the teachings of Jesus — James Montgomery Boice

“The third part of Peter’s summation of the gospel is the public ministry of Jesus: “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:38). This ministry involves two things: good deeds and special acts that demonstrated Christ’s power over Satan.

The significant thing about this summation of the public ministry of Jesus is that, as in his previous sermons, Peter does not mention Christ’s teaching. In the Gospels we find whole chapters filled with Christ’s sayings, parables, and discourses. In Matthew the Sermon on the Mount takes three chapters and the Olivet Discourse takes two. Chapters 14–16 of John contain what we call the final discourses. The reason for this omission is that until people come to understand what Jesus Christ accomplished by his death, turn from sin, and follow him, they are incapable of responding to his teaching. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said that his disciples are to be poor in spirit, meek, pure in heart, and peace-makers, to live by the teaching of the Scriptures, and to follow a standard higher even than that found in the Old Testament. These teachings are important and necessary for those who are Christ’s. But if they are taught to those who are not yet converted, to those who are incapable in their unconverted state of doing them, these teachings are misleading and harmful.

If we speak about the teachings of Jesus without first speaking of the need for repentance and faith in Jesus as our Savior from sin, people quite naturally begin to think that Christianity is merely about doing good. It is learning what Jesus taught and trying to put it into practice. This only encourages self-righteousness, a trust in human righteousness, which is harmful. Whenever Christianity has fallen into that pattern of teaching it has made a great mistake.”

— James Montgomery Boice (1997). Acts: an expositional commentary (pp. 183–184). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Without absolutes, morals as morals cease to exist — Francis A. Schaeffer

"From the biblical answer flow four important facts.

Firstly, the God who is there is a good God.

Secondly, there is a hope of a solution to the dilemma of man.

Thirdly, there is a sufficient basis for morals. Nobody has ever discovered a way of having real “morals” without a moral absolute. If there is no moral absolute, we are left with hedonism (doing what I like) or some form of the social contract theory (what is best for society as a whole is right). However, neither of these alternatives corresponds to the moral motions that men have. Talk to people long enough and deeply enough, and you will find that they consider some things are really right and some things are really wrong.  Without absolutes, morals as morals cease to exist, and humanistic man starting from himself is unable to find the absolute he needs.  But because the God of the Bible is there, real morals exist.  Within this framework I can say one action is right and another wrong, without talking nonsense.

Fourthly, there is an adequate reason for fighting wrong.  The Christian never faces the dilemma posed in Camus’ book La Peste.  It simply is not true that he either has to side with the doctor against God by fighting the plague, or join with the priest on God’s side and thus be much less than human by not fighting the plague. If this were an either-or choice in life, it would indeed be terrible. But the Christian is not confined to such a choice.  Let us go to the tomb of Lazarus.  As Jesus stood there, He not only wept, but He was angry.  The exegesis of the Greek of the passages John 11:33 and 38 is clear. Jesus, standing in front of the tomb of Lazarus, was angry at death and at the abnormality of the world the destruction and distress caused by sin.  In Camus’ words, Christ hated the plague.  He claimed to be God and He could hate the plague without hating Himself as God.

A Christian can fight what is wrong in the world with compassion and know that as he hates these things, God hates them too.  God hates them to the high price of the death of Christ.

But if I live in a world of nonabsolutes and would fight social injustice on the mood of the moment, how can I establish what social justice is?  What criterion do I have to distinguish between right and wrong so that I can know what I should be fighting?  Is it not possible that I could in fact acquiesce in evil and stamp out good?  The word love cannot tell me how to discern, for within the humanistic framework love can have no defined meaning.  But once I comprehend that the Christ who came to die to end “the plague” both wept and was angry at the plague’s effects, I have a reason for fighting that does not rest merely on my momentary disposition, or the shifting consensus of men.

But the Christian also needs to be challenged at this point.  The fact that he alone has a sufficient standard by which to fight evil, does not mean that he will so fight.  The Christian is the real radical of our generation, for he stands against the monolithic, modern concept of truth as relative.  But too often, instead of being the radical, standing against the shifting sands of relativism, he subsides into merely maintaining the status quo.  If it is true that evil is evil, that God hates it to the point of the cross, and that there is a moral law fixed in what God is in Himself, then Christians should be the first into the field against what is wrong — including man’s inhumanity to man."

— Francis A. Schaeffer (1982). The complete works of Francis A. Schaeffer: a Christian worldview. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books.