from The General Rules of the
"United Societies" organized by Mr. Wesley in 1739
There is only one condition previously
required of those who desire admission into these societies, a
"desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their
sins." But wherever this is really fixed in the soul, it will be
shown by its fruits. It is therefore, expected of all who continue therein
that they shall continue to evidence their desire of salvation,
First, by doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind,
especially that which is most generally practiced
In general, the first rule of living like you believe in Jesus is to DO
NO HARM.
But how do you live through this messed-up existence without doing
harm? The answer is: by avoiding
evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced. That’s what the rule says. You avoid doing
harm by not doing evil. The rule does NOT say that you avoid doing evil by not
doing harm.
Yeah. Read that again: . You
avoid doing harm by not doing evil. NOT: you avoid doing evil by not doing
harm.
In other words, ALL EVIL IS HARMFUL BUT NOT ALL HARM IS EVIL.
And that’s pretty much the opposite of how our culture thinks about
morality. Like, if Person A tells Person B, “It’s wrong for you to have sex
with person C because you and they are not a married man and woman.”
Person A might respond, “It’s not wrong. We’re not hurting anybody.”
“Not hurting anybody” is society’s basic standard for moral
rightness. Our cultural principle is: if
it doesn’t hurt anybody it can’t be wrong.
In the opening chapters of the Bible, God told our first parents to not
eat from a certain tree. God warned them
that eating from the tree would bring harm in the form of death. The serpent’s argument was “You will not
surely die.” (Genesis 3: 4). In other
words, nobody will get hurt. And if there
is no harm, the serpent reasoned, there can be no evil.
Two problems with the cultural/ serpentine standard. (1) Harm isn’t always immediate or obvious; and
(2) Harm is alwass subjective. What hurts always depends on how people feel.
The Biblical standard, and therefore, the Christian standard, (1) Accepts
that harm may happen in the short term, the long term, or the eternal term; and
(2) Defines evil, also known as sin, objectively defined as disobedience
to God.
From God’s perspective, the problem in Eden wasn’t that Adam and Eve would
feel immediate pain but that Adam and Evil would disobey God. Disobeying God is sin. Sin is evil. And all evil, all sin, is
inherently harmful even if you don’t immediately drop dead from doing it. Adam and Eve didn’t immediately drop dead from
eating the forbidden truth. Cultural/
serpentine morality would shout, “See.
They weren’t hurting anybody.”
But the wages of their sin lead to all the harm that has ever happened on
the planet. ALL EVIL IS HARMFUL.
Sin provokes God’s judgment and condemnation. “You are of purer eyes than to behold
evil, and cannot look on wickedness.” (Habakukk
1:13)
And yes, the grace of God in Jesus Christ offers deliverance from the judgment
and condemnation through forgiveness. But forgiveness requires repentance. Repentance requires confessing that your
action were sinful, which means confessing that what you did was “evil” even if you weren’t hurting anybody. Grace saves us from the harm of judgment by
dealing with the evil of sin.
A fundamental principle of Christian grace is that all evil is
harmful.
But not all harm is evil.
When you sin and a loving friend rebukes you, the rebuke may hurt, but
the your friend’s rebuke isn’t evil because God commands, “You shall not hate
your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear
sin because of him.” (Leviticus 19: 17)
When a child does wrong and her loving father spanks her, the child
experiences physical and emotional pain.
It hurts, but it’s right because “He who spares his rod hates his son, but
he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” ( Proverbs 13:24)
When God punished Cain for murdering his brother the sentence of exile
and stigma caused social, personal, emotional, and perhaps physical pain. But God’s response was just and merciful. God
hurt Cain but God didn’t sin, because all harm isn’t evil.
But some harm is. When Cain
killed Abel, it was a violation of God’s command. Cain hurt his brother in a way that WAS evil. The legacy of that hurtful and evil act echoed
through Cain’s descendants and led to the second murder, five generations later
(Genesis 5: 23, 24). Evil always ultimately
causes harm.
Now, here’s the takeaway. We can’t
control whether or not we do harm, we can only choose whether or not to do
evil. So when you’re uncertain what to
do, stop trying to figure which choice will be less hurtful and decide which
choice is Biblically RIGHT. Ask
yourself, “Which choice is right in God’s eyes?”
In Psalm 19, King David realized he couldn’t control the unforeseeable damage
from his actions. “Who can understand his errors?” David asked.
He concluded that on his own he couldn’t avoid the tendency to unconsciously
do harm. So he shifted from his criteria
to God’s.
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant
also from presumptuous sins.
Let them not have
dominion over me.
Then I shall be
blameless,
And I shall be innocent
of great transgression. (verses 12, 13)
Instead of choosing our best estimate of what will do the least harm,
we must follow our clearest understanding of what is right in God’s eyes.
Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your
sight,
O Lord, my strength and
my Redeemer. (Psalm 19: 14)
Choose to obey God and trust Him to make all things work together for
good. Choose to strive against the
impulse to socially acceptable sin that crouches at our doors. Choose to avoid evil of every kind,
especially that which is most generally practiced
Actually, that’s the only real choice we have.
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of
Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;
executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization
(SAYNO); and director of rural
leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Subscribe to my personal blog www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves
#Awordtothewise
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Support by check or money order may be
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P O Box 132
Fairfield
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