Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we continue our study of Acts with Acts 23-24, discussing how exactly to have a clear conscience! Be sure to rate this show if you enjoy it, God bless you!
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In Acts 23–24, we find the Apostle Paul standing trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin and later before the Roman governor Felix. Throughout these intense encounters, Paul boldly declares, "I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day" (Acts 23:1). His words and actions in these chapters offer insights into how to have a clear conscience before God.
- Q. How do you cultivate a clear conscience?
- I’m using “cultivate” on purpose. It’s like a tender plant that needs attention
- Ex: Trying to keep a plant alive or cultivate a garden
- In Greek philosophy, conscience (syneidēsis) was understood as an internal moral compass, a faculty of self-awareness and judgment regarding right and wrong.
- This is the fundamental problem with the secular idea of conscience: who gets to decide what’s right and wrong?
- Today’s Oxford defn: an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior.
- Our definition of sin (Pursuit Lesson 4): Sin is going your own way, trusting and acting on your own opinions and feelings instead of on God’s truth.
- Hebrew thought associated conscience more with the heart (lev), emphasizing moral responsibility in light of God’s law.
- From The Meaning of “Heart” in Hebrew: the concept of the “heart” is best understood as the “inner person” – the seat of our mind (thoughts), emotions (feelings), and will (intentions).
- In the NT, we’ll see today: in light of Christ’s work on the cross and the gift of the HS, having a clear conscience is about submitting your whole self – thoughts, feelings, intentions – to the Way of Jesus.
Before we get to Paul’s speech in Acts, let’s start with his first letter to Timothy
- This gives us good context for what we’ll be reading in Acts
- It also helps us to understand the value of a clear conscience
- It’s not just good for you, your inner life
- It’s also good for the people around you, it impacts your ability to love
1 Timothy 1:5 (NLT) 5 The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.
- The purpose = believers would be filled with love
- Ring a bell? Greatest commandment = LOVE
- Where that love comes from:
- a pure heart,
- The whole NEW self – thoughts, feelings, intentions
- Already perfected in the court of heaven, not yet here on earth
- But the longer...
