Many times in our lives I feel that find ourselves forced to
make difficult decisions. Sometimes
these decisions are easier to decide than others.
I read this question posed in an article about ethics that I
was reading and it really made me think, I now pose this question to you.
Suppose you are living in Holland during World War II and
Germany has invaded your country. When
this happens a Jewish family comes to you and asks for your help, so you allow
them to hide in your house. The Nazis
come looking for them and ask if you are harboring any fugitives. You now have two ethical principles in
conflict. Shall you protect the Jewish
family or tell the truth?
Do you do what is good or what is right?
Before we go on I think I should clarify what I mean when I
say “good” and “right”.
Good refers to the ethical decision made dealing with
benefits. What is good for the decision
maker of for the good of someone else.
These decisions are made looking ahead and asking what the hoped for are
anticipated benefits are of the decision.
The right is also known as the rules-based approach. Doing what one’s duty is based on the moral
code.
Now sometimes we may find ourselves faced with a problem that brings this very principal to
light.
What do we do, what is right or what is good?
To be honest, I can not simply answer that question. I do not think it is a concrete solid answer
every single time.
Because I am curious as to what the Bible has to say about
this, naturally I open straight to Romans 13.
I am sure we all know exactly what I am referring too.
If you want a refresher on Romans 13, here is a summary of
it from the one and only, shmoop.com…
- Paul's spree of advice
continues.
- Everyone should obey people in
positions of authority. After all, all authority comes from God, so all
the authority figures running around out there must have been hand-picked
by God. Makes sense… sort of.
- That means if you go against
someone in a position of authority, then you're really going against God.
Remember that next time you throw paper airplanes at your Spanish teacher.
- Basically, Paul says, if you
just keep walking the straight and narrow and don't step out of line you
should be fine. If you do, don't forget, those authority figures have
swords and they're not afraid to wield them.
- (Ironic historical footnote:
about 10 years after writing this, Paul was executed by the Roman
authorities. Wonder if that might make him revise his thoughts in this
section just a little?)
- Same thing goes for paying
taxes. Sorry, Tea Party and Henry David Thoreau—you've got to pay them. If
you owe money to the government, fork it over. And if you owe respect and
honor to people in positions of power, then start practicing your
groveling now. Yup.
- Don't walk around owing anyone
anything. Period. Oh, except love. You should owe everyone love all the
time. And pay it as often as possible. That's the essence of all of Jewish
law anyway—love.
- Paul thinks the Ten
Commandments can pretty much be boiled down to "Love your neighbor as
yourself." It's really pretty simple, guys.
- Besides, Paul tells the Romans,
they know what time it is.
- No…
- The hour is at hand. Salvation
is coming soon to a theater near you. Any minute now, Jesus is gonna come
down from Heaven again and make some non-believers feel pretty darn
foolish. Yup. He's talking about the second coming, folks.
- So let's all just be good
little boys and girls so we can always be prepared for this. Basically
just keep focused on Christ and do what's good all the time. Easy, right?
It is definitely not the easiest chapter to follow. In the chapter though, Paul says that it is
an obligation to love others. Who should
we love? Well, Christians naturally but
who else does Paul say that we should love?
The neighbor and the enemy.
Everybody!
But, what happens when our moral obligation to follow the
rules and our call to love others conflict in our decision making?
While things may not always turn out the way you want and
feel that you do not have any control over the matter at hand, sometimes you
just get stuck in the dilemma.
One piece of advice that I was told when thinking over these
types of problems…
Follow your heart.
Trust
in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
-Proverbs 3:5
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