Virtue Lists?

In the Bible there are several famous virtue lists. A virtue list is exactly what is sounds like, a list of positive traits in sequence as a description of the good life.

As a part of Scripture, the New Testament virtue lists are easy to overlook and if you misunderstand God’s grace, they can seem overly moralistic.

Introduction

The first of the liberal arts is grammar.

The Trivium

Trivium is shorthand for three skills:  grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Together with arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music they make up the liberal arts. In the current year, a liberal arts degree is simply a degree in reading texts and critical theory.

What is Grammar?

Grammar is primarily the study of understandable language.

Grammar goes beyond simple language, though. C.S Lewis reminds us that ancient grammar instruction included syntax, etymology, prose, the explanation of allusions, history, and eventually scholarship in general. Lewis even remarks that "everything we should now call criticism belonged to either grammar or rhetoric" (The Discarded Image 186-187 and 190).

Why write?

One of my favorite writers said this on the why of Christian writing:

John the Baptist was the cousin of Jesus and his whole purpose in life was to point people to Jesus. He summed up his calling when he was questioned about his identity and said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord." What strikes me about John is that he was completely ok with everyone's attention shifting to Jesus once he arrived on the scene. Of course, that was the way it was supposed to be, but knowing my own heart, I think I would have begrudged Jesus the attention at least a tad. But I want to be like John. I want to go all out in whatever calling the Lord gives me, all the while saying, Look at him. And we can all raise our voices--voices in this wilderness today--saying, look at Jesus; isn't he great?

The ultimate purpose for Christian action is, of course, to bring attention (mostly your own) to Jesus.

In Genesis 1:1-2, God makes the heavens and the earth.

In Genesis 1:26-31, God makes man in his image.

Okay.

We’re not able to engage in creating a cosmos from nothing.

But here’s what we can do.

We construct the world in unique ways, each of us.

At two points in C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, Prince Rillian makes an important claim about the state of their adventure:

“Doubtless this signifies,” said the Prince, “that Aslan will be our good lord, whether he means us to live or die. All's one for that.”

“Courage friends,” came Prince Rillian’s voice, “whether we live or die, Aslan will be our good lord.”

Like all people, Christians have conflict over ideas, practices, preferred traditions, and how to spend money. Conflict is good. It helps solve problems. But we frequently handle this conflict in ways that contradict the purpose of the church and the content of the gospel message! When we value a minor thing as though it were a major thing, we let our emotional response guide us rather than truth, practicality, or ethics. And so below, I’ll explain what appears to me to be a New Testament guide to conflict resolution among Christians:

This is the best couple of paragraphs from N.T. Wright's massive two volume tome:

That is the point at which Paul found himself inventing and developing this new discipline we call, in retrospect, ‘Christian theology’. The radically new worldview in which he and his converts found themselves was bound to face the question ‘why’ at every corner, and in order to answer it, and to teach his churches to answer it for themselves, he had to speak of one particular God, and of the world, in a way nobody had done before.

 

This little piece from the desert Fathers helpfully illustrates Matthew 5:14-16:

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my Little Office. I fast a little. I pray. I meditate. I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else am I to do?” “What else,” Abba Lot says, “can I do?” Then the old man stood up, stretched his hands towards heaven and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

Jesus, in the passage mentioned, challenges his disciples to be the light of the world. Abba Joseph above tells Abba Lot, "If you will [desire to be a light], you can become all flame."