Mind Your Principles

The 20th century comedian and film star Groucho Marx once famously said “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…..well, I have others.”

Groucho could not have appreciated how pervasive this cynical attitude would become in our time.  Along with the modernist teaching of so-called “situational ethics”, thinking like Groucho’s leads many to believe that no clear distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil, can be achieved.

So what exactly are principles?  My trusty Second College Edition New World Webster’s defines a principle as:

  1. The ultimate source, origin, or cause of something
  2. A natural or original tendency, faculty, or endowment
  3. A fundamental truth, law, doctrine, or motivating force, upon which others are based
  4. A rule of conduct, especially of right conduct

As usual, when we take the time to understand the true meaning of a word, we come away with great clarity.  Now, let us take that perfect clarifier, our Bible, and discern rightful application of the above definition.

  1. God is the ultimate source, origin, and cause of everything.  Genesis 1-2
  2. As children of His, the natural tendency of the obedient Christian must be to do His will.  1 John 5:3
  3. The fundamental truth of the Gospel is that “…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…”  1 Timothy 1:15
  4. As the inspired Word of God, the Bible is the only measure by which we are to be judged, and only the Bible can provide that instruction in righteousness capable of guiding us to Godly lives. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

The Bible plainly teaches a distinction between good and evil, that which is right, and that which is wrong.  And each of us has a choice as to which we select.  Rejecting God in favor of the world’s teaching is not a new problem.  Since creation, man has faced this same decision.  Let us be as Joshua, and base our principles soundly upon God and His Word:

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  Joshua 24:15

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Filed under: Authors, Gregg Alexander on August 15th, 2008

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