at a family get-together and had just gotten up from the couch to grab a refill of chips and salsa when I found my way blocked by someone’s legs propped up on the coffee table. I stopped and waited for him to do the decent thing: pull his feet off the table so I could get by. But he just sat there like an uncultured boor. Then I remembered I was in America, a country famous the world over for the Statue of Liberty, baseball, and stepping over other people’s legs with impunity. So I forced myself to do That Which Must Not Be Done. In Southeast Asia, one could hardly do something more offensive.

I began to wonder about my involuntary inability simply to cross over someone’s legs. It felt like a pang of conscience, yet I knew that the matter had nothing to do with moral right and wrong, just proper etiquette. How had that new rule wormed its way into my conscience without my knowing it? Should it have been in my conscience at all? What is conscience? Where did it come from? How does it work? Does it always judge correctly? Can it change? How does it change? Why did mine change? How do I take care of my conscience? How is my American conscience different from the conscience of my friends in Cambodia? And so began my quest for a deeper understanding and appreciation of this gift from God.

For me (Andy), I started thinking more deeply about how the conscience works when my wife, Jenni, and I moved from our fundamentalist context in Greenville, South Carolina (we both graduated from Bob Jones University), to a conservative evangelical context in Chicago (I attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School). We knew godly brothers and sisters at both institutions, but two actions repeatedly grieved us: (1) people in both places often lobbed verbal grenades at one another as if they were opponents, and (2) they painted each other with a broad brush that lacked sufficient nuance. The reasons for such behaviors are many and complex.1 But I began to realize that a key cause of the divide between these two groups of Christians has to do with the conscience.

A Modest Agenda

If you’re hoping that this book will directly address a particular conscience scruple with which you’ve been wrestling, you’ll probably be disappointed. Our purpose is not to referee controversies. Neither will you find in this slender volume an exhaustive theology of conscience (though we attempt to leave no conscience verse unturned).

Our modest but potentially life-changing goal is to put conscience back on your daily radar, to show from Scripture what God intended and did not intend conscience to do, and to explain how your conscience works, how to care for it, and how not to damage it. We’ll show you how awareness of conscience increases church unity and strengthens evangelism and missions. We’ll talk about how to get along with others whose consciences enable them to hold different personal standards. And we’ll give you principles for how to calibrate your conscience to better conform to God’s will. We’ll even include a chapter on how missionaries and other cross-cultural servants can avoid pitfalls that arise from misunderstandings over differing consciences across cultures.

We believe you’ll benefit greatly from studying the conscience if

you want to know how conscience relates to your spiritual maturity;you want to know how to get along with people who have different personal standards than you;you’re a pastor who suspects that a significant number of your church’s problems stem from disagreements about disputable issues of conscience;you’re a missionary who needs help negotiating the minefield of differences between missionary and local consciences and who wants to avoid importing merely cultural Christianity;you want to help people in your church understand why they have culture clashes with those of different opinions and habits;you want to learn how to adjust your conscience to match God’s standards without sinning against your conscience; oryou feel the weight of a guilty conscience and want to experience the freedom and sheer happiness of a clear, cleansed conscience.

There’s a misperception that conscience-related controversies occur only in strict churches. But really all of us are incurably judgmental. As creatures made in the image of a moral God, we are incapable of not making moral judgments, whatever our situation. A church that thinks it has gotten beyond last generation’s debates over music and wine will find that this generation’s debates over recycling and child discipline are just as divisive. A believer who has prided himself on being generous on disputable matters will suddenly find himself judging a fellow believer who doesn’t buy fair-trade coffee. Conscience issues will remain an important part of your personal life, your church life, and your ministry life for the rest of your life. Take a moment to think about these questions:

What exactly is the conscience?What should you do when your conscience condemns you?How should you calibrate or adjust your conscience?How should you relate to fellow Christians when your consciences disagree?How should you relate to people in other cultures when your consciences disagree?

