What Is Christian Ethics?

What exactly is Christian ethics? It can seem like a puzzling question. One would think, “Well, the Bible makes it clear how we should live. If ethics is the study of how to be morally upright, shouldn’t we just follow the Bible? End of discussion?”

Well, there may be a little bit more to that. For instance, what do we do in gray areas? Such as what the early Christians had to deal with when it came to eating meat sacrificed to idols (1 Corinthians 8).

For our intents and purposes, we need first to establish a definition of Christian ethics, and operating by this definition, we can move forward to applying it.

First, what are ethics? According to Merriam-Webster, ethics are “a set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values” a person follows and allows to orchestrate their lives.” In other words, every person follows a set number of rules they have for their lives. The rules could be created by themselves, their government, or a conviction in every human distinguishing between right and wrong.

Regarding Christian ethics, we have made the Bible our set of moral values. We follow the Ten Commandments and the greatest two commandments set out by Jesus: love God and love others (Matthew 22:34-40).

We channel all our behavior through what the Bible says and how the Holy Spirit convicts us. We allow both of these two things to govern our lives.

With that in mind, we can proceed forward in our study of ethics.

What Is the Study of Ethics?

As stated above, the study of ethics is how each person decides to behave and what they perceive to be morally upright.

For instance, a person may not murder for several reasons.

- They know that murdering someone has legal consequences. They could face a lifetime in prison or capital punishment.

- They know that human life has inherent value. And to steal away life is to steal away that value.

Where it gets complicated is the foundation of ethics for those who do not follow God. For instance, the Purge movies come to mind. The movies are premised on the idea, “What if everything was legal for one day?” Morals go out the window, and people steal, murder, and commit heinous acts.

Although people may inherently believe that humans have value if they don’t know where the value comes from—that God crafted us in his image (Genesis 1). However, when push comes to shove, they may allow for not all humans to have value in some instances.

This is where Christian ethics comes into play.

What Distinguishes Christian Ethics?

What distinguishes Christian ethics is the solid foundation it is built on. We do not murder because we believe humans are created in the image of God. We do unto others because when we help the least of these, we help God (Matthew 25).

We strive for moral uprightness because Jesus was our example of it. All of our ethics come solely from how we choose to follow him, and his example.

That means if a “Purge” situation happened, we would still obey the principles outlined in the Bible. To obey our leaders—unless our leaders ask us to do something that goes against the Bible.

Unlike other ethics, Christian ethics has objectivity. We don’t act on everything we feel, living on the principle “Do what makes you happy.” Instead, we follow guidelines set forth before God. Because God loved us, we want to follow in his footsteps and show his love to others.

What Are Common Approaches to Christian Ethics?

There are many branches or schools among Christians about how ethics should work. On a very broad level, we can say there are three approaches to ethics in Christian circles. For a really good video on this, check out this one.

Let’s break the approaches down in our own words.

Meta Ethics: Have you ever known someone who picked apart a sentence word by word? Welcome to meta ethics. As noted in the above video, it’s hard to summarize this approach into simple words. Essentially, you look at the root of ethics. What is our foundation? What does XYZ word mean? Perhaps this could look like a person digging into the original language in a passage to uncover what the Greek or Hebrew means.

Normative Ethics: Essentially, by what criteria do we base right actions and wrong actions? As Christians, our answer is simple. We look to Jesus. And we look to see how the early church, his closest followers, applied these criteria. Other worldviews may have a harder time with this area because their criteria may be subjective or inconsistent with how they live. Think of a Darwinian mindset. If we truly believe that everything is left up to chance and that morality is just a stage of evolution, what will stop us from acting like the people in The Purge? Since some of us aren’t murdering our neighbors, we can safely say the Darwinists aren’t living consistently.

Applied Ethics: Now that we have an idea of what ethics are (the definitions and the criteria), how do we apply it to our everyday lives? As Christians, what does loving God look like in certain situations? What does loving our neighbor look like?

Why Should We Study Christian Ethics?

There are some gray areas. Areas in which the Bible isn’t clear on. The Bible has nothing to explicitly say about dating, media usage, what movies we watch, or how we choose to school our kids.

But there are principles laid out in Scripture that we can apply in our everyday lives. And we can rest on the Holy Spirit’s conviction to guide us in situations in which the Bible is not explicit.

We should study ethics because if we don’t know our firm foundation, Scripture says that misleading doctrine can sweep us away (Ephesians 4). We can boil down the reasons to study Christian ethics into three categories.

1) Understanding Our Foundation

We need to understand what sets Christianity apart from every other religion, and it boils down to one word: Jesus. We have a clear-cut example of how we should live and treat others. Jesus showed us time and time again how to love God and love others—through his ministry, his parables, and his prayers. If we don’t understand our foundation, we might fall prey to this world’s patterns.

2) Understanding the Lack of Foundation in Other Worldviews

People don’t tend to live consistently (see the Darwinian example above). This could form conversations between people in ways that can lead to a gospel presentation. This can look like asking someone, “Do you believe every human life is valuable? Why do you believe this?” Asking the why conversations can open up a chance to reveal the firm foundation that you have. I should caution readers to do so in love and often with someone they have a trusted relationship with. Probably not best to accost people on the streets and harass them. Not the best way of showing love to your neighbor.

3) Understanding the Philosophical Side of the Bible

Paul frequently uses logic and philosophy to show the importance of Christian ethics. We can sometimes shrink away from the philosophical and apologetics side of Scripture. And again, I should caution all Christians to enter these areas gently. Remember that pride goeth before a fall. But knowing that the Scripture is full of logic can combat anyone who thinks of it as a fairytale or a “nice fable.” The Bible goes way beyond that. It’s stuffed full of philosophy and ethical grounding. The more we know about our Bible, the better we can share the gospel.

Photo Credit: Getty Images/Pict Rider

Hope Bolinger is an acquisitions editor at End Game Press, book editor for hire, and the author of almost 30 books. More than 1500 of her works have been featured in various publications. Check out her books at hopebolinger.com for clean books in most genres, great for adults and kids. Check out her editing profile at Reedsy.com to find out about hiring her for your next book project.