GOODNESS: The Moral Order

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GOODNESS The Moral Order
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Part 6 The Secondary Mandate Teach that Which
Transforms

• Session 6.24 Secondary Task 2Teaching that
  Which Transforms Internal Self Government
• Session 6.25 Secondary Task 2Teaching that
  Which Transforms All That I Have Commanded
  Creation Ordinances
• Session 6.26 TRUTH The Metaphysical Order (a)
• Session 6.27 TRUTH The Metaphysical Order (b) -
  The Principles of Freedom
• Session 6.28 GOODNESS The Moral Order
• Session 6.29 BEAUTY The Aesthetic Order

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The Text

• Then Jesus came to them and said, All
  authority in heaven and on earth has been given
  to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all
  nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
  and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and
  teaching them to obey everything I have commanded
  you. And surely I am with you always, to the very
  end of the age.

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Overview of this Secondary Task

• Teaching that which transforms
• Obedience Internal Self-Government, the key to
  transformation
• All that I have commanded Jesus is the
  law-giver
• Transcendent Ordinances
• Meta-physical Laws TRUTH
• Moral Laws GOODNESS
• Aesthetic Laws BEAUTY

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Outline

• Introduction
• The Ten Commandments
• Character Matters

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Introduction
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Review

• Three Aspects of Kingdom Culture
• TRUTH - Metaphysical Laws
• GOODNESS - Moral Laws
• BEAUTY - Aesthetic Laws
• Trinitarian Culture
• Progressively impact all aspects of the Great
  CO-Mission

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Definition

• Goodness The moral qualities which constitute
  Christian excellence moral virtue.

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The Ten Commandments
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The Ten Commandments

• Read Exodus 20 1-17
• Questions
• What are your observations of the Decalogue?
• The Decalogue has two major parts. What is the
  focus of each?

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Love God

• 1) You shall have no other gods before me.
• 2) You shall not make for yourself an idol in the
  form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
  beneath or in the waters below.
• 3) You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your
  God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless
  who misuses his name.
• 4) Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

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Love Your Neighbor

• 5) Honor your father and your mother, so that you
  may live long in the land the LORD your God is
  giving you.
• 6) You shall not murder.
• 7) You shall not commit adultery.
• 8) You shall not steal.
• 9) You shall not give false testimony against
  your neighbor.
• 10)You shall not covet your neighbors house,
  wife, manservant or maidservant, his ox or
  donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

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Life or Death

• Read Deu. 30 11-20
• Questions
• What is the choice facing human beings?
• What does God desire for us?
• What are the consequences of our choice??

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Jesus and the Law

• Set 1
• Read Matt. 5 17-18
• Question What did Jesus come to do?
• Set 2
• Read Matt. 5 18-20
• Question What did Jesus expect of his disciples?

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Jesus and the Law

• Read and discover Jesus response to the
  Pharisees understanding of the Law
• Matt. 5 21-26 Murder
• Matt. 5 27-30 Adultery
• Matt. 5 31-32 Divorce
• Matt. 5 33-37 Oaths
• Matt. 5 38-42 Retribution
• Matt. 5 43-48 Love for enemies

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Jesus and the Law

• Question What is Jesus focusing on?

• Answers
• He is challenging those who keep the letter of
  the law and break the spirit of the law
• Internal self-government not external pretense or
  tyranny

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The Summary of the Law

• Read
• Set 1 Matt. 7 12 22 36-40 Luke 10 27
  Rom. 13 8-10
• Set 2 Mark 12 28-31, 33 Gal. 5 14 James 2
  8
• Questions
• What are the similarities and differences in
  these passages?
• What does Jesus say is the greatest of the two
  commandments?
• When the Law and the Prophets are summarized by
  only one of the Great Commandments, what is it?
  Why?

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1 John 4 20-21

• If anyone says, I love God, yet hates his
  brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not
  love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love
  God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us
  this command Whoever loves God must also love
  his brother.

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The Summary of the Law

• The Ten Commandments
• The 2 Commandments
• Love God
• Love your neighbor
• 1 Commandment
• Love your neighbor

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Civil Law and the Moral Order

• An unjust law is a law that is not rooted in
  eternal law and natural law.
• Thomas Aquinas

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Civil Law and the Moral Order

• A just law is a man-made code that squares with
  the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is
  a code that is out of harmony with the moral
  law.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from a Birmingham Jail

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Character Matters
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Moral Ecology

• World is focused on ecology crisis
• The lack of stewardship of the environment stems
  from a crisis in our moral ecology.
• Moral ecology mores, moral habits, habits of
  the heart

• It is a healthy moral ecology that leads to a
  healthy care for the planet as well as social
  peace and economic prosperity..

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Everything Is Permitted

• If God does not exist, everything is
  permitted.
• Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Cult and Culture

• Read Psalm 115 2-8 and Hosea 9 10b
• Questions
• What do our natures reflect?
• What is the relationship between worship and
  culture?

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Cult and Culture

• 4     But their idols are silver and gold, made
  by the hands of men.
• 5     They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes,
  but they cannot see
• 6     they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but
  they cannot smell
• 7     they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but
  they cannot walk nor can they utter a sound with
  their throats.
• 8     Those who make them will be like them, and
  so will all who trust in them.
• Ps 1154-8

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The Benefit of the Moral Order

• Individuals and nations can live in the moral
  framework for which they were designed.
• They will produce
• More goodness and less evil
• More wholesomeness and less decadence
• More honesty and less treachery
• More lawfulness and less lawlessness
• More social order and less disorder
• More freedom and fewer jails

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Teach them to obey all I have commanded

• The Moral Order