Bible Reading: 2 Timothy 3: 10-17
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. 2 Timothy 3:16
YOU WAKE UP on the morning of your sixteenth birthday and stumble into the kitchen for breakfast. Your mom greets you with a kiss and a cheery “Happy Birthday!” Then she adds, “There’s something out in the driveway for you!”
You race outside with your mom right behind you. You stop a few feet from the driveway and stare. “It’s not new,” Mom says, nodding to the car in the driveway, “but it has a CD player that works, just like you wanted.”
You look at your mom and then back at the car. “But where are the wheels?”
You get closer to the car. “And there’s no steering wheel either!”
“But look at that CD player,” Mom announces proudly. “Pretty neat, huh?”
You pop the hood to take a look. ”There’s no engine!” you bellow.
“You didn’t say you wanted all those things,” she says in a huff. “You just said you wanted a car with a CD player that works.”
“Mom!” You’re trying not to shout. “It has to have ‘all those things.’ If it doesn’t, it’s not a car. It’s just … it’s just a piece of junk!”
No one expects a car to work without tires, a steering wheel, and an engine. Without that basic equipment you really are the owner of a piece of junk.
It’s the same with finding a trustworthy way to help you decide issues of right and wrong. You need a standard. And a true standard requires some basic equipment, or it’s no standard at all-just a piece of junk.
First, a true standard of right and wrong has to be objective, meaning it exists independently of what you or any other person thinks or feels. You might consider stealing wrong, but your neighbor might not. Without an objective standard, how can you tell your neighbor not to swipe your big-screen TV?
Second, a true standard of right and wrong must be universal, applying to all people in all places. You may consider it wrong to abuse children, but if another culture in the world disagrees, who is to say that culture is wrong?
Third, a true standard of right and wrong is constant, meaning it doesn’t change. If standards change, you never know what the rules are. What is right in one generation may be wrong in the next.
Someone uniquely loving and smart knew that you would need an objective, universal, and constant standard to teach you the truth and help you tell right from wrong. God didn’t plop you on this planet without a reliable guide for making right choices. He gave you the Bible as your flawless map to life.
REFLECT: Why does God give you these flawless standards of right and wrong?
PRAY: Thank God today for loving you enough to teach you right from wrong.
