Foundations of an Ethical House

A fact is something that actually exists. It is reality. It is truth.[1] Why is fact important? Every Spring we celebrate the two most significant events in history: the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul valued them as “first importance” (1 Cor 15:3). What was Jesus’ attitude toward truth? On Good Friday, we commemorate that when Jesus stood on trial before Pilate, he stated the significance of truth. He said, “…for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (Jn 18:37). Therefore, the weight of truth was of such value that he stepped into humanity’s courtroom to reveal ultimate reality.

We measured the importance of fact as valuable, but let us now discuss “human values, of how we ought to live, and of what constitutes right conduct” [2] “How shall we then live?” is the question that each person must ask. On what basis in truth can we ground our lives upon?

The basis of truth for the ancient Greek Sophists of the fifth century BC was themselves. Of them, Protagoras held that “man is the measure of all things” [3] His moral relativism asserted that whatever is thought right in a particular society is right for that society. Every society needs a set of moral conventions in order to function as a community. In 1967, one of Protagoras’ disciples, Thomas Harris, wrote the book, I'm OK You're OK, which influenced the Boomer generation to have a more tolerant view of a widening global community. Young Ryan Dobson, Dr. James Dobson’s adopted son, counters this thinking with the book whose title says it all, Be Intolerant: Because Some Things Are Just Stupid (2003).

Over history, the secular philosophers pondered the meaning of the value of “good.” Some argued ethical conduct is expressed by what a person is. One person whose name kept popping up in my management courses was Abraham Maslow. His hierarchy of needs pyramid shows self-actualization as our highest goal. He would have clashed with Max Lucado, who wrote, It’s Not About Me (2004).

In another vein, secular ethics can be found in an attempt to please the greatest number of people. This is called teleological ethics. Our U.S. political system appears to function this way as demonstrated by this election year process. However, this ethic can be manipulated and find its basis in lies, which is also demonstrated by this election year process. And what of the ethics of the Cynics and Stoics, whose disciples appear to be Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and G. E. Moore? We have been experimenting with these secular ethics for thousands of years and have discovered that they are not coherent, complete, or consistent.

As a former quality assurance manager for a large government program, my concern was to answer the question of the value for our products and services. The definition was sometimes obscured by unrealistic expectations, but the definition always returned to what the contract and the quality assurance manual stated.

As Christians, our definition of truth and value also come down to basically the same thing. In place of the contract, we have a covenant, and in place of the quality assurance manual, we have the Bible. What kind of foundation do we offer the world? Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matt 7:24). How,then, are you building your ethical house?
--Al

1 "fact." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 19 Mar. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fact>.
2 Richard Norman. The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction to Ethics. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1.
3 Ibid, 7.

Why is it important to target evangelism?

Most of us have heard the axiom, “he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.” It has been used extensively to describe my batting skills in baseball when the umpire screamed, “Strike three! You’re out!” It is quite embarrassing because the broadside of a barn is, well, such a large target.

Since I am such a geek, let me use another illustration. In 1961 (I was 7), President John F. Kennedy spoke before a joint session of Congress and laid down an extraordinary challenge. He said, "... I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." As I followed the development of Apollo manned space program, I was amazed that the team of project managers, scientists, and engineers calculated the location of the earth in relation to the moon, the required trajectory, and all the required fuel and systems so closely that the Lunar Module, nicknamed “Eagle,” almost ran out of fuel when it touched down in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969. [1 ] What made that event extra special for me was that I watched it on TV with my WW1 veteran grandfather, Herbert Goff, who saw the event not only as a milestone for human ingenuity, but as another way for God to show his grace on America. When the astronauts safely returned to earth several days later, they could say that they hit their target.

Whether, then, it is used in sending men to the moon, in sports, in a war, in business, or in Christian evangelism, hitting the target is a critical measurement of success or failure.

In his book, The Purpose-Driven Church, Rick Warren says that our churches should know who we are trying to reach for Christ.[2] We should know our target. Who is our target? According to Christ’s Great Commission challenge, it is “all nations” (Matthew 28:19, NIV[3]). That’s a pretty big broadside of a barn for my church of about 400 adult members. How can we accomplish this mission? Like the Apollo’s Saturn V launch vehicle, we need to break this down into stages.

Christ helps us by further stating, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). In this we have a place to start and the stages of progression. Jerusalem is the city where the disciples began. This was their initial geographic target. In Jerusalem, there were many kinds of people visiting at Pentecost. On that day that the Holy Spirit came on him, Peter segmented the crowd into a particular demographic target by saying, “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say” (Acts 2:14).

Bowie is the city where my church can begin by breaking down its many sections[4] and its streets to geographic targets. I want to know what streets are closest both to my house and to the church. Those are the people I want to attract first. We can further narrow down the target by demographic type (age, race, married with children, income, etc.) so we know who and how to address their particular needs with methods that will best reach them with the gospel.

Paul used a sports illustration about the importance of targeting when he said, “Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air” (1 Cor 9:26). An aimless man doesn’t know what direction to run, and a fighter whose punch only beats the air will soon wear himself down and be knocked out. This is not the way of the church. We are in this game to win—win the lost to Christ. And, we can do it if we train to focus on the target.

--AL

1 NASA, Apollo 30th Anniversary, (Online) http://history.nasa.gov/ap11ann/introduction.htm, Last updated Sept. 20, 2002.
2 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 156.
3 Unless otherwise specified, all Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (NIV) of the Holy Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984).
4 Most of the City of Bowie is divided into sections with street names beginning with particular letters of the alphabet.