If you can’t answer these questions, then you might be

living under a perpetual weight of guilt;sinning against God by ignoring or disregarding your conscience;missing out on the joy that attention to conscience can provide;hesitating to adjust your conscience because you don’t know how to do it safely;harming fellow Christians who hold different convictions than you;contributing to sinful divisiveness within Christ’s church; orproceeding unwisely in the way you’re spreading the gospel to non-Christians in other cultures.

This book addresses these issues in three steps:

1. Chapters 1–2 describe what conscience is.

2. Chapters 3–4 talk about how you should deal with your own conscience.

3. Chapters 5–6 explain how you should relate to other people when your consciences disagree.

We wrote this book because we feel so deeply that people today need clear and accurate answers to these questions. Not only do people need them; they want them. We’ve had many opportunities to preach, teach, and counsel about the conscience in many different venues to many different kinds of Christians, and in our experience, people love to learn about the conscience because it helps them practically.

We pray that God will use this book to educate you in how to handle your conscience for his eternal glory and your eternal good.

Christian, meet Conscience.

1 See Andrew David Naselli and Collin Hansen, eds., Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, Counterpoints: Bible and Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011).

1

What Is Conscience?

Most people probably think of the conscience as the “shoulder angel.” Comic strips and films often depict an angel dressed in white on a person’s right shoulder and a demon dressed in red and holding a pitchfork on the person’s left shoulder (see figure1). The angel represents the person’s conscience, and the demon represents temptation. The angel attempts to persuade the person to do right, and the demon tempts the person to do wrong.

Figure 1. Shoulder angel vs. shoulder demon

This picture resonates with people because we commonly experience internal conflicts that seem like voices in our heads arguing about what to do in a particular situation. What is right? What is wrong? Thankfully, we’re not left to popular perception in regard to conscience. We have the Bible to teach us what conscience is and is not. In chapter 2 we’ll attempt to define conscience from the Bible. But first we want to lay out some introductory principles about conscience, principles that we’ll unpack throughout the rest of the book. Most of them are pretty obvious, but it’s possible that you haven’t thought much about them.

Conscience Is a Human Capacity

To be human is to have a conscience. Animals don’t have a conscience, even if they often seem to. I (J. D.) have a dog, Lucy, whose tail is almost permanently fixed between her legs, her eyes always averted, always guilty. We think she was mistreated as a puppy. But in spite of all appearances, Lucy doesn’t have a conscience—not even the trace of one. She doesn’t have a conscience because she doesn’t have the capacity for moral judgment. Our cat doesn’t have a conscience either, but you already knew that.

Notice we said conscience is a capacity. Like other human capacities such as speech and reason, it’s possible for a person never to actualize or achieve the capacity of conscience. A child dies in infancy, having never spoken a single word or felt a single pang of conscience. Another child is born without the mental capacity to make moral judgments. Others, through stroke, accident, or dementia, lose the moral judgment they once had and the conscience that went with it. Still, to be human is to have the capacity for conscience, whether or not one is able to exercise that capacity.

Conscience Reflects the Moral Aspect of God’s Image

It shouldn’t surprise you that you have a conscience. You’re made in the image of God, and God is a moral God, so you must be a moral creature who makes moral judgments. And what is conscience if not shining the spotlight of your moral judgment back on yourself, your thoughts, and your actions. A moral being would expect to make moral self-judgments.

So conscience is inherent in personhood. It is not the result of sin. It is not something that Christians will lose after God glorifies them. This means that Jesus, who is fully human, has a conscience. Unlike our consciences, though, Jesus’s conscience perfectly matches God’s will, and he has never sinned against it.

Conscience Feels Independent

But what ought to surprise you is that you would even care about the verdict of your conscience. Yet you do care, intensely. Many have taken their lives because of a secret guilt—a sin that no one else knew except that impossible-to-suppress voice within. Others have gone mad from the telltale heartbeat of a guilty conscience.