Theology That Matters

Christmas is an amazing time of year, it reminds of us how much God loves us, that He took on human flesh in order to save us. He came as a baby and lived a perfect life to give us hope and joy. In this podcast I take a few short minutes to remind us of what our real focus should be for us and family on Christmas day.

I know that Advent season is in full swing but I wanted to give a few insights into why Advent can be vital for our preparation for Christmas day and beyond. Advent just means arrival so it is a time to prepare for the arrival of Christ on Christmas with an eye toward his second Advent. Hope you enjoy.

This episode on Justice concludes the series on the 4 cardinal virtues. In this episode we talk about what is justice, it is much more than a judge in a court room. Justice is being fair, giving what is 'due' to others and this includes love and mercy to be completely just. Below is a close transcription of what is said during the podcast. Welcome back to “Theology that Matters.” We are continuing our series on the Virtues and focusing on what has traditionally been called the “Cardinal Virtues.” They are called cardinal, for it is from a Latin word that means the hinge… like on a door, so these virtues are a hinge on which all the other Christian virtues come out of and are necessary to truly follow Jesus has he asks us to. These Cardinal virtues allow us to really live out the three greatest virtues (which we will discuss after the Cardinal virtues) of faith, hope and love. In the last three episodes we have covered the virtues of prudence, temperance, and fortitude. I encourage you to listen to those if you have not already. These virtues all tie together, but prudence is the foundation, for it helps us know what is right and wrong and why. The virtues of temperance, fortitude and justice (which we will talk about today) is all living out prudence correctly. After we have these cardinal virtues we can strive for the three commonly called theological virtues, faith, hope and love. Justice is a very misunderstood term, for we take it mostly in the courtroom setting. We see justice tied to laws and then the punishment when those laws are broken. Justice is more than a matter of rules and laws. It seems to only have a negative context, but justice is much more than this, it is actual a very positive term and encourages us to act positively toward others and God. Let’s look quickly at how God is just and then see what that means for us. God is just toward his creation, but that does not mean that He gives us everything we deserve, if he did then our sins would be punished and there would be no hope of eternal life. See Justice or being just is tied into all of God’s attributes. If we just take justice by itself it would be only for punishment. But we don’t we take justice alongside of God’s mercy and love. Ps. 103:8 says this, “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.” The Psalm goes on to say, “He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever, he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” Look we all deserve separation from God for our sins, but God treats us fairly, according to his character of love and mercy. They are tied together. We see these two terms tied together in Micah 6:8, God has shown what is good, to act justly and to love mercy. We also see that God does not desire the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23), instead he is pleased when they turn from their evil ways. Because of that he loves us in a way that is meant to draw all to him and for their salvation. This does not mean that God does not punish temporarily or eternally. It means that his justice is not about getting back at us or to punish us every time we do a wrong or sin. His justice is given to us in the punishment way to draw our hearts to Him, to desire to drive us away from sin and rebellion and to a right relationship with Him. God disciples, punishes all out of a heart of mercy and love. He wants to heal us and gives us what he thinks is fair. His justice is driven by his compassion to bring healing for he knows that is what we need. His justice toward humans on earth is solely for our good. His eternal punishment for those who reject God until death is giving them what they deserve and what they desire, separation from Him forever. Now if we understand this we will see how we are to be just toward others and God. Justice is the moral virtue that gives one the proper due to God and to others. The Just man(continued)

