Skip to main content

"What I want to do I do not do..."

            This weeks reading hit different. I can usually find some way to relate the reading to the Bible, but this time It's more than just some observation. As I read on through Aristotle's ramblings about virtue, trying my best not to zone out, one segment really stuck out. It says, referring to virtuous actions, "But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do" (Aristotle). I think this quote is true about what Christianity looks like for a lot of people. It's so easy to go to church every week and listen to the pastor  (throwing in an "amen" here and there to spice it up). It's easy to agree with what the pastor is saying and the points he is making. We leave feeling good about ourselves and our faith, but then, life just happens... Covid happens...unexpected news comes... hurricanes hit... 

        It's easy to agree with a pastor or sing worship songs, but do we live out what we claim we so adamantly agree with? When we are hit with difficult circumstances, do we use them as a way to live the life we are called to live? Romans 7:15-20 says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. " So often the easy way out is more appealing, but we are called to stand up and carry out the good. 

I am mostly preaching to myself here, but how do you feel about it?


Commented on Haylee Lynd's and Caroline Tucker's

Sources: 

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html 

Comments

  1. Caroline TuckerOctober 26, 2020 at 9:58 PM

    Yes! I am constantly having to remind myself the reason behind why I do things. This thought will bring me to the realization of whether or not I should be doing the thing. This is especially true for school work. I am easily distracted and once I am distracted, I am distracted for the next few hours. I cannot focus. If I cannot focus on my school work, how will I focus on God? Thankfully, it is not through me but through God’s influence and conviction that I have the ability to focus on Him.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ClaboOctober 27, 2020 at 2:00 AM

    I completely agree with you. We have such a hard time not doing what can easily be determined as wrong in hindsight. Sometimes I think that its not so much as difficult to choose not to sin, but rather that it is extremely difficult to consistently do what is good and focus only on that. We are sinful creatures, and for the most part we mainly want to do what we want to do. It is just difficult to determine if what we want is what we shouldn't.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Word Painting in Vesta—Lily Caswell

  Word painting in Weelkes’s As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending is quite interesting. And because that is a really long title, I’m calling it Vesta from now on. Word painting is basically when the melody matches up with the lyrics. So in Vesta, when it says “ascending” and “descending”, there are obviously scales going up and down. The madrigal was written for six voices to sing unaccompanied, so when they start to come together, it matches with the lyrics; so if the lyric says “two by two”, there are only two voices; “three by three” there is another voice added, and so forth. All the parts combine in exclamation before Vesta before it is left “all alone” to the highest soprano. All the way to the end of the piece, word painting continues when shouts of “Long live fair Oriana” with the bass sustaining long notes. Word painting in and of itself is a highly interesting topic because a musician takes the words of a poem or a sonnet and writes a melody line that pertains to cer...
4 comments
Read more

Honor and Gain; Which Do You Seek?

 Pericles.... thanks? I can only imagine that's what the family and friends were thinking after they heard his historic funeral speech honoring the departed. What do I mean? Well, Pericles briefly mentions the men who have fallen at the beginning of his speech, but then goes on to discuss how great Athens is, and how the contributions the city has made to the world are unmatched.. why? I understand that he is also commending the citizens of Athens and empowering them to continue to make their city greater, but I thought this was supposed to be a funeral speech about dead war heroes, not about Athens. Another thing I found interesting is what Pericles said on page five about honor: "For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness" (Thucydides, page 5). Have you ever watched a show or movie, or read a book, about a duel between two men? There is always an unspoken agre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aristotle Might Not Like Me...Or Jesus//Haylee Lynd

      Aristotle says that the man who does not get angry at the things he should be angry at "is thought unlikely to defend himself; and to endure being insulted and put up with insult to one's friends is slavish" (Aristotle 41). While he states that passivity is preferred to excessive anger, he still gives great criticism to it.  In contrast to Aristotle, the man who Christians believe to be the most just is Jesus who states in Matthew 5:39-40, "...do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." Essentially, arguing that one is not to respond in anger when insulted or hurt, to not defend one's self. Most individual's are unable to achieve this. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves, especially in physical cases. However, Christians strive to be like Jesus in this way. I would also argue that it is a very admirable wa...
2 comments
Read more