The moral life of the Christians

“Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess.  He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus.  As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, ‘That's enough for now!  You may leave.  When I find it convenient, I will send for you’” (Acts 24:24-27).

                I read an internet article that says, ‘How to raise my child's morality index: Not only IQ (Intelligence Quotient) should be good.  A child with a high MQ (Moral Quotient) will succeed.’  Professor Robert Coles of Harvard University in the United States claims that people who know how to be good and considerate are successful.  In today's and upcoming future society, the claim is that children with high MQ (Moral Quotient) are more successful than children with high IQ (Intelligent Quotient).  Since the dawn of the information age the rapidly changing world requires lifelong education and self-development for all members of society.  If this trend continues, after 10 years, we will not be able to have differentiated competitiveness from others with only our expertise.  Although we are trying to improve our children's competitiveness by making them to do musical instruments, sports and other things so hard, but when we look around, there are quite many children who are doing all those things very well.  In this time, it is the moral intelligence that exemplifies oneself and draws devotion and participation from others.  The people with high moral intelligence know how to serve others and know how to succeed together.  It is because morality is nothing more than learning the principles, norms, and values ​​of seeing the world.  Tracking people who have graduated from Harvard University in the past 60 years and the findings that school performance and success have nothing to do with it supports this.  Looking at the faces of socially successful people, they were people of high morality, such as humorous people, considerate people, kind people, and people who judge right and wrong well (Internet).

                The noticeable crisis in our days is the loss of morality.  Morality is the exercise of the will to do what is right and not to do what is wrong.  Even if we have to do what is wrong, feeling remorse in our conscience is proof that we still have moral roots.  But we can't but be surprised to see that some people are doing wrongs without any hesitation.  The New Testament states that such a case their consciences were seared with a branding iron (1 Tim. 4:2).  Ethical theologian R. Niver said: ‘The identity of the Christian is exposed by the morality of that life’ (Internet).  How is the morality of us, the Christians?  How do the people in this world look at us?  We Christians must have a higher moral level than the people of this world.  Otherwise, if we lower our moral level, then our Christian identity will eventually collapse.

                When we look at Acts 24:24-27, we see Apostle Paul not only spoke about faith in Christ Jesus to the governor Felix (v. 24) but also spoke about the morality of those who believe in Jesus and His gospel.  That morality is righteousness and self-control (v. 25).  Here “righteousness” refers to the moral act of a person who believes the gospel rather than the justification of God who hears the gospel and believes Jesus Christ (Yoo Sang-sup).  The moral conduct is that Governor Felix, as the governor of the Jews, must deal with everything fairly and correctly according to Roman law and Jewish customs (Yoo).  So the Paul's exhortation would have stricken Governor Felix's conscience.  The reason is because Felix was a person who had consistently run a far-reaching unjust reign (Yoo).  I think that the Paul's exhortation applies to our Christian politicians as well.  As Christian politicians who believe in Jesus, their moral behavior must be right and honest.  They must never come near corruption.  This Tuesday at 6:30 pm, I watched some news about Iraq on Channel 7.  The news was about the best hospital in Iraq.  But a doctor said that the hospital didn’t have any basic medical equipment or drugs.  Why was the hospital like this?  The cause is because of corruption.  Although the amount of oil in Iraq is extracted to some extent and earned by the oil every day, but because of the corrupt people among politicians, there is no supply of the most basic things to the Iraq's famous hospital.  The corrupt politicians are stealing the money.  Therefore, in Iraq, many people are not well treated in the hospital.  Like this, corruption involves such corrupt political funds, or money.  So Paul told Governor Felix about “self-control.”  Here, “self-control” refers to the control and suppression of desires (Yoo).

                Benjamin Franklin was born in a poor Puritan family and had only been in school for a year.  But he was greatly influenced by his mother's education and another pastor’s Puritan education.  From an early age, he learned to work hard and read.  He was the founder of the American Philosophy, the inventor of the lightning rod, and the first French ambassador.  He left a saying, ‘Do not sell virtue to get property or sell freedom to gain power.’  In addition, he has defined 13 virtues since his childhood and has lived his life according to those virtues.  The first of the virtues is ‘self-control’.  Apostle Paul said that “All things are lawful, but not all things edify” (1 Cor. 10:23).  The Bible considers “self-control” as the virtue's first priority.  A person with self-control edifies and a person who edifies has self-control.  S/he is neither tempted nor tempts others.  Virtue in Greek has a ‘building a house’ meaning.  Virtue has the power to build up.  Americans have a proverb that says, ‘Although beauty is destroyed, virtue is not destroyed’ (Internet).

