Christ Morality
How can I find the biblical data for Christ's morality? How does the Bible determine morality?
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That's an interesting question. Especially in an apocalyptic environment and the Kingdom's arrival, where demanded morality exceeds normality. The beatitudes as a start? Turning the cheek? Sharing with the poor?
Ironically, you can find modern Christian morality easier with John the Baptist.
But either way, reading the Text.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Try:
The Bible and Morality: Biblical Roots of Christian Conduct
The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament
The Table of Contents of that last one:
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How can I find the biblical data for Christ's morality? How does the Bible determine morality?
Start with a simple query for ("christ's morality" OR "gospel morality") and here is one example:-
The spirit of gospel morality:—The whole spirit of the gospel of Christ is in these beatitudes. It is at once a religion and a morality. It teaches us the essence of all Christian truth, which is in that real love of God, that is manifest in love of men, and holiness. Yet it is a Divine, a perfect morality. No other faith ever revealed itself in such personal teaching, in such living beauty, not of word, but of character. The Divine humanity of Christ and His religion stands forth here in this code, human yet more than man. If I were to put into language the morality of mankind, I should write the very opposite catalogue of beatitudes: Blessed are the rich. Blessed they who do not mourn. Blessed are the high-minded. Blessed they who hunger and thirst after the selfish gain. Blessed they who need no mercy. Blessed the cunning and cold of heart. Blessed they who win the battle of life. Blessed they who are prudent enough to escape persecution. It is this very excellence which always makes it appear to the mass of selfish men an unreal thing. Take any of those rules, and try for an hour to follow them out in practice, and the end would be that the Christian would be the laughing-stock of the crowd. And what is the inference? Why, the Author and Founder of this kingdom was probably one of the pure-hearted ideal enthusiasts of His time: His religion succeeded doubtless awhile, while it was the faith of a few poor devotees. But in proportion as it entered into the world, it lost of necessity this moral severity; and the Christianity of the Church and the world is little more than a civilized heathenism. We may admire much in the New Testament that is pure and beautiful. But we cannot call its morality a basis in any sense of human conduct, a Divine or authoritative standard for mankind. Such is the argument. And there is much that is plausible in it. It falls in with doubts that sometimes naturally rise in us as we read the gospel. It needs careful thought. For, if it be really so, it is plain that the gospel is no longer a standard of action, and cannot be Divine. Now, I would endeavour so to meet it as to set at rest such doubts, and to convince you that your religion is no gospel of dreamers, but a real, a practical morality for the man and the State. 1. I shall begin by granting freely everything that is fairly said of the Divine, absolute, ideal purity of Christ’s morality. Nay, I shall claim it as its noblest character. He sets before us the highest ideal of personal conduct. And I maintain that there is no domain, where the mind and will of man are employed, which does not recognize and demand such an ideal.
Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: St. Luke: Vol. I (p. 557). James Nisbet & Co.Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Start with a simple query
Then I looked at Theology Guide and Topic Guide and found a Topic "Ethics of Jesus", where "ethics" = "moral principles".
Factbook has suggestions for morality.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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