WHAT IS MORALITY?

Morality, as it is commonly used, means to comply with the behavior that society has said that it values. So it is changeable.

Morality, in the Christian sense, means to be faithful to what God has said that He values in His people. So in our series we will use faithful more often than morality.

"For out of the heart proceed...," Matthew 15:17-20.

So from the center of man comes faithfulness or unfaithfulness-morality or immorality.

So the heart--the center of mankind's intellect, emotions and will--determines whether we will be faithful.

The combination of the intellect, emotions and will is also called our conscience--the center of what we truly value. Conscience itself means an intense, extra or super knowledge.

With the proper knowledge, desire and action the conscience will be a dependable judge of whether we are faithful to what we value. Of course, what we value may not be what God values.

So morality--faithfulness--is a process of education. To develop faithfulness we must teach what God values. The intellect acquires this knowledge. We must teach the proper emotional response to what God values. We must see that through the will this knowledge is put into action.

We must recognize that at some point each person is responsible for his/her own actions. And that actions do have consequences.

Consequences for unwanted actions teach that one is responsible for one's own actions.

If the consequence for an action is a reward, that action will most likely be repeated. If the consequence for an action is punishment, that action will not as likely be repeated.

Immorality or unfaithfulness is learned when we reward the bad. We do not have to punish the good in order to teach immorality, just reward the bad.

Children need very little for reward.  A smile or a chuckle can be a reward. Let a small child punch an adult in the nose and let the parent either smile or chuckle and the child will repeat that action. That is rewarding the bad that will have to be corrected later. But why not now?  

Let a child destroy someone else's property and receive no punishment and he will repeat it. Too often a lack of punishment is a reward for the child especially if they received their own reward in the action (such as stealing candy).

Morality--faithfulness can be taught. As parents and adults we must teach it. A non-parent cannot as effectively teach morality to the child as the parent! God intended it that way. That's why He made mothers and fathers--to teach!

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