                Why did Apostle Paul exhort Governor Felix on the matter of “self-control” in Acts 24:24-27?  One of the reasons is that Governor Felix had a greed for material things.  Governor Felix was hoping that Paul would offer him a bribe, so he sent for him frequently and talked with him (v. 26).  Perhaps Governor Felix knew of the news that Paul had received an offering from the Gentile churches and had come to Jerusalem to help the Jerusalem church.  I think that was why Felix approached Paul for the money.  Indeed, if we as Christians want to live a moral life worthy of the gospel, we must abandon our love for money.  As Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:10, we should not love money because the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  The reason is because those who love money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (v. 10).  Therefore, we should not love money.  In order to live worthy of the gospel, we must throw away greed and be clean with money.  Especially when it comes to the Christian politicians and the church leaders, they have to clean with money.  Another reason why Apostle Paul exhorted Governor Felix on self-control was because of Felix's desire.  According to Jewish historian Josephus, the corrupt, deputy governor Felix could not restrain his desires, but fell in love with the outstanding beauty of the Jewish woman, Drusilla (v. 24).  So in order to marry her, Felix persuaded her through the Jewish magician Atmos from Gubro so that she could get rid of her husband and marry Felix (Drusilla was a Felix's third wife).  In other words, Governor Felix was a man who had not been in control of sexual desire.  Not only did he love money, he was a man who could not restrain his sexual desire.  So Apostle Paul preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to Governor Felix, and said to him that in order to live worthy of His gospel, he had to have self-control.  As Christians, we must listen to Apostle Paul's exhortation in order to have a right moral life.  We must control our sexual desires.  We must control our desires for money.  We must be clean regarding money as well as sexually clean.  In particular, we pastors should promote sexual purity.  You may be familiar with many news as to how many pastors have not overcame sexual desires, and because of the scandals in the church that are covering the glory of God and hurting the hearts of the church members.  As this world become more and more evil, it seems like we are losing self-control.  Everyone, not just pastors, is losing self-control.  As a result, we are losing our ability to restrain our desire to sin.  Therefore, there are countless Christians who commit themselves to sin that they do not want.

                If we, like Governor Felix, have lost our self-control and are doing injustice, we should also listen to the coming judgment that Paul preached to Felix.  In Acts 24:25, the Bible tells us that Apostle Paul addressed Governor Felix not only righteousness and self-control but also “the judgment to come.”  Perhaps when he referred to future judgments, he spoke not only of the judgments that unbelievers will receive, but also of those who had done injustice and iniquity on earth.  Also, he would have revealed that in the last days it would be Jesus Christ who would judge the whole world in righteousness (17:30-31).  At that time, Governor Felix was afraid.  Why was he afraid?  It was because his sins had been exposed.  The exhortation of Apostle Paul had no choice but to give fear to Felix, who didn’t live up to the gospel, did injustice, and was living in sexual desire and was sinning against God.  So Governor Felix stopped Paul's words and told him, "You may leave.  When I find it convenient, I will send for you” (vv. 24:25).  Here, the important question is: ‘Did Governor Felix hear the exhortations of Paul's gospel, the counsel of the proper life of the gospel that is morally righteous and self-control and have changed? (vv. 24-25)  As we can see in verse 26, after Governor Felix received the moral lesson about the gospel and the worthy life of the gospel from Paul, he was hoping that Paul would offer him the bribe under shock and fear.  This shows that Felix refused to be changed.  Also in verse 27, Governor Felix left Paul in prison, “wishing to do the Jews a favor.”  This shows that Felix didn’t accept Paul’s counsel.  The corrupt politician who doesn’t know God doesn’t make it a problem to do unjust to others to solidify his position (Park).

                How is our moral life as Christians?  We as believers in the gospel must live our lives worthy of Hi gospel.  We must do righteousness.  We who are justified must live righteous lives.  We must be right and honest.  Also, in this age of losing self-control, we must exercise self-control, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:23).  Whether it is greed or sexual desire, we must be self-control.  We Christians must raise the Moral Quotient (MQ).  Therefore, the gospel of Jesus Christ must be preached through our lips and through our lives.