Check out yesterday’s summary of Biblical Christian Ethics
In Biblical Christian Ethics, David Clyde Jones does an admirable job of laying a firm foundation for biblically-minded people to make ethical decisions. The title of the book is somewhat misleading, however, as it implies a broader subject matter than is actually discussed within its pages. Jones has not written a textbook about biblical Christian ethics. Instead, he has written about the biblical foundation upon which Christians can make ethical choices.
Only the last few chapters speak to practical matters of ethics. One wonders why Jones only addresses three major ethical issues: truthfulness, the family, and divorce. Where is the Christian voice on ethical matters relating to life, such as war and abortion? How does the Bible help us navigate the ethical dilemmas related to human cloning?
Jones admirably handles the issues he chooses to write about (marriage and family). Perhaps that is why the reader is left desiring a more in-depth treatment of other important issues that a biblically Christian ethic necessarily informs. Had Jones chosen to include other ethical dilemmas, the book would have been considerably longer. But under such a broad title as Biblical Christian Ethics, one wonders why Jones chooses to do little more than speak of the foundation for ethics.
Though readers may find the title misleading, the content of Biblical Christian Ethics helps Christian readers ground their ethical decision-making in the Scriptures. Jones helpfully writes about the Old Testament Law of Moses and how it relates to Christians today. He mediates between the different Christian interpretations of the Mosaic Law, showing how Christians have historically divided the Law into two or three parts (moral, ceremonial, and civil) (110-115).
Jones protests the theonomy movement which would hold to a presumptive continuity of the Mosaic Laws (113), however he does little to show from Scripture that this new movement is inaccurate. Simply stating the reasons why Christians have traditionally divided the Law in a tripartite fashion sounds more like an appeal to tradition than to Scripture alone. Jones could have incorporated more Scripture into his arguments against the theonomists. It might also have been helpful for him to demonstrate how some Jewish scholars interpret the different types of commands within the Mosaic Law.
Jones’ most helpful chapter is on resolving moral conflicts. Jones helps readers discern the different ways in which Christians have responded to the difficult question posed by conflicting ethical dilemmas.
In order to demonstrate how each ethical option works, he uses several common ethical choices (killing in self-defense, keeping a rash vow, etc.). Jones’ treatment of each Christian option is evenhanded, even as he disagrees charitably with the various types of consequentialism, tragic morality, and even hierarchicalism (127-136). Jones’ own view is a case analysis which assumes that a moral resolution is possible even if Christians cannot exhaustively research and come up with a moral conclusion for every possible scenario (140).
In the case of Jephthah, the man who made a rash vow that he would sacrifice whatever first appeared at the door of his house only to discover that his greeter was his daughter, Jones writes that “the vows should have been penitently repudiated” (142). Perhaps Jones is right about what course of action Jephthah should have taken. But the view he expresses in this chapter does not square with the fact that Jephthah receives an honorable mention in the “Hall of Faith” passage of Old Testament heroes listed in Hebrews 11.
The chapter on Scripture as the place where Christians find direction for the Christian life has a helpful summary of the different ways in which Scripture directs Christian behavior. Particularly helpful is Jones’ distinction between command and counsel. Scripture provides believers with principles that assist them in judging between right and wrong in the cases where no mandate or precedent has been set (64-66). Though Scripture is given the most emphasis in Jones’ book, the example of Jesus is also mentioned (68-70), as well as the Holy Spirit’s ministry (70-72) and the individual conscience (72-76).
Jones manages to uphold the primacy of Scripture, even as he devotes considerable attention to the other ways in which people receive direction from God. Especially enlightening is the skillful way in which he upholds his Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity while maintaining a place for the conscience to serve as a witness as to the goodness or badness of an action according to a person’s own moral consciousness (74).
Though David Clyde Jones’ Biblical Christian Ethics