Fortitude (courage) is the virtue that helps us stand for what is right and do it, even when we have fears. Fears don't make us uncourageous, the courageous person knows what they fear but strives to overcome then for God by the power of God. Read below if you would like a detailed breakdown of what I shared in the Podcast. Welcome back to “Theology that Matters.” We are continuing our series on the Virtues and focusing on what has traditionally been called the “Cardinal Virtues.” They are called cardinal, for it is from a Latin word that means the hinge… like on a door, so these virtues are a hinge on which all the other Christian virtues come out of and are necessary to truly follow Jesus has he asks us to. These Cardinal virtues allow us to really live out the three greatest virtues (which we will discuss after the Cardinal virtues) of faith, hope and love. We have already covered two virtues, Prudence and Temperance. Without Prudence none of the other virtues are possible, for one needs to know what is right and wrong and why. In a sense prudence (wisdom, knowledge) gives us the foundation for knowing how to be just, temperate, and to have courage, to knowing what is true love, what to have faith and hope in. Last time we talked on Temperance which is the idea of not letting your passions control you, but to control your passions in a way that will honor God. Temperance is not merely just abstaining from things it is using our passions, our God given desires in the right way, in a middle ground per se, not too much and not too little, but just right. Now today we are going to talk about the virtue of fortitude (which is it long time name), a different word could be courage. Temperance and fortitude are both virtues of self-control, we will see the right thing and then do the action. They are different in that temperance is more concerned with our desires and passions and keep them under control and fortitude is about making choices to stand up for what is right and when we do we receive or are a part of God’s happiness. When one has fortitude or courage one will do the right thing even in the midst of hardships or should I say in spite of hardships. A truly courageous person must be willing to lay down their life for the greatest good, which is to give honor and glory of God. One is thus to be willing to make sacrifices, even great ones, in order to live out our Christian faith. Now before we get a little farther we have to see the bad extremes that the virtue of fortitude is helping us avoid. One extreme is being foolish or brash. This is where one lacks proper awareness or concern for danger. This is where one would charge foolishly into dangers that could have been avoided. For example instead of charging across a minefield you walk around and get to the other side. This person has no fear, which we think sounds great, but in reality having no fear means one is not going to have a good understanding or right and wrong or what is the greatest good, as we will see later. In a way a brash man is looking for risks or danger, but this is not being brave or courageous but being stupid or fool-hearted. In a Christian sense it would be one who is looking to start an argument about Christianity or religion or politics to just pick a fight without caring for the outcome. In a sense to win an argument but not a soul. The other extreme is cowardice. It is one who in a sense is paralyzed by fear. A person abandons the greater good because they are afraid of sustaining a loss. It is close to self-preservation and cripples the person for standing for the greater good as they fear the loss of a lesser good. Most of us I think would struggle with cowardice in one form or other. Fortitude helps overcome fear or acting rightly in the face of fear while restraining the overly brash or bold person who has no fear. I know that it sounds weird, but to be courageous you have to have a healt(continued)

Temperance is one of the four Christian Cardinal virtues. It is the virtue of being able to keep our passions and desires under control instead of them controlling us. It is much more than just abstaining from something like food or alcohol but is using our passions and God given desires in the correct way. Below is a close to transcript of what is covered in the podcast: Welcome back to “Theology that Matters.” We are continuing our series on the Virtues and focusing on what has traditionally been called the “Cardinal Virtues.” They are called cardinal, for that is from a Latin word that means the hinge… like on a door, so these virtues are a hinge on which all the other Christian virtues come out of and are necessary to truly follow Jesus has he asks us to. These Cardinal virtues allow us to really live out the three great virtues (which we will discuss after the Cardinal virtues) of faith, hope and love. Last time we talked about Prudence (wisdom) and why it is so important. Without prudence, which is the knowledge of what is right and wrong, there is no other way to act properly. One can’t act right if one does not know what is right and wrong. Temperance, Courage (fortitude) and Justice are impossible without Prudence. So prudence gives you the knowledge that urges us to act and act we must for the good by being temperate, courageous and just. These virtues help us then to commune in the divine love and be with God. Thus they are important to understand, seek and try to live out in our lives by the grace of God. If we want to be like Jesus and follow him, these Christian virtues are vital for us. As we talk about Temperance today I want to give a quick definition of what it is Not and what it is and then get into some more detail about how we can be temperate and some ways that we commonly are intemperate. Temperance is not simply abstaining from something as most understand it. This common belief has made it too narrow a term and so people use it mostly about controlling alcohol or food, such as don’t drink too much or at all and don’t over eat and hurt your belly. That is way too limiting. Temperance is about much more than that. C.S. Lewis says, “Temperance is going the right length and no further.” It is using all pleasures in the right moderation, for the right reason and in the right way. Temperance is mostly concerned with the pleasures of the body, viz. food, drink, sex, leisure time, work, family and using them wisely, not just avoiding pleasure. Temperance is concerned with the control of pleasures instead of them controlling or ruling over your life. We can do this when we have a healthy appreciation for the goods of life that God has created us for.. It is more than just self-control, but divine control of our lives, of our pleasures, habits and actions, in which the Spirit brings the body under subjection to God and for God by God’s power. The opposite of temperance is intemperance, which is letting pleasures, desires rule us where they control us. Being intemperate is having an abnormal intensity of things that distract us from the good or God. In this way one’s pleasures are too much, to strong or too much out of control and then distract us from the Good. Control of our passions comes from God but also is tied to Prudence. One can’t be under the proper control if one does not know why or what we need to be controlled for and from. Prudence gives us the wisdom to know right and wrong and what we should avoid, do and what is the proper moderation. Temperance is living out this wisdom. So by being a temperate person one avoids ruin. Intemperance leads us to indulging too much in pleasure or avoiding it all together because we don’t see the proper place God has made in our lives for pleasure. Let me give you an example of being intemperate and then why this negative consequence can be applied to all intemperate actions. Then I will give a few other ways(continued)