SUMMING UP CHARACTER

Character comes from the Greek word describing a marking and engraving instrument. The picture is of an artist who wears a groove on a metal plate by repeatedly etching in the same place with a sharp tool. My character is forged as a set of distinctive marks that, when taken together, draw a portrait of who I really am.

Behavior and character are linked together, but they are not the same thing. Behavior is what I do, one action at a time. “I behaved badly in that situation.” Character is the sum of all my behavior, both public and private, arranged as patterns across the entire spectrum of my life. Any behavior, duplicated and reduplicated, forms a part of my character.

Repeated patterns of behavior wear a series of grooves, which, when put together, form a portrait of me as a person or show a picture of my character…

I have control over my character. I can improve it, change it, modify it, and compromise it. In a world where we seem to have little control, we call the shots when it comes to whether or not our character is diminished. Job said to his friends concerning his character: “I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.” (Job 27:5-6)

If my character goes down, I am the only one who can be blamed. No other person apart from me can allow my character to be compromised.  

-- Dr. Stephen Graves and Dr. Thomas Addington in “A Case for Character”

#5959

THE LOSS OF MEANING

“Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.” (Proverbs 22:6 NLT)

It was my generation, and the generation that preceded me, that forgot.  The younger generation is not primarily to be blamed.  Those who are struggling today, those who are far away and doing that which is completely contrary to the Christian conscience, are not first to be blamed.  It is my generation, and the generation that preceded me, who turned away.  Today we are left, not only with a religion and a church without meaning, but... with a culture without meaning.

-- Francis Schaeffer in “Death in the City”

#4373

AN UNENLIGHTENED CONSCIENCE

"You shall not…"  (Exodus 20:1-17)

To say of an act done, "My conscience is quite clear", sounds smug and satisfactory. It does not by any means follow that the speaker's conscience ought to be clear.  It may simply show that [it] is sadly unenlightened.

-- Bishop G. E. Reindorp

#3738

PROTESTING AGAINST EVIL

Martin Luther King, Jr., insisted that the person who passively accepts evil is as much a party to it as those who help to perpetrate it, and that accepting evil without protest is really cooperating with it. Very little of worth has been accomplished in our world except as someone has dared to recognize an enemy and enter battle against it. God works through the enlightened, disturbed conscience of individuals.

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in If Experience Is such a Good Teacher Why Do I Keep Repeating the Course?


#2692

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION

Cowardice asks, Is it safe?
Expediency asks, Is it politic?
Vanity asks, Is it popular?
But conscience asks, Is it right?

-- William Morley Punshon, quoted in Parenting with Values


#2629